How to Find Your Happy in a Sea of Chaos

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated with the world these days. Your daily routine, career, and social life have been hindered and emotions are running higher than ever before. The kids are home, your spouse may or may not be home (both of which can be challenges in themselves), and privacy or alone time seem like luxuries of the past! 

You’ve been taking care of everyone else in your family. Despite the chaos abounding each day, you’ve been homeschooling the kids and trying to keep their routine as best as possible, working from home, keeping the house in order, cooking, cleaning...the list goes on and on! Without a doubt, you’ve been doing this without a care of how you feel or what you need, and it has started to weigh you down. 

NOW, it is time for you to break through the gloom and take care of yourself. That’s right, I’m asking you to be a little selfish from now on and put your mindset and needs on the priorities list, too. After all, how can you be expected to keep everyone else at bay, when you’re close to falling apart yourself? 

Changing your mindset can help lower the emotional stress you’re feeling during this tough time and find your peace and happiness. 
Fear is an absolutely natural response to what is going on in the world today, and the best you can do right now is try to stay positive and change your mindset.

Rather than focusing on all the work that’s not getting done and the vacations that are being canceled, try to focus on the positive.

We finally have time to learn that new skill we’ve been meaning to.
We finally have the perfect time to read that new book that has been sitting on the shelf.
We finally have time to tuck the kids into bed, have breakfast and dinner as a family, and spend quality time together.

It’s easy to focus on the negatives-- fear tends to pervade all thoughts.
BUT, if we shift our thinking a little and instead focus on the positive things we can gain from all of this time, it will make these next few weeks more bearable and maybe even something you look back on fondly as a family.

Deep breathing can be a key component to a healthy mind and staying mentally sound.
When we focus on the way we breathe, our body sends a message to the brain to simply “relax.” 

When we reach a state of relaxation, our heart rate slows down, our muscles become relaxed, there is a decrease in blood pressure, and increased levels of nitric oxide. 
30 minutes of breathing exercises a day can help reduce anxiety, sleep, manage cravings, and control or reduce anger responses. 

Sounds amazing doesn’t it? Welcome to your happy place!

It may be difficult to keep to the things you love during tough times, but it is important to keep your life balanced and as normal as possible. If you have hobbies that you used to do on the regular-- baking, playing a sport, gardening-- make sure you take some time out of the day to keep doing them! Even with the little ones home, you can easily make time by doing one of two things:

• Establish “YOU TIME”-- whatever amount you can fit in-- be it 30 minutes or 2 hours. Tell your kids they are to not bother you, give them daily “screen time” (TV, iPad, computer, video games, etc), and go do what makes you happy!

OR

• Have your kids partake in your hobbies. Love gardening? Have the little ones go out into the garden with you and pick vegetables, help plant, water, etc. Love baking? Let them help you bake a cake or try a new recipe. This can be a fantastic time for you to spend together and you can even turn it into a teaching moment! 

Lastly, don’t forget to care for yourself. Rather than sitting around and binge-watching TV all day (even though we can all argue that is a type of relaxation), make sure you take time to exercise, take a walk outside with the dog, take breaks from watching the news, and remind yourself why isolation and self-quarantine are important right now-- to keep those most vulnerable, healthy and safe.

You need  some help figuring out the best self-care routine and checking out options in the store. Stay healthy friends and remember to take some time to remember yourself!