Tips to save your sanity, so that we can thrive in life, because who wants to stop and bow down in front of life’s menace, until and unless the going gets too tough for one to handle.
Mark Twain quoted once, “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.” But what is possible is, our continuity to thrive for happiness, and in those little pieces of happiness, we can find some pieces of sane moments, which will be powerful enough to give us purpose to hold on for a little longer.
If you see with a focused mind, you will realize there is a lot we can do in order to attain some sanity for ourselves. In this blog, I will share a few things I do to keep my sanity intact.
20 Mind-Blowing Tips To Save Your Sanity
Before I share a few tips to save sanity, I would want you to sit and create your own sanity mantra. What is that one thing you to do to save yourself some happiness and peace? What is your getaway from this mad, mad world? Honestly speaking, in this world full of madness saving little sane moments for ourselves is indeed a big achievement.
It doesn’t matter if you are living in a toxic relationship, or with overbearing in-laws or narcissistic parents, you have one life and you have full right to try everything as a coping mechanism against all the stressors life throws in your path. So gear up and search for your brain tool, activate it, and just shine on.
We go through so many hurdles and phases in our lives, but do we get stuck in one place for longer? Even if we do for how long do we find ourselves in the same position? Only till the time, do we allow ourselves to be there. A little bit of attitudinal and mindset shift helps us to shift from one position to another one, maybe a slightly better one. Let us see how we can forge our own path and regain our lost space.
1.) Meditation
An amazing tool to connect with yourself through the rhythm of your breaths. You can inhale all the positivity of life and exhale all the accumulated stress in order to feel lighter and more peaceful.
Meditation is that one key which holds enormous power to connect with your inner self, all you have to do is sit and find a quiet place for yourself and be with your flow of breaths for a while. You can also try guided meditation and get help from various apps that can help you get started with meditation.
2.) Practice Mindfulness
One of the best tips to save sanity is to turn inward. Dealing with your internal chatter will serve you much more before you start to deal with your external stressors. Mindfulness is an effective tool to help you see things as it is and be in the moment. Mindfulness is like taking you back to the basics.
Practising mindfulness enables you to observe, pause, and reflect.
3.) Gratitude
When I started practicing gratitude, I realized the world has abundant things to offer all we have to do is to be grateful for everything we have. Count your blessings and focus on what matters. Take one day at a time and be thankful for each day.
I started practising gratitude and my life changed, I felt kind towards myself and grew as a person. It helps you see good in others and appreciate it when you see that little good in others.
4.) Feed yourself the right diet
Food has a major role in nourishing our bodies apart from our thoughts. What we put inside our bodies is how we appear to be outside and how we feel the whole day.
If what you think is what you become, what you eat is what you appear to be. Choose the right and balanced diet and think from the perspective of your health and body, not about enchanting your taste buds.
5.) Sweat it out
One of the best and most common tips to save sanity is to get up and move. I know that getting up and moving your body is the worst part here but only you have the power to push yourself every day till the day it no more looks like a burden to exercise for your well-being.
Mental health and physical health are inter-related and no matter how late we realize this, we need to make it a part of our daily routine. Do what works of you, not to reduce your weight or get those abs, but to sweat out those unhealthy toxins, to feel lighter, to gain stamina and strength. Buck up and show up!
6.) Learn a new skill
This has been my favourite of all the tips to save sanity, as during this lockdown period I have enrolled for some certification courses I have been hovering on for a while.
It not only gave me food for my purpose but also helped me curtail my time during this lockdown and isolation period. I didn’t even realize and I had a lot to do already just by this simple exercise of investing in myself. You have a phone with an internet connection, or you have a laptop or desktop, just search for what you love to do and learn a new skill, upgrade yourself, and keep going.
7.) Rekindle your connection with nature
Nature is something you can never get bored of, it captivates you with its blissful aura and if we sit quietly on a bench in a park and just choose to observe, we will notice so many things around us which are simple and beautiful.
If you are feeling stressed, instead of getting into a heated argument or banging your head over the same thoughts, go out in the fresh air, take a walk and then come back home, you will feel cooler and calmer.
8.) Journalling and to-do lists
Another personal favourite thing to do, I can tell you about my own experience that once you start journalling you will never stop. You discover your peace corner in that diary and when you sit to write how your day was or what is bothering you do not forget to mention at least one thing you are grateful for.
It will help you find purpose in your life and whenever you turn those ages, you will realize that while you had some reasons to be goofy about, you had at least something which gave you the courage to hold on and move on, maybe that is what had kept you going.
Maintaining a to-do list helps you to track your daily activities and set deadlines for yourself, by this you have a purpose for your day as you define it with some tasks. Do it to believe it.
9.) Set short-term goals
You know, we all have absorbed this thing called setting unrealistic goals and we unknowingly pressure ourselves with the amount of challenge it requires to acquire those set goals. What we forget is that life is unpredictable, we have our own shortcomings, consequences change, people change, and with this COVID-19, we don’t know what to believe in further.
So when life throws lemons, we have heard all sorts of stories of making lemonade or try to crush them, but we can simply keep them with us as a sign of learning and move on. Set short realistic goals and work on them.
