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Practicing a More Mindful Self

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We’ve all heard quotes like “you must love yourself before you can love another,” and seen them on motivational posters and on our Facebook timelines. They’re practically everywhere. But have you ever wondered why they are so prevalent? Well, the answer is because they are true. Or, they have the potential to be true if you believe them. Being mindful can help to manifest positive thoughts. Thoughts turn into feelings, and our feelings affect almost everything in our lives.

Understanding How We Think about Ourselves

Srini Pillay, MD, defines self-acceptance as “an individual’s acceptance of all of his/her attributes, positive or negative.” He describes how people tend to build self-esteem from the way they believe others perceive them. People who believe others think negatively about them are likely to develop low self-esteem. Someone with a negative self-image is likely to not engage with others frequently or effectively and spend less effort on maintaining themselves.

Meanwhile, a person who believes others perceive them positively is likely to develop high self-esteem. People with a positive self-image are likely to be more confident and push themselves to accomplish more. It’s plain to see, then, how one’s mindset can determine how they go about their lives.

Being Mindfully Positive

Being mindfully positive means actively working towards creating a better mindset for yourself. It is possible to change your outlook on yourself and your mental attitude by actively trying. Think of it like an exercise, but instead of working out a muscle you’re training your brain. Just like physical exercise, mental training can be difficult, tiring and take time. But it is entirely possible given significant effort and persistent determination.

And, much like a good gym routine, mental exercise requires a repetitive set of activities designed to achieve strength over time. And again, just like a good gym routine, knowing which exercise to practice makes all the difference. So, what are some of the exercises you should be focusing on if your goal is to obtain greater mental strength and improve your state of mind? Let’s look at some examples.

5 Tips for Practicing Being Mindful

There are a plethora of mental exercises you can undertake to achieve a more mindful, and more positive, mental state. Any of them can be effective if you believe they have that potential and practice them regularly. Ultimately the choice of which techniques you choose to utilize is up to you, and what you feel is most effective in your case.

A quick Google search of “practicing self-confidence” will turn up a number of results; feel free to peruse and find what best fits you. But if you’re looking for some advice, some effective techniques are listed below.

Live Your True Story features an article on the matter with some particularly beneficial things you can do on a daily basis to strengthen your mental state. Among those are:

  1. Present Yourself with Confidence

    this exercise challenges you to make a daily effort to present yourself the way you want others to see you. Little things like taking care of your hygiene, getting a new haircut, or dressing for the occasion can make all the difference in how others, and thus how you, perceive yourself. Take time to do the little things that make you feel better about yourself.

  2. Smile and Look People in the Eye 

    This exercise is meant to build your confidence over time, essentially by faking it at first until you’re not faking it anymore. If you force yourself to confidently interact with others, you will, over time, get more comfortable with such social skills and before you know it you won’t be faking it any longer.

  3. Practice Appreciation

    This one is motivational poster cliché. Instead of focusing on everything you dislike about your life, challenge yourself to focus on the positive aspects. This may not be easy at first, but you’d be surprised how quickly this can make a difference in your day-to-day attitude. And before you know it, you’ll find yourself focusing more on the positives and devoting more time and effort to them.

  4. Consume a Healthy and Balanced Diet 

    Remember the old adage, “you are what you eat?” Well, there is some real wisdom behind that. It’s well-established that one’s diet drastically impacts both physical and mental health. Adopting a better diet will not only improve your physical health but can also increase your self-estimation as you recognize your willpower.

  5. Perform Physical Exercises 

    The advantages of physical exercise shouldn’t be overlooked on your path to strengthening your mental state. Many people who have a negative perception of themselves do so because they feel they don’t meet standards of physical beauty. Physical exercise can help such people to achieve the body image they desire. But more importantly, physical exertion releases the chemical dopamine in our brains, the original ‘feel good’ drug. Partaking in physical exercise each day can, quite literally, make you feel happier, and will further your overall goals of being a ‘stronger’ person.

Do What Works Best for You

Some common methods for improving your mental state through mindfulness have been presented in this article. But it is important to understand that the same methods don’t always work for everyone. The best way to figure out what you can do to improve yourself is to first understand yourself, and decide which type of exercises will work best for you.

Whichever methods you choose to pursue, make sure to pursue them actively and with full confidence. These techniques have the potential to change the way you perceive yourself; if you believe in them and practice them regularly. Ultimately, changing the way you perceive yourself is up to you.

