Happiness is a choice you can make everyday View More
Tag: self-esteem
Being happy is a choice
While you think about the things you don’t have.
There is someone who is being grateful for what they got.
While you count the sorrows in your life.
There is someone who is counting their blessings.
While you see the half cup empty.
There is someone who sees their half cup full.
While you wait for validation by the world.
There is someone who has no choice but to beleive in themselves.
-JoyfulSolitude
Alina R
The day you realise…
The day you realise
You own your life and life doesn’t own you,
Will be the day when you know that you are capable of much more than the world told you.
The day you realise
You love yourself the best than anyone else who says they love you,
Will be the day when you start doing more good to yourself than anyone else did to you.
The day you realise
You have something which others can only dream of at night,
Will be the day when you start living each moment to the fullest and start becoming your own light.
-JoyfulSolitude
Alina R
Let them blossom
Have you been in an relationship?
For most of you it’s a yes. And the rest will eventually be.
What is the most important thing that keeps you together? You would say love, trust, loyalty etc.
That’s correct, it is what keeps you together indeed.
Now, what is the most dangerous thing that can break your relationship?
You would say betrayal, insecurity, obsession etc.
That’s correct, it is what breaks your relationships. But there is one more important aspect which you do not see.
That is “time”. Are you giving enough time to your relationship?
As fast the days pass by, we want everything instantly. Instant food, instant results, instant happiness, instant rewards, instant relationships. Just Instant EVERYTHING.
Anything that is not instant becomes Old School. Correct?
Well, honestly old school will always be the best no matter what time frame you switch to. You know why?
That’s because old school was the foundation of things that was turned to instant.
Just remember, anything that you get instantly in relationships will always be temporary. True relationships need time, effort, communication, dedication and a lot of nurturing from both the sides. A relationship cannot thrive on expensive gifts, luxury dates or text messages.
Take time to make that one phone call instead of texting to check on them. Take time to understand their interests instead of browsing their Facebook profiles. Take time to dwell in their world and see the world through their eyes.
Instead of plucking them from their world for yours, let them blossom where they are.
-JoyfulSolitude
What is the most important thing for you in a relationship ? Do comment below to share your experience.
Unique & Highly effective Stress Relieving techniques everyone should know. (With pictures)
We are living in stressful times. Look around you, almost every little thing has got the potential to mess up with your mind. Sounds familiar right?
Right, almost every person around you is able to get on your nerves and cause disruption to your peaceful mind. Why?
Perhaps, because that’s how this age is and you can’t change that. When things go your way it feels good and pleasant, but when they don’t it starts giving you a hard time.
It can take hours of explanation to bring someone else to the same page as you. It can take repeated calls, messages, emails to get your work done by third parties. It can take your whole energy managing your chores and kids throughout the day.
It’s difficult to be patient and keep the same smiling face all day for the people around you. But there are ways you can reduce stress and relax yourself.
Below are some highly effective Stress buster techniques for quick relief.
1. Grab an ice tea, lemonade or a green tea.
When you are stressed, you likely get yourself dehydrated. Grabbing a lemonade gets you refreshed and hydrated. Also lemonade contains vitamin C which can help with low blood pressure, digestion, skin aging problems as well. This is a delicious way of busting your stress out.
If you don’t like lemonade, grab an ice tea. Ice tea will boost you with antioxidants and suprising amount of manganese. Manganese is essential for maintaing strength in your bones and promotes wound healing.
Now, if you are not a cool beverage person and you only feel relaxed with hot beverages, you can make a quick green tea for yourself and reap its benefits.
Green tea contains natural oxidant catechin named EGCG (Epigallocatechin-3-gallate) which is known to prevent cell damage.
Green tea is not only refreshing but also but prevents you from certain types of cancer.
2. Just swing it !! Meditate in aesthetic enviornment.
Nature has the power to soothe the mind and body. Research says the color green has a soothing effect to the eyes. The human eye can relieve strain while it sees green.
If your enviornment is green, all you have to do is find a place to relax.
Grab your bean bags or put a swing in your balcony and relax. Watch the plants and trees, close your eyes and hear the sounds of the leaves and wind.
If you notice, the focus of modern interiors has shifted to making greenery spaces in the house and workplaces. People have developed a keen interest in having kitchen gardens, houseplants, terrace gardens. You can even find plants in the bedroom, living rooms believed to purify the air and a means to stay close to nature. So if you don’t already have it you can easily create it in your home. This is a great stress buster of all time.
