i think that thereās a level to which this is possible physically (calling out sick or skipping class if youāre a student or whatever) but even if thatās not possible emotionally checking out + going through the motions and making space and time for your recovery afterwards is almost always how you beat a bad day
for me if the vibes are atrocious beyond reason iāll call out of work, clean my apartment, then go for a walk, go to the jewish deli and get an egg + pastrami hash on a kaiser roll and a coffee, then go home and either watch tv, play video games, and if iām feeling up to it later do some kind of writing or reading or other enrichment activity (and sometimes enrichment just isnāt on the table at thatās cool too)
whatever your comfort rituals / little treats are, pull out all the stops and really just stop for a second, take a breath, and let yourself just be, and itās guaranteed to make getting through it easier by making the day less hard, or giving yourself something to look forward to afterwards
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every day, i try to incorporate:
1) some form of exercise
2) time outside (can be combined with exercise)
3) talking to/seeing a friend (or even a stranger, the important thing is social contact)
4) an intellectually stimulating activity that gives you a feeling of accomplishment (reading, practicing a language, doing a puzzle etc)
5) self care (nails, facial masks, body oil, or hell just a shower if thatās what you need)
when I maintain this routine my mental health stays fairly manageable! you can get through it šŖ
Mar 8, 2024
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figuring out the small things i can do that i know will make me feel at least 5% better has been so helpful to build momentum throughout my day.
some of mine:
groggy -> coffee, go outside and walk around, or a mini nap
lethargic/irritable -> taking a shower and deep breaths, opening a window
sad -> get sunlight, stand outside for ten minutes, hug my cat
anxious/unable to focus -> writing a brain dump of everything thatās on mind or cbt journaling
unable to sleep -> reading a book
bored -> create/output something (input(watching/listening to/reading something, scrolling on my phone) vs output(making something, writing my thoughts on something i watched, trying something new))
bloated -> ginger tea, activating pressure points, yoga
uninspired -> revisiting something formative, figuring out the unexplored territories in my taste and going into them, looking through my collection of art books
Oct 19, 2024
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Iāve learned that after a trip I always need to take 12 to 24 hours to help myself readjust back to my life. I find that giving myself that time to do simple housekeeping chores help me shift back into every day work mode.
If something goes wrong in my morning or some point of my day, I stop, take some deep breaths, and say to myself that a bad moment does not make a bad day. Something about that mindful shift really helps me leave that in the past and, be present.
Oct 7, 2024
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Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason itās still standing is bc itās unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isnāt just charting the attention economy but also attempting to āsolveā it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024