10 Things on My Mental Health Checklist
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Do you go through periods where you just feel off? May you don’t feel energized, or you don’t feel motivated, or you don’t feel confident? I know I do! And in most cases, I have found the reason why I feel off is because there are things that are off within my life. Our mental health is way more connected to our small daily habits and choices than many of us may realize.
So if you're feeling off, in this episode of Embrace Your Real, I share the ten things on my mental health checklist that help me feel like me again. And I know when you start ticking these ten things off, you'll start feeling like YOU again, too.
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Episode 5: 10 Things I Do Every Morning to Win the Day
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real, let's get it, let's go.
Hello beautiful human, and welcome back to the Embrace Your Real podcast. I'm so grateful that you are spending some time with me today. Wherever you are tuning in, we have listeners all over the world. Whether you're walking, you're jogging, you're cooking, you're cleaning, you're doing the dang thing. You are choosing to show up to prioritize yourself, to become the best possible version of yourself to serve others. And I'm so grateful that you're here. Today we're talking all about my mental health checklist. Now, I'm human. I go through periods where I just feel off. I don't feel like myself. I don't feel energized. I don't feel motivated. Sometimes I don't feel confident or I'm constantly comparing myself, which leads me to feel anxious and just off. In many cases though, I found the reason why I'm off is because there's certain things in my life that are off.
So today I thought it would be helpful for me to compile a mental health checklist that I always go through to help myself make sure that I'm feeling like me again. Before I dive in, I love sharing the review of the day. I loved this one. It came from BBCDYHVGFTUU, they said, "My favorite podcast, I only learned of this podcast a few weeks ago while listening to another one that Julie was a guest on. Well, I can't get enough of her podcast and her Instagrams. The information is so easy to understand and I learn more each time I listen. I've worked in the weight loss industry for several years, and I've always struggled with my weight. Julie is so real and down to earth and I love that she shows her life, eats real foods, and sometimes indulges. I find it so interesting to learn about macros and how our bodies function. I can't wait to listen to my next one. It almost makes running fun again."
I love that so much. Thank you so much for the review. If you haven't already rated and reviewed it, we have a big audacious goal to reach 1 million women by the end of 2020. And I cannot do that without you girls. So if you could just, somehow, even if you get on someone else's Apple account, that if you don't have an Apple phone or you don't have Apple podcasts to just leave a review, it would mean the world to me. Apple reviews help the podcast grow in the podcast land and it takes less than 30 seconds. All you got to do is press pause, scroll all the way down and you will see on the Apple podcast app, a place to rate and review the podcast.
Thank you again. Let's dive into my mental health checklist. Number one, I wash my hair and I get ready. Okay. Well, first of all, when I say I wash my hair, I mean, I wash my hair like once a week. But I get my hair ready, I do my hair or I get ready. I put some makeup on or just try to feel like myself. I know this sounds kind of silly, but I'm guessing many of you guys can relate to when you go days on end, especially in this quarantine and the year that we've had and you don't get ready or you don't put yourself together a little bit. It just like overall, you start to feel blah, right? If you know anything about me or you've listened to episode five, 10 things I do every morning to win the day, you know that I am a huge believer on prioritizing morning gratitude, practicing visualization and affirmations.
But to be honest, sometimes life gets in the way. And most often when I feel off it's because I missed a few days of my morning routine or something was off. I know for me the other day, I got a random work phone call pretty early in the morning, which then triggered me to just start working without getting everything in that I normally do. And I just, by 2:00 PM, I felt so off. And so what I've noticed is always going back to the roots, going back to my morning routine, going back to really getting time to dig into gratitude, visualization, affirmations, and prayers. Honestly, this is probably the biggest contributor in me feeling back to normal again. Or if you feel like you're struggling, this might be something that you might want to implement.