3. Get a good sleep for an hour or two.
Not to mention, we all know the importance of sleep. So if you are feeling stressed and nothing works, draw your curtains, set your room to dark and get a good 1-2 hour of sleep.
Sleeping relaxes your muscles, you can finally stop thinking about whatever you were thinking the whole day atleast for an hour or so and get instant stress relief.
4. Take a shower/bath
As we are talking about instant remedies, this is one of the best ways to de-stress yourself quickly.
A survey of 80 people was conducted by Neil Morris, a known psychologist. He concluded that “..baths give you a wonderful combination of isolation, quiet and comfort…”
5. Relive an old memory
If you have your family album, childhood album, or wedding album, just sit back on the couch and start turning the pages.
As your brain goes back to the memory lane, it will also produce some happy harmones while you smile remembering those memories.
6. Talk to someone who can make you laugh
This one could be hard, but still doable if you have such people in your life. You should already feel blessed.
7. Excercise. Do the Jumping jacks
Let me make this easy for you. If you are not a regular workout person but you still want to try this remedy, just start with the jumping jacks.
Doing this simple excercise will instantly produce endorphins in your brain. Endorphins are chemicals that help relive pain and stress in the body. They promote positive feelings in the body and get you in a state of euphoria.
If you don’t like the jumping jacks, you can get started with yoga. See? No excuse for feeling better.
Start with simple yoga postures and deep breathing exercises.
Bottom line is
There are both short term and long term stress relief techniques. Above mentioned techniques will provide you quick relief.
Remember, stress will not get you any solution. It will only cloud your judgements and productivity.
Try to take things easy, give yourself the time it needs after a rough day at work. Be around positive people, do positive things that promote happy harmones, read my blogs and you are good to go. See? It’s that easy.
Who I am?
The man down the lane once asked who I am?
People said he was selfish, only cared about himself. The man was considerate but it wasn’t always noticed.
People said he was insensitive, dint show emotions. The man always struggled to express his bottled up emotions.
People said he was racist, supported only his kind. The man was a victim of racism and hatred and chose to support his kind so they don’t feel humiliated like he did.
People said he was a coward, did not support feminism. The man was once thrown into jail for false accusations by a woman.
People said he was unlucky for love, nobody liked him. The man once trusted someone and gave his heart, only to be broken by betrayal.
People said he never tried enough. The man was exhausted trying every possible way and it dint work.
People said he was a depressed man, trying to end his life. The man was only struggling to find his place in the society which was so judgemental and sharp as a knife.
The most misunderstood emotion – SILENCE
The most misunderstood emotion
SILENCE
When someone is silent they are not always angry, they are deeply Hurt
When someone is silent they are not arrogant, they chose to be humble by letting go and moving on
When someone is silent they are not disrespectful, they chose to respect you by not hurting you back
When someone is silent, you cannot hear them cry, their heart is learning to hold it inside
When someone is silent they are not hating you, they are loving you without showing it
When someone is silent they are not weak, they are one of the strongest people you ever met
When someone is silent they are not guilty, they don’t feel the need to prove their innocence to you
When someone is silent they do not despair, they hold the rope of hope for a better day
When someone is silent it is not a reaction, it is a thoughtful response.
Silence is not shallow, it is deep and rarely people understand it.
-JoyfulSolitude
How to declutter your life in short time with practical solutions
These days we all are so occupied with work and chores, it takes up all of our time and energy.
As we work we also pile up a lot of clutter and we procrastinate as long as we can until it gets too stressful and finally you have to get rid of it at any cost.
Below are some ways you can declutter your life
1. Create your to-do list everyday
Make a list of tasks to be done a night before everyday.
This is a great start for the day, you get your tasks for the day in the morning.
Arrange your tasks starting from the one most important to least important. This way you would have completed all your important tasks by the end of the day.
It is also a satisfying stress buster to cross out tasks from your to-do list.
2. Maintain a cleaning schedule for your house and office desk
It doesn’t need to be stressed how essential it is to keep your trash in trash and not somewhere else.
Keeping our areas clean gives us mental peace and keeps away from the anxiety.
