This past week would have been Aaron’s 47th birthday. I miss his phone calls on what he always called our day. I try to be kind to myself especially during hard days. Loving someone who lives with addiction is hard and taking care of yourself has to be a priority. Having been asked to speak briefly on wellness for our annual local North Texas Overdose Prevention event, I have been thinking about an easy to remember 5 Things list.

1.    Physical

2.    Emotional

3.    Social

4.    Mental

5.    Occupational

PESMO! Self-care includes paying attention to physical wellbeing, starting with getting regular exercise, eating well and drinking plenty of water, and getting good sleep. As I am getting older, taking care of my health has sometimes become complicated, but these essentials still hold. Physical exercise is important for maintaining fitness, supporting good heart health and weight, and it can provide a means for working through stressors and even trauma. For me, walking my dog has long been my favorite way to wake up and set up my day. Having traded living in town with great parks and an easy bike ride to work for a move out into the country without established walking paths and a much longer commute, I am having to build new habits to get enough exercise into my day. One of my favorite activities is to get my hands in the dirt out in my garden. I am also contributing a lot of physical work to our new house, but that doesn’t necessarily give me the daily cardio I was getting in town. I will need to add an indoor exercise routine and/or build some new walking routines, maybe some evening walks through the pasture.

I am having to pay more attention to heart health by reducing sugar, fat, and salt in my diet. I am not fond of depriving myself so I like to flip that around and think about healthy foods that I need to increase to supplant those that I need to let go of. I am eating more beans and rice, fresh fruits and vegetables, and drinking more water.

I have to pay particular attention to sleep hygiene. I have a regular routine that involves a consistent schedule for both going to bed and getting up. I have a wind down routine at night before bed and another if I wake up and have trouble falling back asleep - I get up and read a bit and then go back to bed. I go outside in the morning to get sunlight and restart my circadian rhythms.

Next, attending to my emotional health is important. I recognize and give myself permission to feel whatever I am feeling. Acceptance is the practice of looking at what I have control over and letting go of what I cannot do anything about. I cannot change other people or things that have already happened including things I have said or done that I regret. I have learned to forgive myself and others. Forgiving others doesn’t mean that what they did is okay and I may still need to set limits with them, but I can stop suffering. Perhaps most important is giving time and space to positive mental health practices! I spend time thinking about things I am grateful for and actively engaged in mindfulness.  

Closely tied to emotional wellbeing is building social connections! People are social animals. Spend time with people who lift you up. https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/ is a great resource to think about kindness ideas. Kindness positively impacts the giver, the receiver and any onlookers. Volunteering for a cause you care about builds you and helps sustain the cause.

All of these strengthen my mental health. I practice habits of thought that contribute to my wellbeing. I try to catch myself when I am on a negative thoughts spiral. I challenge negative thoughts asking whether they are actually true or am I awfulizing? I also try to regularly practice curiosity and learn new things.

Last but not least is my occupational health! Occupation is an old word for doing. My wellbeing is directly related to the time I spend doing activities that bring me joy! Csikszentmihalyi brought us the idea of flow, which is that state where you are so into whatever it is you are doing that you loose track of time. For me this can happen in gardening, drawing and painting, writing, and other creative activities. Csikszentmihalyi says that experiencing flow is essential to our mental health and wellbeing - I agree!

Having children with substance use disorders has made it doubly important to care for my own mental health and wellbeing. I can count off these five areas of wellbeing on one hand to remind myself to practice; physical, emotional, social, mental, occupational wellness!