I won't go too much in depth with this on these three, because I talk a lot about it in episode five and I've linked that in the show notes for you to easily go listen, but first, practice gratitude. I want you to start by writing three to five things that you are grateful for and why. Try to do this every single day. When you live in a place of gratitude, there's literally no way that you can't feel happy. And if journaling isn't your thing, I want you to just take a moment each morning to close your eyes and list off three to five things that you're grateful for that day, in that moment. And these are not just big things, right? Of course, we can establish gratitude for that, but it's really all about trying to find the little joys of that day. And it's effective. I have been doing this for longer than two years now, and it has completely transformed my life.
Like I said in episode five, I talk a lot deeper about this topic. It's so, so effective. You've got to practice visualization. If you are feeling off, try to sit for three to five minutes and visualize yourself as your best self. What does it look like? What does it feel like? I want you to get as detailed as possible and sit there. Embrace it and embody yourself being your best self. This could be something that you're really working towards, like goals that you have, or think back and maybe it was last week or maybe it was last month, or maybe it was last year where you just felt like you were in a groove and you were feeling your best and life has happened and 2020 basically happen. And you are now at this place where you feel frustrated, or you just feel like you can't get into a groove. Try to relive that. Try to think back on what it looked like and what it felt like to be your best self. Practice affirmations after envisioning what it's like to be your best self.
Now, I want you to sit for three to five minutes and tell yourself and remind yourself that you already are your best self. Literally remind yourself and repeat to yourself. "I am the best version of myself. I am the most energized version of myself. I am the happiest version of myself." Say these affirmations to yourself like they're already things. I cannot explain how effective this is when you embody what you just visualized. And our brain is so amazing that it catches on to these things. These I am statements like, "I am strong. I am energized. I am living my best life right now. I am full of gratitude and joy. I am healthy. I am strong." Your mind is going to capture these things and as a result, your mind is going to start working for you to reinforce those I am statements that you're practicing.
And last, practice prayer. Now, if you know me, I am a Christian. I love God. And to be honest though, for a long time, and even still sometimes, I find prayer to be intimidating. But what I've learned to be true is that all God really wants from us is an open and honest heart. You can literally go to God with anything, fear, doubt, frustration, joy, anger, celebration. He is bigger than all of it. And he truly finds joy in his children coming to him with an open and honest heart. He's capable and able for it all. I saw this quote in my devotional the other day that really hit me. It said, "God sees a hundred years ago just as clearly as he sees a hundred years from now. Remember that nothing escapes his watch. He cares deeply for you and about you, so go to him and just find comfort in that."
Number three, move. You know I am a huge believer and I'm so passionate about moving my body. It's especially important to do though when I'm feeling off. When I move, I feel like I'm moving the negative feelings out of me. It's like I am sweating out all of the negative energy that I've accumulated. And honestly, I feel better every single time I move. I don't think there's been one time where I regret endorphins because it's so important for us to move our bodies. Our bodies are built to move. This doesn't always have to be a proper gym style workout, this could be putting on a podcast and taking your dog for a walk. It could be blasting your favorite music and scrubbing your floors. It could be doing a slow yoga flow, hiking, biking, jogging, any kind of movement that feels right to you in that moment.
For me, what I've found is resistance training when I'm stressed or anxious or upset helps me so much. Because for me, when I'm able to lift some heavy weights, when I'm able to just throw around some weights in my basement, I just literally feel like the negative energy is coming out of me with every rep and set and I can just put so much of my anxiousness into that and I always feel better. But I want to challenge you to find that type of movement that helps you move your negative energy out of you. And I know for many people, myself included, when you're feeling off, movement is typically the last thing that you want to do, but it should be one the first to really prioritize because you never regret moving your body. And like I told you before, our bodies are built to move. And so when you can start to get those endorphins running, what can happen in our bodies, it's amazing.