10.) Take care of your surroundings
Your surroundings could encourage you to move ahead and do well or discourage you and try to pull you down. Why do successful people stress building their tribe? Why do people stick to passionate people who bring out the best in them?
We have enough personal things to manage and we are in a group who don’t lift you or respect you, you feel dejected. Hence it is very important that you take care of your surroundings and stick to the ones who spark joy in your life.
11.) Spirituality
One of the valuable tips to save your sanity is to find your spiritual realm. What is spirituality? For me, it is that never-ending quest for peace in life. For some, it is about attaining nirvana or enlightenment. But spirituality is also about finding the true purpose of your life and forming a connection between your existence and your beliefs.
Spirituality is a broad spectrum and it holds different interpretations for different people, you have to find your own happy place, a peaceful corner that can brighten up your mind and put a smile on your face.
12.) Less is more
I was a shopaholic. Unapologetic confession here 🙂 Back in college, I used to make sure that I had everything matching and complementing, like many girls, like you probably. Now it’s been two years and I have switched to minimalism and trust time it has only made me feel lighter and composed.
We attach a lot of meanings and sentimental values to our pieces of stuff and when the time comes to discard or choose between things we have stuffed our place with, it gives us a hard time deciding.
The minimalistic approach has helped me declutter and organize my home and my workplace, and then you exactly know how to recycle old stuff and how to be happy when less becomes more.
13.) Say no to information overload
With the present situation in mind, where every news is about COVID-19 and the rising numbers of cases every day, we are bound to be fearful and feel anxious. Besides this even in our normal and daily life when we are exposed to a lot of information and medium, we are overloaded with content that is sometimes overbearing.
Choose what to see and choose what to consume. You don’t need to be present everywhere, just stay updated and minimize the content overload which creates anxiety in your mind.
14.) Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to understand and manage their emotions and to control them too. You become an empath when you need to and when you are surrounded by toxic people, you know how to step back and not let it affect you. It brings out your ability to bring self-awareness,self-management, relationship, and social management. It allows you to have an emotional equilibrium space for yourself.
One of the crucial tips to save sanity is to define healthy boundaries for others and know where to stop others and invading your mental peace.
15.) Social media detox
Social Media detox is like intermittent fasting which works wonders for your mind, body, and soul. It is a quick fix for your mental clarity and concentration. When we are overloaded with a lot of information in our palm-sized world, we are bound to go haywire.
Today where everybody is a social media influencer and is a part of the rat race presenting their perfect picture, on the other hand, there are few people going through a lot to deal with in their personal lives that they start comparing their lives with the beautiful pictures and fall for what they see on Social Media. Research says that one should avoid using their mobile phone right after getting up in the morning and before going to sleep, you can keep at least an hour gap in both the cases and give your mind some mindful break from the digital noise.
16.) Travel
Not everyone who wanders is lost. Travel to explore, travel to learn new things, and travel to get away from the daily hustle of your life. If you are reading this blog and come to this searching for tips to save sanity, I would request you to make a bucket list of your travels right away.
Sit with a pen and diary note down a few places you always wanted to travel and smile while you travel. Stick that page on your refrigerator or any place where you can see them daily, it will give you a purpose. I will bring you to hope and maybe one day you will start striking out each place as you will travel them one by one.
17.) Read
Read, because reading takes you to a different world. If you are feeling anxious, bored, and too stressed, pick up a book and read. Just get into the habit of 30-minutes reading daily. It will help you learn a new dimension of life, help you change your perspective towards life, and also keep you intrigued.
There are various best-selling self-help books in the market, which have a life-changing impact on individuals, all you have to do is take some effort to take some steps to change your life and you will see yourself shifting from the place you were before.
18.) Look for mentors
We all need direction in our lives, don’t we? But we often meet unhelpful people in our lives, who misguide us and break our spirits. Look out for a mentor and stay connected to them. They will guide you today and maybe someday you will become someone’s guiding light too.
It is very important to have a mentor in life who can pull you out from the darkness and point you in the right direction, again it is up to you how far you are willing to go to help yourself.
19.) Socialize
Socialize and for real, meet with real people and form genuine connections with them. Socializing helps you to stay aware of your surroundings, lifts your mood, helps you learn new things, meet new people, and also kills boredom and loneliness.
It is beneficial for your physical and mental health, and even COVID-19 taught us how isolation and loneliness feel and what they can do to us.
20.) Ask for help
If you are feeling anxious, overwhelmed, agitated, frustrated, or worse YELL for help. Reach out to your friends, relatives, or anyone you confide in, just don’t shut down yourself and dim the light which wants to shine brighter but just because of the situational outrage you force yourself to stay in the darkness.
You are complete, you are powerful and you are valuable, all you need is to acknowledge how you are feeling and work on it, and you will find your path towards sanity.
To conclude, the purpose of life is nothing but the evolution of your consciousness, always have a perspective that takes you forward in life. I hope these tips to save sanity help you enrich your life. Each one of us has a different exam to take, so never compare your life with others. Above all, never lose your kindness, your inquisitiveness, and never stop reaching out and being there for others. Stay safe and stay sane.