Sometimes life catches up to us in unexpected and painful ways. But this is no reason to assume that you can no longer live a happy and fulfilled life. Every life has road bumps in it and overcoming this can often help you to lead a happier and more fulfilled life. Whether you are on a treatment plan for anorexia nervosa or recovering from a transplant, your life is still firmly within your grasp. Your disease is not you and you can find normalcy and good health in your daily life once again.
Oftentimes, the issues that get in the way of you achieving your health goals are coming from the outside. You may think that your depression or anxiety is coming from within but no one is born innately sad. Something outside of you had to trigger those feelings. Taking the time to recognize your triggers and seeking professional help to lay your demons to rest can free you from their grasp. Some hurts never go away fully, but they can scab over so you can grieve the pain and then put it behind you and live your life.
Make the intentional choice to live for yourself. To live a healthy life that is of good quality and gives you many moments of joy. Overcome the little voices that tell you that you do not deserve good things because those voices are lying to you. Sometimes our minds tell us the worst of things to protect us from taking risks, even small ones. So we must become stronger than our inner fears and show them what we can be capable of doing when we put our mind to it.
Explore Food
A lot of young people are making a deliberate choice to question the foods they grew up eating. There are as many varieties of foods as there are cultures and often colonialism and opportunity limit the foods that are available to us. The foods you enjoy, in a form you can appreciate, might not necessarily be the ones that are geographically most accessible to you at this time.
Consider making an effort every week to explore a different cuisine from anywhere in the world and keep a log of what you eat. Even if you want to stay within a dietary restriction such as vegetarianism, there is still a lot of varieties of food you can explore. Most Indian food is vegetarian and uses spices in different combinations to completely transform the experience of eating common vegetables that you may have never seen as exciting. Japanese food can also deliver similar or same vegetables but in a totally different style of cooking with a different application of spices. Both cuisines are delicious and healthy and different.
Avoid limiting your palate as this could be what is stopping you from finding the meals you are meant to enjoy.
Make Your Water Fun
You simply cannot go wrong by being more hydrated. Doctors and nutritionists and therapists will all tell you to drink enough water in a day. But what they sadly fail is to tell you how to make the experience of drinking water less bland.
Modern life has made us so used to taste and pizzazz that drinking a few glasses of a tasteless liquid can feel boring. And in a world where stimulation is constant, boring is something your body will almost subconsciously avoid. Thus, you have to hack your taste buds into enjoying the experience of drinking water.
Make your water more fun so you feel motivated to meet your daily hydration quota. Squeeze in sweet lemons to give it a zesty taste or add dried fruit to add a sweet tang. Boil with screw pine leaves or add chopped mint and thinly slices cucumbers to evoke that spa feel.
Seek Activity
A body at rest leads to an idle mind. An idle mind cannot be trusted not to explore the darker thoughts in your head. This must be avoided by giving it regular and constructive activity. Different activities require different levels of effort on the part of your body and mind. Vary the activities you do during the week so that you do not push your body too far or leave your mind tired.
Join a club for an activity you enjoy such as crotchet or a book club. The physical act of being around others in a shared space that is accepting of your interests will be soothing and it will give your mind many healthy thoughts to ruminate on. A walking group or enjoying an exercise video every other day will keep your body fit, improve your stamina, and raise your dopamine. This means your mind will be less inclined to be attracted to dark thoughts.
Be vigilant. After a long period of sadness, when you finally start to enjoy your life, there will come moments when it feels like you are backsliding. Recognize that this is anxiety and fear trying to protect you. Your fear is afraid that your happiness is temporary and does not want you to be upset or depressed again. But all happiness is temporary. It is a short state of mind. The only thing that is lasting is the memory of that happiness and the contentment of knowing that you can achieve that joy for yourself again if you simply keep trusting in your abilities.