Number four, get enough sleep. Do I sound like your mom? Seriously though, sleep is so important and I am a huge, huge advocate for sleep. I'm one of those people that need seven to eight hours of sleep. Recently, it's been about eight hours of sleep or else I just feel off. I don't feel like myself, I don't feel healthy, I don't feel mentally clear. And this is something that I take so seriously. And it's not just because I've turned 30 this year you guys, I have learned that sleep above almost everything else is so important to the productivity of your day. Now, for the moms listening, and I will actually just with one of my best friends, she has a two month old newborn. And I understand that is not always something that's going to come in your season of life. So if you were in a season of life that you're like, "Girl, I just had a baby. I am sleep deprived. There's no way I could get eight hours of sleep every night right now." Just try your best to prioritize sleep as much as you can.
For me right now in this season of my life, I always figure out what eight hours is from the time that I'm going to sleep and that's when I set my alarm. But if you followed me for a while, you know that I actually set my alarm in my mind. Our minds are so crazy you guys, you can program your mind to tell yourself to wake up at a certain time. And if you haven't done this before, I talk about this in episode five, what I want you to try to do is let's just say tonight, before you go to sleep, set a time that you want to wake up. I want you to in your brain, tell yourself, I will wake up at whatever it is, 6:30 AM. I will wake up at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning. I will wake up at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning. 6:30 AM tomorrow morning, I'm going wake up. I want you to repeat that to yourself 10 to 15 times out loud, telling yourself, envisioning yourself, visualizing yourself, waking up and seeing the clock at 6:30.
It is so incredible what are body can do like I said, to help us out in that we are programming our subconscious brain to work for us. And I guarantee if you do it right, if you were actually visualizing yourself waking up at that time, you will wake up at 6:30 AM tomorrow morning or whatever time you say because your subconscious brain is so, so crazy. So if you're feeling off girl, try to evaluate your sleep schedule if you can. I really think many of us don't realize how serious a lack of sleep can affect us. It can not only affect our mental health, but it can affect our physical health as well. Lack of sleep will trigger food cravings, especially for starchy and sugary foods. It can trigger us to store fat. There's so many things that sleep plays a huge role in. So if you are struggling with prioritizing sleep, try to be on a sleep schedule. Try to tell yourself, "Okay, I'm going to prioritize going to sleep at this time."
And remember, it's not just saying it, it's going through the action. So if that's like, I'm going to try and go to sleep by 9:00 PM. That means I need to start winding down by 8:00 PM. I need to start putting away all devices. I need to get off my phone. I need to stop watching TV, start reading. There's so many different things that you can do to help yourself fall asleep easier at a certain time. But it's going to take planning ahead. It's going to take prioritizing it. And like I said earlier, if you are in a season of life where sleep is just not an option to get seven or eight hours right now, you have a newborn baby there's craziness going on, just try your best to prioritize sleep as much as you can. Really maximize on naps while your baby's napping. If you can get an hour nap in as well, it really, really does help a lot.
Number five, connect with friends and family. Now, I think we underestimate the power of our friends and family and what they have on our mental health, both positive and negative, right? But I'm going to be primarily speaking to the positive part of it today. Our friends and family are truly like medicine, especially when you have people in your life that just get you because the human connection is like medicine to our soul. Truly, studies have shown that people who feel more connected to others have lower rates of anxiety and depression also have a higher self esteem. They have more goals. They have more ambition. We all are looking for that, right? We are all are looking for that self confidence and just overall feeling secure in who we are.
I know if you're feeling off, the last thing that we want to do is connect with people. At least for me, when I'm feeling off, I don't want to go to somebody and pour out all of my negative emotions on them. But I really feel it's important to connect with our friends and family. No matter how you feel, just do it. You don't always have to tell them everything that's going on if you don't want to, but just spending time in their presence or playing a game or going on a walk or doing something together, just to feel connected to somebody that reminds you of your worth, that reminds you that they love you no matter what, it's just important to have those other external voices in your mind. Now, I know a lot of us are still in quarantine. This could literally be a simple FaceTime. What I have found is if I can just FaceTime somebody and I can encourage them, even when I'm feeling discouraged, for whatever reason in my brain, it triggers me to start to feel grateful for something that I have.