The Thin Line Between Self-care and Overindulgence

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Ever thought to yourself, “I’ve worked hard today, I deserve that piece of a cake?” Maybe you thought that the cake was a reward for a good day at work and would boost your mood. Whatever the case, if the slice of cake you ate would have sufficed to feed 4 people you may be overindulging and not really practicing self-care.

Most of us don’t do enough self-care, and when we do, we tend to go overboard. Finding balance in life can be difficult, especially in this material society where most of us work full time. Stress, sedentary lifestyle, and unhealthy habits all contribute to a growing need for self-care.

However, self-care may be as foreign as most other languages and all that is known is that there is an entire section dedicated to it at the bookstore. Despite this, many continue to struggle with self-care and finding that delicate balance between over-doing it and healing oneself.

What is Self-Care?

There are different types of self-care. Medical self-care pertains to your health and often requires health insurance. There are some great online resources for medical self-care information. Staying active, getting regular check-ups with your doctor and avoiding things like nicotine are all a part of medical self-care. Though never fun, preventative tests, procedures, and regular check-ups are all necessary if you are going to live a long, happy, healthy life.

Mental health self-care is another animal altogether, though there may be some cross-over with the medical realm. Coping with stress is a difficult and life-long endeavor, which even the experts at the CDC may have trouble with from time to time. Areas of trouble in mental health may call for medication such as antidepressants.

More often, however, mental health self-care means taking a day off from work once a month to recover and take care of what you need. Day in and day out, things are demanded of us and unless we take the time for ourselves, we run the risk of breaking.

One day out of the month take time to catch up on errands and get a massage, pedicure, or whatever you need. You are taking care of you.

Allowing yourself time to recover from stress and giving yourself a break every now and then is what self-care is all about.

 

Self-Care Obstacles and Needs

The job, the significant other, the friends who just won’t take no for an answer – these are all common reasons why we don’t take the time to take care of ourselves. Maybe you are prone to watching too much TV and staying sedentary. Whatever the case, these kinds of obstacles block you from living your best life and can absolutely be remedied.

Many people work all week and scramble to catch up on errands and with friends on the weekend. By Monday morning they often feel just as tired as they were on Friday with the whole week ahead of them. This may feel like a situation with no way out, however, you can find ways to balance your life.

Get enough sleep and schedule time with friends on your lunch breaks so that you get that quality time with loved ones. Sleep and connecting with those who matter to us is critical for living a fulfilling existence. We are more than just workers slaving away for a paycheck.

Take a good look at what you eat – are you eating a balanced, nutritious diet full of veggies and unprocessed foods? If your idea of meals centers around a fast-food drive through the answer is no. Our bodies are amazing machines that require the right kind of fuel to function properly. If you need more information on eating better, go to nutrition.gov for more on eating right.

 

Overindulgence vs. Self-Care

Is eating a piece of cake overindulging? It depends. Are you in a healthy weight range and decently active? If yes, then go for it. However, if every day after work you decide to eat a large piece of cake for a job well done, you are on the side of overindulgence. The same situation is true if you decide to go shopping instead of eating cake to reward yourself.

Too much of any good thing becomes something else that does not positively affect our health or lives. Phrases like work hard, play hard are so ingrained in our minds that we may not really be aware of what we need. Far too many of us also feel ashamed or guilty if we say “no” to our employers or friends when something is asked of us. As a consequence, we often put self-care at the bottom of the list or remove it altogether.

In an attempt to compensate for lack of self-care we then overindulge. For instance, some of us chose to work ourselves to the bone and then eat an unhealthy meal, this cycle only further taxes our already fatigued body.

Overspending is another common attempt at compensating. Instead of reading a good book after a nice bath, we overstimulate ourselves and create financial stress by turning our anxiety towards the shopping mall and stressing our limited resources.

Eating and shopping are certainly not the only areas commonly over or underutilized. Exercise is another big one, as are prescription pills, drinking, and watching Netflix.

Healthy Middle

The healthy middle looks differently for everyone. Everyone has that friend whose energy seems limitless no matter how much they take on. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Assess your own strengths and weaknesses and find where you need to focus your self-care time and energy.

Maybe you need a spa day with a friend or just and nice relaxing bath. If you have not exercised in living memory, maybe you could go on a hike with a friend or join a local exercise studio. Finding friends and support when exercising has been proven to improve the all-around experience.

Whatever you need in life, take it. Don’t apologize and don’t stress or feel guilty for taking care of you. You are important and deserve to live a healthy, fulfilling life. Get started living your best life today.