C\nThese days we all are so occupied with work and chores, it takes up all of our time and energy.\n \nAs we work we also pile up a lot of clutter and we procrastinate as long as we can until it gets too stressful and finally you have to get rid of it at any cost.\n \nBelow are some ways you can declutter your life\n \n1. Create your to-do list everyday\n \n\n \nMake a list of tasks to be done a night before everyday.\n \nThis is a great start for the day, you get your tasks for the day in the morning.\n \nArrange your tasks starting from the one most important to least important. This way you would have completed all your important tasks by the end of the day.\n \nIt is also a satisfying stress buster to cross out tasks from your to-do list.\n \n2. Maintain a cleaning schedule for your house and office desk\n \n\n \nIt doesn\’t need to be stressed how essential it is to keep your trash in trash and not somewhere else.\n \nKeeping our areas clean gives us mental peace and keeps away from the anxiety.\n \nCreate a schedule for cleaning and follow it. For example : You could clean your bedroom clutter on every Saturday\’s. You could clean your office mess every Tuesdays.\n \nYou could even try doing things on a daily basis to avoid one day pile ups later. For example – You could make the effort of throwing unwanted bills everyday you come back from grocery. You could throw unwanted paper prints right away. You could keep your desk clean by allowing only the most necessary item to display on it. See that\’s easy to start with.\n \n3. Start being a minimalist\n \n\n \nThis can actually create a huge difference in your life. The person who lives a good life even with the minimum resources fits to the defination of a minimalist. This is actually a trending topic this season.\n \nAll you have to do this is, stand in front of the place that you want to declutter, now you need to pick things that you can\’t survive without. Keep them aside. This is all you need in your place. Try and get rid of the leftover after this excercise.\n \nReducing the amount of items and products you use, provides a mental stability and relaxation. You have less things to worry about. It enables you to focus on work and other things which are more important.\n \nYou should definitely do this exercise for your wardrobe, work desk, study table and kitchen area, bathrooms, makeup rooms.\n \nThis will also teach you the art of letting go as we are so habitual to holding on things. Now that\’s a deep thought isn\’t it ?\n \n4. Move away from TOXIC people\n \n\n \nToxic people are nothing more than clutter in your life.\n \nStop wasting your time dealing with toxic people. Move away from them and that\’s the best for you.\n \nFocus your energy in spending time with like-minded people instead of dealing with the disturbances created by negative people.\n \nYou become what company you be with. So always keep positive people around who boost you towards your goals.\n \n5. Get rid of digital clutter \n\n \nWe live in a digitised world where we spend most of our time staring in our phones and screens.\n \nRemember the last time you had enough free storage for your photos and videos in your phone??\n \nExactly. It felt stress free and enabled you to capture your moments.\n \nThus, you must regularly clean your phone by deleting unwanted apps and taking regular backups to your pc to avoid full memory.\n \n6. Get rid of extra furniture around you\n \nThis is a uncommon one, probably because it\’s actually hard to get rid of your furniture already there for years.\n \nBut, do you know how much we get trapped between those rectangular boxes placed inside our enclosed square walls ??\n \nDo you remember the last time you went to a serene place?? A place where it was all green and open ??\n \n\n \nYou could feel the fresh air passing through your face, refreshed your mood, you could hear the birds sing, the leaves dance with the wind.\n \nThink of all the reasons why you felt what you felt at that moment.\n \nYou will realise that the human brain likes freedom, it likes open spaces, it likes to see as far it can see, it finds warmth in the lap of nature. It tunes with the rhythm of nature and brings the mind and soul at peace. It helps you brainstorm and makes you productive.\n \nSo imagine, how the body feels when it gets trapped between the house walls.\n \nMoreover if you fill your small room with furniture all around, your brain gets trapped. It cannot think and get to that level of peace. Everytime it wants to think something out of the box, it will only see another box in front of it. This is deep to understand for some, but if you do then make changes to your lifestyle today and you will see the difference.\n \nKeep your rooms with basic furniture needed. Don\’t add extra storage, reduce your clutter. Give up on clothes you don\’t wear, things you don\’t use, books you don\’t read etc. Add some plants to your room, green is always good for the eyes.\n \n\n \nLastly, below are a few plants for you to get started.\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \nreate a schedule for cleaning and follow it. For example : You could clean your bedroom clutter on every Saturday’s. You could clean your office mess every Tuesdays.
You could even try doing things on a daily basis to avoid one day pile ups later. For example – You could make the effort of throwing unwanted bills everyday you come back from grocery. You could throw unwanted paper prints right away. You could keep your desk clean by allowing only the most necessary item to display on it. See that’s easy to start with.
3. Start being a minimalist
This can actually create a huge difference in your life. The person who lives a good life even with the minimum resources fits to the defination of a minimalist. This is actually a trending topic this season.