Like the fact that even though something big might be going on in my life, or I feel super stressed or anxious about X, Y, and Z, if I can put that aside and I can remind the other person on the other side of that FaceTime call that they're loved or tell them a compliment or just remind them of something, it almost puts things into perspective for me and reminds me that I have so much in this life to be grateful for. And it can honestly open up a conversation too like maybe they in return are like, "Oh my gosh, thank you. But I want to tell you X, Y, and Z." And that's maybe what you needed to hear, to just feel good, to feel like a little confidence booster. So next time you're feeling off, try human connection. It's so powerful and so necessary for our mental health. I don't want you to underestimate it.
Number six, drink plenty of water and nourish your body. You are what you eat. How you feel is oftentimes a reflection of how you fuel your body. Now I know when I eat way more carbs than my body needs, I struggle to wake up in the morning. Or if I drink more alcohol than I should have, I get a headache the first thing in the morning. I feel lethargic. I know if I don't drink enough water, I feel major brain fog and a lack of energy. Literally though, one day of hydrating and nourishing my body after a few days of not, drastically changes the way that I feel.
And this is one thing that I talk about a lot. When women come to me and they're like, "I feel so off. I was just on vacation." Or, "I just went through a breakup or something tragic happened to my family and I just have been off for the last week or two weeks or a month." And I just tell them, "Take it one day at a time. Try today to drink enough water. Try to make choices nutrition-wise that honor your body." And it's incredible the ripple effect that can happen from just one day, because you'll wake up the next day and you'll feel so much better.
It might not feel back to normal yet, or whatever your quote unquote normal is of feeling your best, but take it one day at a time. Hydrating and nourishing your body is not just about improving your physical health and appearance. It has so much to do with improving your mental health. And I think many of us don't realize how connected those two are. So if you are just feeling off and your water intake has not been on point, your nutrition has not been honoring your body with the choices that you're making, try to just take it one day at a time and you will see how interconnected those two are.
Number seven, stop comparing. This is not only going to help us feel good again, but it will help us from feeling down. I just spoke about this in episode 61, is social helping you or hurting you? We've got to stop following people on Instagram that make us feel worse about ourselves or our lives. Comparison is the thief of joy. Truly, think about that. Think about how much comparison is stealing moments of joy from your day. We need to remove it from our life. Whoever's life you think is way better than yours or whoever's life you wish you were living, ask yourself, have you actually lived a day in their life? No. So why are you so sure that it is better than yours? Because in reality, you have no idea. You are going off of a complete assumption and allowing that assumption, allowing that highlight reel, to ruin how you are experiencing your own life. When we compare, we fail to be grateful for all that we have and all that we are.
And on the flip side, when we're practicing gratitude daily, it's very, very difficult to fall victim to comparison because we feel so overwhelmed with what we do have in our life. And that's what we're grateful for. I need you to unfollow people who trigger you to compare, feel worse about yourself, and also remember though that you can unfollow people in real life too. If you have toxic friendships or relationships in your life that you need to completely remove or very much eliminate the time that you are spending, do it. Your mental health is so important girl, don't ever forget that.
But also I need you to remember that there is room in this world for everyone's beauty. We are our own. So if you compare yourself to someone else or you feel jealous, just remember that her beauty or his beauty or that beauty does not take away from your beauty. You both are equally and uniquely beautiful, not one better than the other. I dive way deep, super into this topic in episode 31, how to stop comparing yourself to others. I also share eight more thoughts on comparison and how to remove it from your life. So be sure to tune into that episode or relisten to it if you need that reminder.
Number eight, press pause on the to do list and work. This is probably top three that I struggle with because I am an Enneagram number three. There's always 500 things literally on my to do list of like, I could do this and I could make this better and I could do this, but you have to remember that your life should not be an endless to do list and your life should not be about working nonstop. You have to press pause at some point. It's okay if everything on your to do list does not get checked off immediately. You still need to live your life. You still need to make time for the things that are most important and the things that make you happiest. We live in this, go, go, go, go, go lifestyle but we need to find time to relax.
