Wellbeing Wednesdays #5 - Walks

(Image from 100 days of Sunshine)

    

This week's well-being Wednesdays is all about taking it outdoors and going for walks.  Walking is an easier idea to suggest now given that we have FINALLY started to get some nicer weather (although it has literally rained non-stop today!).  Living in England, it's important to get out when you can and make the most of the weather.  Ideally I would go for at least a short walk once a week to get some fresh air but, unfortunately, this doesn't always happen and I definitely notice a difference when I go for a walk after a longer period of being indoors.

Being outside can really help stimulate your mood.  Fresh air has proven to help with stress and anxiety and it's thought that oxygen helps with your serotonin (a hormone which helps us feel happy) levels.  If you would like me to talk more about serotonin then let me know and I'd be happy to do so!

When possible I like to find somewhere green and leafy or near water to take a nice, long stroll.  Not only does the fresh air help my mood but it gives me a little time to gather my thoughts, reflect on things or even switch off from some realities.

I also find walking a great opportunity to do something free and easy with others.  It's good for a little catch-up and sometimes it can be just what the other person needs to.  I find it's an extra bonus if you walk to a coffee or ice-cream shop too!

Comment below some of the places you like to walk to, these are just some of the ones I've had recently.

 

Wellbeing Wednesdays #2 - Scents

(Image from 100 days of Sunshine)

 Welcome back to Well-being Wednesdays!  Last week's post was a little controversial with the idea of doing some house work to keep the house clean and tidy!  Today we are sticking with the same topic of environment and another thing which helps to create good Feng Shui in your home.  This one is a little less controversial but it might involve spending a little bit of money.

To help create a nice environment I like to try and make it as calming and relaxing as possible and a part of this is having nice scents throughout my home.  I find it welcoming to have different scents around my home and I love it when others comment on how nice my smell homes too!  It also helps to get rid of unpleasant or lingering food smells.  I always make sure I have strong scents in the bathrooms and candles to light in the kitchen.  

Having pleasant scents around the home really helps to make it feel more homely and an inviting place to relax in.  How you achieve this is up to you but I like to do this through a range of candles and oil diffusers throughout my room.  Although, recently I have been leaning towards the idea of plug in and spray diffusers alot more.  I find candles don't always create a strong scent and diffusers can be messy if there's young children or pets around the house.  They're not something that you want to spill!

If my anxiety is particularly heightened I further add to this by using pillow sprays and/or roll ons.  I currently have one of each, one for evening and one for throughout the day.  Through the day I like to use This Works Deep Sleep Stress Less which has now changed to Stress Check Breathe In and for the evening I've started using the Loccitane Relaxing Pillow Mist. They're probably not to everyone's taste but I find them very calming scents and using them helps remind me to just take a couple of seconds or minutes to breathe, calm down and focus.  I don't use them everyday but I also don't just use them when I'm feeling stressed or anxious.  This is for two reasons.  The first is because I don't want to start associating those smells with negative feelings and the second is that I like to try and take time out even when I'm in a good frame of mind.  It's always good to try and keep your frame of mind there!

Do you enjoy having scents around your home?  What do you for your well-being?  Let me know if this is something you try adding more of in your home and how you find it impacts your everyday mood.

xx

Wellbeing Wednesdays #1 - A Welcoming Environment

(Image taken from 100 days of Sunshine)

As one of many people who suffer from Anxiety, I consider taking care of my own well-being to be incredibly important.  There's lots of different things I do to try and manage this.  I also think it important that others take care of their well-being.  So, to help, this is my first blog of Well-being Wednesdays - a weekly series in which I discuss and share one tip every week on what I do to take care of my well-being and how you can too.  Some of these tips will be larger things that take up more time, some might cost a little bit of money and some are little additions or changes to your life which are easy to make.  All of them have made some kind of positive impact on my life, regardless of how small.  I imagine that many of these things won't be new ideas and certainly nothing very far outside of the box but sometimes we just need reminding of some of the simple things we can do to take care of ourselves.

Well-being Wednesdays #1 is a pretty controversial one!  It's keeping a tidy home (or space).  Whilst I FULLY appreciate that house work is not typically associated with well-being I find it makes a huge difference to my state of mind when I can come home or relax in a tidy and clean space.  If I'm trying to relax with mess around me, I find it very difficult to switch off from it as the thought of tidying or cleaning really lingers in the back of my mind.  If I come home and see that it's already done I feel relieved instantly.  This is also all part of having good Feng Shui in your home.  Feng Shui is something I've known about for a long time but only recently started looking into.  If you'd like me to talk more about it.  Let me know.

(Image taken from yelp.com)

I appreciate that not everybody is bothered by mess or having their home be particularly tidy and honestly I didn't think I was either but when I made more effort with my home I realised what a large difference it actually did make.  I find that the environment you're in can play a huge role in your state of mind and if there's something you can do to make an environment nicer for you then why not try it?  

My suggestion to you is just tidy and clean one room or space.  Ideally, the area which you either see first when coming home or the area you like to relax in most.  Try to keep it tidy for a full week and if you notice a difference in your state of mind then try to keep it up or even apply it to more spaces.  It won't cure anybodies anxiety or change anybodies life but for me it's a definite step in the right direction.

Let me know if this is something you already do and how it makes you feel or if you're willing to try it.  I'd love to know what you think of my well-being Wednesdays and how you get on with them.

xx