All you have to do this is, stand in front of the place that you want to declutter, now you need to pick things that you can’t survive without. Keep them aside. This is all you need in your place. Try and get rid of the leftover after this excercise.
Reducing the amount of items and products you use, provides a mental stability and relaxation. You have less things to worry about. It enables you to focus on work and other things which are more important.
You should definitely do this exercise for your wardrobe, work desk, study table and kitchen area, bathrooms, makeup rooms.
This will also teach you the art of letting go as we are so habitual to holding on things. Now that’s a deep thought isn’t it ?
4. Move away from TOXIC people
Toxic people are nothing more than clutter in your life.
Stop wasting your time dealing with toxic people. Move away from them and that’s the best for you.
Focus your energy in spending time with like-minded people instead of dealing with the disturbances created by negative people.
You become what company you be with. So always keep positive people around who boost you towards your goals.
5. Get rid of digital clutter
We live in a digitised world where we spend most of our time staring in our phones and screens.
Remember the last time you had enough free storage for your photos and videos in your phone??
Exactly. It felt stress free and enabled you to capture your moments.
Thus, you must regularly clean your phone by deleting unwanted apps and taking regular backups to your pc to avoid full memory.
6. Get rid of extra furniture around you
This is a uncommon one, probably because it’s actually hard to get rid of your furniture already there for years.
But, do you know how much we get trapped between those rectangular boxes placed inside our enclosed square walls ??
Do you remember the last time you went to a serene place?? A place where it was all green and open ??
You could feel the fresh air passing through your face, refreshed your mood, you could hear the birds sing, the leaves dance with the wind.
Think of all the reasons why you felt what you felt at that moment.
You will realise that the human brain likes freedom, it likes open spaces, it likes to see as far it can see, it finds warmth in the lap of nature. It tunes with the rhythm of nature and brings the mind and soul at peace. It helps you brainstorm and makes you productive.
So imagine, how the body feels when it gets trapped between the house walls.
Moreover if you fill your small room with furniture all around, your brain gets trapped. It cannot think and get to that level of peace. Everytime it wants to think something out of the box, it will only see another box in front of it. This is deep to understand for some, but if you do then make changes to your lifestyle today and you will see the difference.
Keep your rooms with basic furniture needed. Don’t add extra storage, reduce your clutter. Give up on clothes you don’t wear, things you don’t use, books you don’t read etc. Add some plants to your room, green is always good for the eyes.
Lastly, below are a few plants for you to get started.
Do you have that smile??
Do you have that smile??
The one that touches the soul and imprints it with joy. That smile is contagious, it has the glitter in the eyes and gold in the heart.
It holds the power to mend the broken hearts
It holds the power to make you smile even when you don’t want to
It holds the power to change your mood even when you had a rough day,
It holds the power to turn the hearts from hard to soft
It holds the power to turn the frown to joy
It holds the power to turn the poverty of emotions to richness of emotions
It holds the power to change the rivalry to friendship
It holds the power to stop the tongue from uttering that hurtful word
It holds the power to cool down the anger and save from regret
It holds the power to love even when there is hate all around
It holds the power to show trust even when times are hard
Do you have that smile?
If this is your smile pass it on to someone today, it would make them smile too. If you are already smiling as you read this, share this with your loved ones.
If you have someone who smiles at you everyday, love them and respect them, hold on to them because they are special.
How to take care of your mental health during Quarantine??
After being confined for months at home and with no mobility to the outside world, words like anxiety, stress, depression, bored, exhausted , anger, bad mood have all become a part of daily life journals and affected our mental health in some way at some point of time.
Mental Health refers to an individual’s emotional, psychological and social well being.
It creates an impact on how we think, feel and act on a daily basis. It also influences how we look at ourselves, our lives and others involved in our lives. Mental health also affects how we handle stress and make decisions in our life. Hence, it is not only important to take care of our physical but mental health as well.
We need to start loving ourselves more and promote happy thoughts within ourselves.
If you have never given a thought before about your mental health, then it’s not too late, making simple lifestyle changes can easily keep you on track to good health.
Below are some ways you can start taking care of your mental health
1. Do something you enjoy
Engage in something that you enjoy doing, it could be reading a book, cooking a dessert, watching your favorite series on Netflix, watching a movie, painting a landscape or portrait. It could be just anything, but make sure to do something each day so that your mind gets relaxed and content. This sounds easy but many people wouldn’t even remember when was the last time they did something enjoyable, if asked.