Take a few days off from working out. Take a proper weekend without working. Take two hours a night to turn off your social media and unwind. Allow yourself to experience the sights and the sounds of nature without a phone, without something in your ears. And this is something that I am slowly starting to learn. We've been doing these weekend trips where we'll drive a few hours. We've been recently going to Buena Vista and we've been taking the pups for a swim. So we call it an MnK day, Macro and Koa day. And typically on those days, I lose service for about three fourths of it. And it is such a blessing to be in nature without a phone connected to me, without my email, without any access to my Slack channel, without any access to my Instagram.
It is so, so nice to just reconnect. You know, this is not having to drive two hours to even do this. If you can go outside and just take a walk without your phone for 30 minutes or even 10 minutes, start with 10 minutes, then work your way to 20. Then work your way to 30. It is so incredible what just reconnecting to nature and just being outside and experiencing sights and smells and sounds without having a phone attached to you can do for your mental health. So just remember that if you're struggling mentally, turn off your to do list ASAP and make time for you, because even one to two hours of that can really reboost your productivity. I know for me, I come back from those trips and I am more productive on Sunday night than I was all day on Tuesday if I was having an off day.
It's incredible what can get done if you first put into priority what's most important, and that's your mental health. Remember, your to do list will always be there, but your life needs to be lived. And your life needs you to show up as the best version of yourself. And sometimes that means putting aside the to do list, showing up for yourself so that later you can show up in a better version of yourself for those who love the different roles that you play, et cetera.
Number nine, smile and have fun. Aside from relaxation, you need to press pause on your work and you need to just have fun. Have fun and smile. It is so crazy what can happen mentally when we force ourselves to smile. When we just smile, even though we might be sad, or even though we might have tears rolling down our face, the moment you smile, your subconscious brain is like, Oh, we're grateful. We're happy. We're alive. We're joyful. And it's so, so incredible. I was a little bit stressed the last weekend, before we launched the honor your body challenge. There's just so much going on, so much I need to get finished. And I looked over at Josh and he was like, "We need a reset. We need to do this. We need to have some fun." And that's when we took the day off and it was so, so great. I felt so energized from it. And I felt like I was, like I said, able to come back to my life, come back to my to do list and a healthier place mentally.
Regardless of whether or not you have time, you have to learn to have fun. You have to learn to incorporate fun daily into your life. And this is something that I am trying to work on because I can get in a very repetitive routine. And oftentimes I tell myself like, Oh, I can't have fun until our next vacation, or I can't do this. And one thing that Josh and I have been trying to switch up is like playing a game a few times a week, putting our phones away and just having fun, connecting to each other, connecting over a game and having fun and being a kid. I do this all the time with Macro and Koa. I play hide and seek and just incorporating fun as an adult. Just remember that it's so, so important. So the little things that you do really do help your mental health when it comes to a spontaneous adventure or incorporating one thing into your day, that allows you to have fun. You'll be amazed at how much that correlates to your mental health.
Number 10, create a routine and be consistent with it. If our sleep patterns are all over the place or our workouts are on and off or if we're skipping meals or not nourishing our body properly. If we're starting our day at different times, it's just like, everything gets all unorganized. Our brain feels scattered. We can't concentrate. And we just feel off mentally, all over the place as well. For me, I feel best when I try sticking to a daily routine, at least Monday through Saturday, if possible. Sunday could be the day that like going to the mountains or doing something that's not in my day to day routine to kind of switch it up and allow myself to get some RnR. But basically my daily routine is pretty much the same. Definitely Monday through Friday, I've been trying to get better at staying on routine on Saturdays, just in the sense of allowing myself that sense of normalcy and not straying too far away from my routine that it's difficult to get back on track routine wise on Monday.
