There are several ways to manage stress and engage in self-care.
Doing any pleasant activity that you enjoy is engaging in self-care and can help you manage and cope with stress, as can:
journaling,
drawing,
exercising,
watching funny or cute videos on YouTube,
taking a mental vacation like those on our Vacations page,
focusing on your breathing using the meditation posted on the Mindfulness page,
or other deep breathing exercises,
and so many more!
Below are a few activities that you can try when you need some time to de-stress.
Remember to try your best to do these activities mindfully, meaning that you're focusing your attention on the activity
and trying your best not to think about the past or future.
Doing any pleasant activity that you enjoy is engaging in self-care and can help you manage and cope with stress, as can:
journaling,
drawing,
exercising,
watching funny or cute videos on YouTube,
taking a mental vacation like those on our Vacations page,
focusing on your breathing using the meditation posted on the Mindfulness page,
or other deep breathing exercises,
and so many more!
Below are a few activities that you can try when you need some time to de-stress.
Remember to try your best to do these activities mindfully, meaning that you're focusing your attention on the activity
and trying your best not to think about the past or future.
Creativity
- Being creative can help focus your mind and distract you from stress & worries
- Creativity also requires focus and concentration, which allows you to get lost in the activity (called "flow"). Flow can help improve your mood and sense of well-being, and it helps the brain release dopamine, which is one of the body's natural anti-depressants!
- If you have a printer, Crayola offers several free coloring pages to print and color: https://www.crayola.com/featured/free-coloring-pages/
- If you do not have a printer and have access to a smart phone or tablet, there are several apps that allow you to "color" digitally. While several have options to buy more colors and cost money, most have at least a few free pages and colors available. A few examples are Pigment and Colorfly
- If coloring is not for you, try painting, sewing, writing, drawing, or some other form of creativity! If you need help drawing or need some inspiration, try searching YouTube for drawing tutorials or videos. This page, for example, offers many videos with drawing instructions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfdhiF29bi_O5yTgK8IbIw/videos
- Journaling can also help improve your mood, help manage stress, and improve your overall sense of well-being. You can write about your day to day experience (it might be interesting to look back on this time in a few years to see what you did and how you kept yourself busy while stuck at home!) or you might look up specific journaling prompts to help get your creativity flowing!
Yoga & Physical Exercise
- Yoga & other forms of physical activity/exercise can improve your mood & overall well-being, both mental & physical
- Physical exercise reduces the body's levels of stress hormones and releases chemicals called endorphins, which can relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve mood
- Stretching and yoga also help to relieve the physical symptoms, like muscle tension, that often happens when you are stressed
- You can run, walk, do the exercises your PE teachers post, or use YouTube to search for yoga or exercise videos to follow, like the video below, which you can do at your desk!
Other Coping Strategies
- If you're feeling stressed, there are many other strategies you can use to cope with it and get through it, beyond using creativity and doing physical exercise
- One helpful way to cope is to relax and comfort yourself using your five senses: hearing, smell, touch, taste, & vision:
- Hearing: Listen to your favorite song, relaxing music (search "relaxing music" on YouTube), or your favorite sounds from nature (rain, wind, waves, thunder, etc.)
- Smell: Put on your favorite lotion or scented hand sanitizer (bonus - cleaning your hands at the same time!), smell a scented candle (if allowed!), use a diffuser of essential oils, spray your favorite perfume or cologne, make freshly baked cookies and enjoy the smell, etc.
- Touch: Put on your most comfortable clothes or snuggle under a blanket, pet your dog/cat/rabbit/etc., take a long bath or shower, use putty or slime, etc.
- Taste: Eat your favorite food or drink your favorite beverage - make sure you're doing so *mindfully,* so that you are really able to focus on the taste, smell, and texture of the food/drink and allow it to soothe/comfort you!
- Vision: Visit the "Vacations" page on this site and watch the slideshow of pictures, pull out your own favorite pictures at home, look at artwork, etc., watch cute videos of animals on YouTube (like those below). Bonus - in addition to being soothing and calming, watching videos can be a great distraction when you need it!