2. Add exercise to your daily routine
Exercise has its proven benefits to our physical and mental health. Exercise can only benefit you when you follow a routine. Starting your day with exercise keeps you active and boosts energy into your body. It also releases chemicals like endorphins, dopamine and serotonin which are responsible for triggering a positive feeling in the body. They help in regulating your mood.
If you are a beginner, you don’t need to do an intense workout, start with a morning walk and some basic yoga poses. For some this will be more than enough for the day and for others this could be a good starting point before moving to a advance workout.
3. Have a healthy and colorful palette of food everyday.
A healthy diet is the one which is rich in nutrition,vitamins, minerals and provides enough calories to the body. You don’t need to follow a specific diet everyday going on counting each calorie. (Unless recommended by a professional for medical purposes) A healthy diet means you are balancing your food plate well and taking care of all food groups.
Try to include all seasonal fruits and vegetables to your plate everyday. Be creative with food. Add all the natural color foods to your plate.
A healthy diet reduces risk of chronic diseases, heart attacks and cancers. It helps maintain your sugar levels and keeps you from getting obese.Healthy diet is associated with good mood, good physique, more energy, better body weight and overall good mental health. Eliminate junk food from your diet completely as it will one day show it’s adverse effects on your mental and physical health, and it will be too late to change. Reduce salty and sugary foods from your diet as they can impact your health too. Unhealthy diet is also a major cause of depression amongst people.
4. Have a good sleep routine
We all are guilty of staying up late in the nights during Lockdown. It could be because you were watching a movie, completing your leftover work, reading etc. It could also be because you have been overthinking about something, feeling stressed or maybe the fear of something happening is eating you up.
But did you know you are carving a path for the negative effects of sleep deprivation??
Sleep deprivation happens when you consistently do not get adequate sleep.
Sleep deprivation can lead to a weak immune system which makes you vulnerable to serious health problems like heart attack, heart failure, diabetes etc.
Sleep deprivation affects your ability to think and make sound judgements
If you have been making wrong decisions for a while and ended up frustrated, sleep deprivation could have been the cause because it clouds your judgement.
Sleep deprivation also aggravates depression and worsens your mental health. It is known to produce stress hormone called cortisol in excess which leads to muscle weakness, high blood sugar etc.
Sleep deprivation is also known to increase weight gain and cause obesity. That is because it disrupts the key hormones that regulate appetite.
Therefore, ensure to sleep atleast 7 hours at night for a healthy mind and heart.
5. Take up a new Hobby.
Taking up a new hobby is a good way to distract your mind from your usual routine and acts as a stress buster. It soothes your mind and channels it towards being more productive.
Learning is a essential part of human survival. Humans have evolved over time because they never gave up learning. If you want to keep your mind healthy and active all the time, develop your interests in new unexplored areas. This will keep your mind curiosity active and alert.
Here are a few tips for you to get started,
If you have never tried to learn a new language, now is the time you can. Learning a new language is always interesting and it opens new doors of communication with people out of your comfort zone. Also it will boost your confidence and take you to a new level.
You must have seen the trend of baking throughout this lockdown, every other person is baking their own food. Research has proved that baking releases endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine which are all happy hormones. You can try baking a simple banana bread, or a simple cake with few ingredients. There are abundant videos on YouTube and blogs that are meant for beginners only.
6. Be Social and seek help.
If you have always bottled up your emotions, it is time to make some changes for the sake of your mental health. You might say it’s easy said than done. You are right!
You will have to make a effort for this one, you will have to gather all the courage you can and try put your trust in some other human of your kind. You have to open up your heart to them just like you open a book and show them everything, how you feel, how your emotions are eating you up, how lonely your heart is sometimes, how you get thoughts about wishing you were dead and get over with it.
It’s time you think of yourself, it’s time to let go of things and begin to see the light across the tunnel and run towards it. Surely you will not regret what you did for yourself in the coming years. You will be proud you made that decision. And when you share it all, you would have relieved your load, the burden on your head and in your heart you have been carrying for so long and start feeling better like never before. THIS WORKS!!
As I always say don’t lose yourself for people who don’t value you and make you feel low about yourself. It is human nature to never be pleased, so don’t lose yourself please.
If you don’t find anybody you can trust and share your load, don’t think twice to seek a professional. Don’t ever feel ashamed or weak for doing so. You are doing it so you can be stronger and happier.
Why waste life just because someone couldn’t understand you? Or you lost something that was temporary.
There is much more to life that meets the eye. Change your perspective and look at the world again. You will find peace and tranquility.