#but in my case: night owl rhythm + insomnia make it tough

[roguelioness]

late night insecurity crisis: check

[channelmono]

I dunno if I have a lot to say, but I figured that give how many people follow me, I wanna share some tips on preserving mental health during these chaotic times

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed my last story QA, which was a bit of a survey just to see how some of you lovely monitors are feeling, because I know the world in general has been stressed lately for obvious reasons. The elephant in the room is that we as individuals are all walking a tightrope of staying up-to-date about the future and how to maintain our physical health while also trying to preserve a sense of productivity and activity to sustain our mental health, the latter of which I’m noticing being especially strenuous for many of you, likely because this prolonged period of uncertainty and anxiety is highly unfamiliar. I want to disclaim right away: I am not a doctor, I am not a psychologist trained in extensive therapy who knows how to guide each and every one of you to your healthiest behaviors. However, I still wish to still help you with some advice. I do wish to see you as my friends, and as my friends, I want to ensure that you are happy and healthy. I already have a history of self-isolation, and without getting too in-depth of the exact details, this involuntarily hermit-like lifestyle we’re all being encouraged to ascribe to has been my way of living for the past several years (the involuntary-ness included). I’ve become much more acclimated to not just being alone, but stuck in a place of residence with little directive or seeming control of my own future, with a long history of trying to discern of not just what to do with my life in general, but just getting through the day-to-day. I want to discuss that day-to-day, because the month(s) away we have from returning to a normal world again is still comprised of many, many days, and if I can’t come up with a surefire long-term plan for how to deal with a future we are all in unfamiliar territory of dealing with, I can at least suggest a few low-cost stepping stones to helping you take in each day a lot easier, and hopefully help lift a bit of the collective burden over however long we may be like this. 1) DON'T LET YOURSELF GIVE UP. I feel like this is a bit of an obvious tip that might come across as “are you feeling sad? Just be happy!”, but hear me out. One of the biggest sources of human (or human-equivalent) stress is the feeling that one has no control over their life. The period where I fussed incredibly hard about the fate of my future as I was first condemned was one of the darkest, most exhausting parts of my life, as were all the times I had done before. It wasn’t merely that I was so ashamed of my failures, but it was the fact that I’d constantly and semi-consciously associate it with my entire being, to the point where I couldn’t make a casual joke in a non-depressed context that didn’t end with a side remark of how I wanted to die (now that I explained it without context… yikes.) Eventually, there was a eureka moment for me where I had enough of being tired. I’m not sure exactly what triggered it -- perhaps it was just dealing with the banality of the isolation, perhaps it was just me thinking more about how I mentally hurt myself and what I could do to stop, perhaps it was me simply deciding to find professional psychological help for it -- but whatever the case, I realized that even if the world could do bad things to me, I wanted to stop doing things that would hurt myself, as not only was being good to myself the least that I could do, but it also helped me forge a modicum of very real power for my self-esteem, giving that first boost to kickstart my life again (in part by starting this channel and making new online friends!) This wasn’t a solution to get rid of all my outside problems, but rather a means to help accept that things would be tough, but I could still live with them. Challenges will need to be faced, and there will be failures because that’s how life can be sometimes, but it also helped me better comprehend that there will also be victories, because that’s ALSO how life can be sometimes! I can’t say for sure how each and every one of you will be able to help yourself realize that negativity, hopelessness, and cynicism are not the only means to approach an uncertain and stressful future. Perhaps you already realized it! Perhaps you were in the process of realizing it but the articulation of my journey may give some guidance. Perhaps you still need some more time and thought to think about it. But whichever way, I implore you to consider that this future is not solely one to be defeated by, but one which you can fight to be happy in… and win. 2) GIVE YOURSELF A DAILY RHYTHM. One of the biggest things I see people complaining about is how without their usual daily schedule with work or school, their mental acuity is going haywire and it’s difficult to get things done. There are many reasons for why our brains are reacting to the situation the way they do: a bunch of collective trauma surrounding the pandemic putting our brains on edge for what to expect next, stress making us unable to register complex tasks, our inner survival instinct diverting away our ability to think about personal minutiae, etc. The human brain is a fickle thing doing its best to cope with the trauma it’s presented with, and first and foremost, it’s important to be patient with yourself. Going back to the “how to take on the day-to-day”, let’s talk about schedules. The truth is that many of us crave at least a mild semblance of structure and compartmentalization, and a big factor for why our minds are getting sloggy is because we’ve lost the ones we followed, mostly ones imposed onto us by our professions, and were wholly unprepared to figure out a compensation plan (as many of you students learning via Zoom conferences are aware). The practical trick I have to help remedy this is a pretty basic-on-paper one: seek out your own schedule. Speaking from my own experience, the daily grind into this miasma of a future becomes less cumbersome once you intuit what you actually define as “the daily grind”. This is not to say you need to become a rigid, Clock King-esque fanatic who plans every action by the minute, as simply understanding what you do and what you WANT to do will be of help. For me, I schedule my alarm clock to go off at 8:30. Every day I get up and make coffee or tea along with breakfast for myself and The Master. My current daily priorities are messy janitorial duties and Animal Crossing, while my personal hobbies that I’d reserve to my free time include filming content, playing video games, watching movies or Youtube, cooking, or going outside to jog. Every week or so, I go out for groceries. I do my best to go to bed and sleep before midnight. Of course, this is just MY schedule, but this is how rudimentary it can get while still giving me a sense of fulfillment when I do pass the time as I do accomplish my tasks. There are many ways to go about it, but really, one of the simplest ways to recognize them in your life is just write it out. Actually articulate it into just a really simple list that you have to transfer from mind onto paper/digital text. This is especially recommended if additional tasks or changes to your life occurs: write it down so you can remember everything! And allow yourself to do it! This is not to say you should be worrying constantly about how productive you are, as the goal is not to define yourself by how much you accomplish per day, but rather a way to give yourself that sorely needed daily rhythm we all miss, while allowing you to reward yourself when you hit your goals. And like every plan, it doesn’t need to be flawless -- there will be times where we need to relax and take a break. There might be emergencies to deal with. There may be times where things are so overwhelming where it’s like “Yknow what? I don’t wanna do anything today.” And that’s okay. On a related note: Something I’d like to place importance on with my schedule is my sleep. As someone who has experienced long periods of miserable exhaustion in my life, I cannot overstate just how important and cathartic a good, consistent sleep schedule is. I’m not joking: the night when I stopped being “insomniac” by going to bed tired but staying on my phone up until 2 AM, and instead actually went to bed at 11-ish, I woke up feeling the best I had in years. Exhaustion no longer felt like a necessary, expected burden. I felt legitimately well-rested, and discovering that I could freely feel things that weren’t depression was almost epiphanic (if that’s a word lol). I know that going to sleep and waking up on a consistent time of day might sound chore-like to many of you night owls, and there may be other concerns at play like actual insomnia, but I implore you to at least consider giving yourself a consistent nightly rhythm as well as your daily one. Being exhausted is an easy way to get stuck in your own head, and if you’re thinking dark thoughts and lack the energy to force yourself out, you can be in trouble. Don’t underdo or overdo it that you still feel like crap when you wake up. Be honest to yourself. Good sleep can be incredibly rewarding in ways that you might not even believe until you experience it for yourself.