Usually, when we’re barely holding ourselves or our lives together – the last thing we need to hear about or honestly, feel about is the way we look. But even when we think we’re hiding our stress, insomnia or anxiety from friends or loved ones, they always know.
Two reasons as to why or how they always know. One, they love you and know you, they have seen your good days, so they begin to long for the smile, or the cheerfulness, or the pep in your step. Two, your physical self begins to take charge of your feelings. If you are feeling down, and your mind has given you multiple opportunities to fix yourself and time after time you keep slamming that door shut because you’re too busy with your life and need to meet multiple expectations – just know that your body will find a way to detach and show the world the state you are in.
When we’re tired and keep pretending to not be, we end up getting darker circles under our eyes than usual, heavier eye-bags, swollen body parts, saggy (droopy) face, no pep in the step, no small talk. We become robots when that happens and this is where we need to realize – our body, skin, health and mind are all connected. If one aspect goes bad, everything will slowly fall apart (unfortunately).
According to my favorite source, Google, I learned – “How we think, directly impacts how we age and how youthful we appear”. So the routine stressors you have in your life really impact how fast or slow we age. When we’re stressed, we can see it in our skin tone, in the texture, in the elasticity of the skin (hence the mention of saggy/swollen body parts). The overall glow of your aura disappears – and this isn’t some chakra mindfulness magic stuff. This is real life stuff.
When we’re stressed, we hardly look after ourselves – we stop drinking enough water, we resort to fast food because there’s not enough time to make something. This lifestyle, along with a bucket full of stress will never help you with your sleep schedule. You can sleep for 4 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours and still wake up feeling tired and looking tired. And that’s when you enter work and hear the words that go through your soul with a dagger -
“Are you okay? You look tired”
Excuse me?? I woke up early, got out of bed, took a shower, put on makeup? And you have the audacity to tell me I look tired? Day ruined. Immediately. Until you enter the bathroom or pass by a mirror and realize that you do in-fact look tired, and that it’s not their fault for simply caring for you enough to check in with you.
Pro-tip here is (and again, I am not an expert, I’m literally the Queen of hearing “you look tired” by everybody. But I know what I should do, I just haven’t been doing it.
Take care of your body- Be one of the fitness is my passion people, focus on yourself and your health. I don’t mean go and lift weights 24/7. I mean go for a walk, go for a swim, go running, have a little cardio session, do some yoga. Whatever works for you, whatever will make you want to take time out of your day and add a bit of fitness to it. Take care of your body.
Take care of your skin- One of my friends would be really proud of me for saying this. But add skincare to your daily routine! Have a morning skincare routine, have a pre-bed skincare routine. Look up what you need to work on? Puffiness, redness, breakouts, dark circles? There is something available for everyone. Just find out what you need and incorporate this into your daily lives!!
Take care of your health- In urdu, my mother always says ‘sehat hai toh sab kuch hai’ – which translates to, if you are in good health, you have everything you need. I keep those words near and dear to my heart – but also, I wasn’t acting upon them until recently. Take care of your health by doing necessary tests and figuring out what you’re lacking? Are you anemic? Are you deficient? Are you malnourished? Probably because you’re only having air for breakfast lunch and dinner with all the stress. See what vitamins you require, work on your immune system – it’s a long fight, trust me I would know – but put your health first. Nothing, and I truly mean it, NOTHING should matter to you more than being in good health.
Take care of your mind- Back to why I’m writing blogs, remember mental health matters. What goes on in your mind matters. You matter. You cannot be thinking about 100 different things and expecting for your body and everything else to keep up with you. You really need to understand, whether it’s through friends or family, whether it’s by reading a blog, or whether it’s just being by yourself and doing some soul searching – you really need to understand that you matter the most. In your life, right now, there is nobody more important than you. Not your mother, not your father, not your spouse, maybe your kids because they were literally made of you – but think of it this way. If you do not take care of yourself, that means that you will one day collapse, you will break apart whether it’s emotionally or physically, and when that happens, you are not there for the ones you love in the way that they need you. So please, look after your mind.
I really am tired of being tired all the time, and I am tired of being called out for the same. But I think these 4 steps of self-care could really help a person move one step in the right direction. Reiterating that these would only help the person move ONE step in the right direction. You need to do a lot of self-care which requires a lot of ME time. If you cannot get the me-time, then it's time you wake up earlier, or go to bed later - but find an hour just for yourself so you don't feel overpowered by the million things you need to do for yourself and others later in the day.
Just a reminder, that these things don’t happen overnight, and may not even happen within a month. But persistence and perseverance can get us through this lump in our lives and help us move onto the next chapter.
Love,
-
Sara
xo
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