The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've booked a week off work starting on Saturday (well, Sunday technically because I'm doing a night shift on Friday night). However, as it approaches, I don't really know why I bothered. I don't really have anything I want to do, and if anything, I'm worried I'm going to spend the whole week sitting around feeling depressed.
Other than work and the gym (which makes me hate myself as often as not), I find it very hard to actually care about anything or feel motivated. I feel basically no desire to talk to my friends, or to meet new people either. I don't really have any desire for sex and I don't have any hopes of having a relationship either.
It sometimes helps me to do something I've never done before. Like travel or psychedelics, doing something novel can help shake up your brain and get you out of old thought habits.
Here are some ideas, it can be very simple:
cook a meal you've never tried before (or get takeout that you haven't tried before)
travel to the gym via different mode or route. Do a routine you've not done before.
go for a walk, if you don't normally.
rearrange your room/house. tidy up. buy some new art or a new rug
open netflix and watch a highly-acclaimed film/series that you haven't seen before
visit a local place you've never been to before, a park, an art gallary, then have lunch somewhere new to you
go to the cinema and watch something you wouldn't normally watch. (If you normally buy popcorn, get a hotdog instead)
get a cheap room in the next town over, and spend a day or two there
Really the challenge is only "something new".
Also, you should try to do things even if you don't feel like it (perhaps you know this already). Do things as an experiment and see what happens. You should make a schedule for the week, perhaps just pick one activity per day. Look up Behavioural Activation - when you feel low, you do less, which makes you feel low. But if you do more, you might feel better. So you should do things even if you don't completely feel like doing them, because the act of doing is itself the medicine.
Thanks for the suggestions.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link