A Two-Part System for Practical Self-Care
Creating lifelines for your future self
Category: Life optimization
Epistemic status: Seems reasonable, not sure how this could possibly backfire.1
Sometimes I feel blue. The world turns dull and grey, and I feel like I don’t have the time or energy to accomplish anything. This is sometimes accompanied by social anxiety, where asking for help feels like a big challenge. Figuring out who to reach out to and what to say becomes almost impossible.
When I am feeling blue, it’s very hard to figure out how to recover. I’m way more capable when I feel happy. A year ago, happy me spent an hour or so thinking about what I could do to make life easier for feeling-blue me.
Up until this point I hadn’t put in any effort to improve life for feeling-blue me. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to improve life for happy-me, ignoring the fact that I tend to start feeling blue a few times every winter.
This hour was one of the best investments I’ve done into myself and my life. The system I came up with has 2 parts. The first part is an automatic check-in, helping me realize that I am feeling blue.2 The second part is a list of things to do in order to start feeling better.
Automatic Check-in
The automatic check-ins are simple. Twice a week, I get a notification telling me to spend 5 minutes writing about how I feel. I need these automatic check-ins since I tend to slide slowly into feeling blue, in a way that makes it hard to notice.
You can set up automatic reminders like this using an alarm, a recurring reminder, a recurring calendar event or similar.
The notifications also remind me that I have a “feeling blue” list. If I notice stress, an “ugh” reaction3 or similar, I go to my feeling blue list.
Feeling Blue List
The second part of my system is my feeling blue list.
On my feeling blue list, I have a list of 2-3 people I can reach out to in order to get support. For each person on the list, I have a pre-written message that I can copy-paste and send to them. Something like “Hey, I’m feeling down and would love some support. Do you have time to hang out or talk a bit on the phone?”. This makes asking for help effortless, even if I’m stuck in social anxiety.
I also have a bunch of self-care activities. Here is a list of things I keep in mind when I decide whether an activity is a good self-care activity:4
They take very little energy. “Go to the gym”, “Cook a healthy meal” and similar are too demanding. I want these things to be super-low effort.
They leave me better off after I’ve done them. “Browse youtube”, “Watch Netflix”, “Eat ice cream” and similar leave me worse off. I want things that leave me feeling good after I’m finished.
They are pleasant and make me feel good. “Take a cold shower”, “Sit down and meditate” don’t leave me with immediate pleasure. They can feel refreshing if I’m on top of things, but they are not a good fit for feeling-blue me.
I have a hunch that self-care activities are very personal. As such, I suggest that you spend 30min to write a list that fits you. It doesn’t have to be long or perfect. I have a reminder to look through and update my list every 3 months or so, making it better over time. If you want to do the same, you can put a reminder in the same way you did for your recurring check-ins.
In case it inspires you, here’s my entire feeling blue list (translated and annotated):
“Listen to trauma mapping”. As mentioned elsewhere, I have participated in a practice called “trauma mapping”. The result is a kind of self-affirmation mantra, where I repeat a personalized encouragement to myself over and over.
Ready-to-send messages asking people to come by to cuddle and talk. One for my lover, one for one of my closest friends who live nearby.
A suggestion to do some Wim Hof guided breathwork.6
At some events I attend, we do an exercise where you lay down and have people come and caress you while sharing things they like about you. Naturally, I have recorded such sessions. One suggestion on my feeling blue list is to listen to these recordings.
Take a long, hot shower
Take some 5HTP7 & Melatonin8 before I go to bed. Different people react differently to medication and supplements, do your research before you try them out.
Here's a recap of suggested next actions:
Create a feeling-blue list, containing:
Who to ask for help, and what to write
Some self-care activities
Reminders, using an alarm, a recurring reminder, a recurring calendar event or similar
Check-in reminder 1-2 times a week
Reminder to update the feeling-blue list, every 3 months or so.
Take care of yourselves, now and in the future!
P.S:
Two things inspired me to write this post.
First off, I spent some time with a friend yesterday, who was struggling with low energy, no time etc. I want to share perspectives and strategies that have helped me in the past, in case they help people.
Secondly, a person I don’t know pledged to pay me 8$ a month if I enable subscriptions. This feels exciting since it’s proof that someone I don’t know likes what I do. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on my blog from people I know, but at the same time, my number of subscribers grows very slowly.
I’m mostly writing because it’s fun, and I’ve kind of given up hope on reaching a lot of people. A stranger committing to paying for my writing means that there is a possibility of reaching more people.
This would allow me to inspire more people, create interesting anxieties around prestige and performance, and maybe let me earn enough to order a pizza every second month. Wow.
My hope is that you will find this post super useful, send it to your friends and distant relatives, and help me get the word out.
Famous last words.
I can slip into bad habits without noticing, with things gradually getting worse.
If I think ”Ugh, not this notification again!“ it’s a really good sign I need to look into my wellbeing
Originally: “These fulfil the following criteria”. I’m trying to write using simpler language :D
ASMR, which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a relaxing, often tingly sensation that some people feel when they hear certain sounds or see certain actions. It's like a soft, pleasant feeling in your brain, scalp, or back of your neck. Some common triggers include whispering, tapping, or the sound of brushing hair. Many people watch ASMR videos to help them relax, reduce stress, or fall asleep.
Wim Hof Breathwork is a breathing technique developed by Wim Hof, also known as "The Iceman". Here's a simple explanation:
Deep Breaths: You start by taking 30 to 40 deep breaths. You inhale fully but exhale only partially. The idea is to fill your body with oxygen.
Hold Breath: After the deep breaths, you exhale and then hold your breath for as long as you can. During this time, your body starts to use up the extra oxygen you've taken in.
Recovery Breath: When you can't hold your breath any longer, you take a deep recovery breath and hold it for about 15 seconds.
Repeat: You repeat this cycle for about three rounds.
The Wim Hof Method is said to improve mental and physical health by reducing stress, improving sleep, and increasing energy. It also feels nice.
5HTP is a building block for serotonin, a substance connected to things like mood, sleep, appetite, digestion, learning ability, memory and breast milk production. This far, it has improved my mood without any breast milk incidents. Might be a placebo. (I’m not concerned about breast milk incidents for real)
Melatonin is a hormone your body naturally makes to help control your sleep cycle. As it gets darker in the evening, your body makes more melatonin to help you sleep. When the sun rises and it gets lighter, your body makes less melatonin to help you wake up. You can eat melatonin tablets to increase the amount of melatonin in your body, making you sleepy in time for bed.
I use this to recover when my sleeping schedule has gotten messed up, which happens more often when I don’t take care of myself properly.
I loved it too! :)
This is a stellar piece Jonathan. Keep up the great work with these substacks!