It’s mental health awareness month, and in 2023, we care about ourselves and the planet. We say no to burnout and stress and fight climate change. It’s healthy sustainability for us. In that vein, I wanted to share four sustainable self-care tips that you can try this mental health month if you are feeling bleh.
Why do we need sustainable self-care tips?
The thing with mental health is it’s extremely affected by our environment- not only do green spaces help your mental health tremendously- your family, friends, your immediate surroundings impact your mental health. Not just that, but climate change impacts your mental health, and how climate change is reported impacts your mental health. Dr Ranjan Ghosh from Good Karma, for example, said that climate change reporting, if done wrong, can make existing anxiety worse.
I recently did a presentation on how climate change affects our mental health, and one of the highlights from it was that climate change can make existing substance disorder substance abuse disorders worse. Not only is climate change affecting our physical health, but it’s also affecting our mental health. It’s increasing food insecurity and water insecurity, all of which are leading to PTSD, anxiety, and more. All this makes self-care extremely important, especially if you are a climate activist. Fighting climate change is the ultimate goal. Thus our self-care also needs to be sustainable or at least imperfectly sustainable. By imperfectly sustainable, I mean it has to be as sustainable as we can make it. For if climate change gets worse, our anxiety will too. It’s all connected.
And even if you’re not suffering the adverse effects of climate change, which with these heat waves, who isn’t? Even if you aren’t, for some reason which indicates that you have done a great job by finding a way to escape these heat waves, but even if you aren’t suffering from climate change, there’s probably some sort of stress in your life. Psst, if there isn’t, please tell me how you have built a life that’s so good that there are no negative stressors in it in the comments. Stressors are of two kinds- they’re positive and negative. Positive stressors motivate us to do better in life, even though they are still a cause of stress. Therefore mental well-being is very important. Mental hygiene is essential, and hence self-care is essential.
Sustainable Self-Care Tips
Stay Hydrated
Water is fuel for our bodies, like food is fuel for our bodies. Staying hydrated keeps us energized; it keeps our skin young and fresh looking, and staying hydrated keeps us in a better mood. To stay sustainably hydrated, you can get a reusable water bottle. You have to just clean it once a day and replace it whenever there’s an accumulation of dirt on it that doesn’t leave even after repeated cleaning. However, if you, for some reason, have forgotten your water bottle at home, remember imperfect sustainability and get water either from a plastic bottle or a cooler. It’s important to be healthily imperfectly sustainable rather than being completely 100% sustainable at the cost of your health. So stay hydrated and eat good food if possible.
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Get Good Sleep
Now you must be wondering what the connection between sustainability and sleep is. This sounds like a very generic mental health tip, but the connection between sustainability and sleep is that a lot of us need sleeping aids. I myself need ASMR to sleep, and therefore it is kind of a struggle to look for eco-friendly ASMR. However, imperfect sustainability reminds me that if nothing is available, I can just listen to regular ASMR, as getting good sleep is very important, and it is sustainable. It keeps you from burning out, it keeps you energized, it keeps you activated- so good sleep. One thing that my psychiatrist has recommended to me for better sleep hygiene is no screen time at least one hour before bed. I have also been recommended to read something before bed- you can look at Muses_Saga for books made sustainably- and no consumption of caffeine after 5 PM.
Exercise
Sustainability is not just about the environment; it is also about the people, and we are part of that. We are human beings so we are part of people and good exercise is something you can do very easily, you have to just set a routine. I personally am still struggling with that, so I recognize it if you can’t, but good exercise is so incredibly important. If you want to be sustainable with your exercise, you can get sustainable exercising materials. For example, instead of buying a brand new yoga mat, you can actually take the yoga mat that you have had for years but you haven’t used or that your dad uses, and you can use it after your dad is done using it. My dad personally does his yoga on the carpet at home, but I’m not sure how healthy that is. There’s a reason yoga mats are a thing, in my opinion, but that is just one person’s opinion, and he’s never faced any health issues. Or you can go swimming like I do, and you can get ethical swimwear from websites like Brown Living India. It is always a good idea to do additional research to ensure the company is truly sustainable.
Take a Moment to Rest and Relax
This is crucial, especially for people who are constantly working, who are working two jobs a day, or who are activists. It is so easy to get caught up in the sweep of things. This is coming from a personal experience; this happened to me recently, I got so caught up in this everyday grind of life that I forgot to take a moment to rest and relax. I hadn’t taken a weekend in almost a month, and I felt terribly sick. So to avoid that, take an hour out, maybe in the whole week just take an hour out if possible, and I know it’s very difficult for some of us to do that but take an hour out, go for a walk, feel nature around you that’s all. That does not cause the planet a penny; that is not taxing the resources on the planet but just taking a walk in nature or maybe playing your favourite board game that you’ve had for years since you were a child helps. Things are sustainable if they’re reused again and again, so playing that board game that you had when you were a child and playing it again when you’re an adult makes it sustainable because you’ve used it for so many years. It’s been a constant source of joy.
Do your skincare. Skincare is so relaxing, and I have a whole blog and video on how to build a sustainable skincare routine that you can check out but doing skin care, just loving yourself and giving yourself that attention is so incredibly important. It does not require you to escape from the day. Just splashing some water on your face, putting on SPF, and putting on a nice moisturizer that makes you feel good makes. It makes you feel like all the time that you’re putting in and all the effort you’re putting into work is worth something.
These are sustainable self-care tips, and these are things you can do without costing the environment a penny. The planet is really not suffering if you sleep well. You do not have to burn yourself out being an activist 24/7. If you are feeling burnt out, try implementing these sustainable self-care tips and see if they help. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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