So currently I've been waking up around 7:00 AM. Like I said, eight hours of sleep, no matter what. I've been trying to go to bed around 10, 11. I hate going to bed around 11, just because it just feels too late for me. So I've been trying to go to bed around 10. I don't sleep with my phone in my room. My phone stays in my bathroom, which is connected to my room, but it's not in my room at all. And it allows me the opportunity as soon as my alarm goes off, if I set an alarm, that I get up, I walk over to the bathroom, I turn it off. Then I come back to my bed. I sit, I stare outside the window and I establish out loud three things that I'm grateful for. Then I'll walk outside, go downstairs. I will feed the pups, I'll get my breakfast. And then I'll come back upstairs to do my journaling prayer devotional that typically lasts for about 30 to 40 minutes.
I then go and write three things. My top big three tasks of the day and I do the most difficult one or most time consuming one first. And typically I've been trying to get the one or two hardest tasks done. And then around 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM is when I'll work out. That's been working for me. And this is one thing that I wanted to share because I've shared my daily routine. And I was previously working out in the morning, right after my journaling time, which I kind of go back and forth. But right now in this season of life, I've just found myself to be more productive when I get the hardest task done. So that once I am done with my workout, then I feel like I can really tackle the last one or two tasks that I have left of that day.
But remembering that your routine is going to change. So sometimes your routine will serve you for six months to a year. That's great. Sometimes your routine will serve you for a month and then you need to switch it up. So just constantly monitor yourself and ask yourself, is this routine serving me right now? If so, great. Keep it up. If not, ask yourself what needs to change. For me I was finding myself to be just really tired after my workout, when I was doing it first thing in the morning. And then I found myself not really getting all three tasks done that I needed to, and then I felt overwhelmed and then I felt defeated and all that. And so I was like, hey, I'm going to switch it up and see, and that's what I need in the season. So just always remember that it's okay to change up your routine and constantly remember that our life is evolving, our routine needs to evolve and so on and so forth.
Again, this is a routine that works best for me, but I challenge you to find the routine that works best for you. And also one thing that I want to add with my routine is I need to have something. So every other week I have a book club meeting with some adult friends, which is so fun. Remembering to schedule in stuff for your mental health is so, so important as well. So I want you to try to make a routine out of it and allow yourself the opportunity to relax, rejuvenate, have fun, spend time with friends and family, do affirmations, all of those things. Try to figure out a routine that's going to work best for you so that you can start feeling like your best self.
Okay, so let's recap the 10 things on my mental health checklist. Number one, wash my hair/get ready. Number two, gratitude, visualization, affirmations, prayer. Number three, move. Number four, get enough sleep. Number five, connect with friends and family. Number six, drink plenty of water and nourish your body. Number seven, stop comparing. Number eight, press pause on the to do list. Number nine, smile and have fun. And number 10, create a routine and try to be consistent with it. Just to recap on the episodes that I mentioned in this episode, I mentioned episode five, 10 things that I do every morning. Episode 31, how to stop comparing yourself to others. And then the last episode that I released last week, episode 61, is social media helping or hurting you? I hope that this episode gave you some insight. I hope that it gave you maybe some reassurance or gave you a new idea to implement. If you're just feeling off. I know for many of us, 2020 has just been a year full of anxiousness, change for sure. And constantly challenging ourselves to see if we can adapt to a new normal.
So I hope that these things will help you. I would love to know maybe one thing that really stuck out to you, or one thing that you would add on this mental health checklist. So be sure to screenshot this episode, post it up on your story, tag me, Julie A Ledbetter. Tag embrace your real, which is the podcast Instagram account. And I would love to see your face. I love seeing and connecting to the listeners of this podcast. Also, if you have somebody, your friend, that you feel like is just struggling right now that this podcast episode could maybe help, I would just encourage you to share it out with them. You can text it to them. You can post it up on your story. Whatever you need to do to get this episode in their ears is what you need to do. Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you guys so much and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, Juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple podcasts, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real, because you're worth it.