Manage stress by writing a book review of your day | My Mental Health Journey

hi i’m kailey and today i want to talk
about a way that i’ve been trying to
cope with stress
by writing a book review.
so the first thing that i want to do is
look in our
booktuber shout out little book here
and pick somebody to shout out
randomly. let’s see… we have literary
labors.
oh wonderful! i love their channel. the
literary labors channel
will be linked down below in the
description. so make sure you click on
that
and go subscribe to their channel. so i
have been under a lot of stress lately, a
lot of anxiety,
a little bit of mild depression really.
and i have a lot of
you know coping strategies and tools
that i use
to help manage those mental health
things.
so i want to share some of those with
you today and specifically
something that i tried recently that
really helped me which was
writing a book review. so first of all
just kind of a disclaimer here…
like all i can talk about is my own
personal journey with mental health,
and the things that work for me, and the
things that have helped me,
and my own experience. so obviously if
you

are dealing
with some kind of mental health issue,
reach out to someone,
reach out to a mental health
professional, a friend that you feel is
safe to talk to,
you know reach out to maybe a therapist
or a counselor of some kind,
and talk to your doctor even. because you
shouldn’t have to struggle through that
by yourself.
that should be something where you have
a support system that can help you.
so for me and i think for a lot of
people one of the first things that you
want to address
when it comes to mental health is
actually your body’s health.
so trying to get your steps in every day,
just get some movement. for me
it’s yoga. i have to do my yoga every day.
i have to stretch out some of that
tension
that i’ve been holding inside. and i feel
like with yoga, it’s not just focused on
your body like a lot of exercise is. it’s
also focused on
your mind and your soul and your
emotions. so a lot of the time working
through
my emotions, i’m doing that as i’m doing
yoga.
and a lot of yoga includes breath
exercises that can help you to remain
calm
and things like that too. of course you
need to be eating healthfully
as much as you can. for me i love to eat
soup. something about soup is just so
warm
and comforting, and i’m very cold natured.
i’m always freezing.
so something about eating soup really
comforts me
and calms me down. i’ve also recently
talked to my doctor about
possible vitamin deficiencies, because i
do have a little bit of a history
of a bit of an iron deficiency and
having vitamin d
be a little bit low, because obviously i
don’t go out in the sun.
i’m pale. you know i just burn when i go
out in the sun.
and i don’t drink dairy. i never eat
dairy so vitamin d
a little bit of an issue. i have to make
sure that i take a vitamin d supplement.
so if you feel like maybe you’re not
getting the right vitamins, you’re not
getting enough vitamins,
always something that you could easily
get tested
and just see you know. so that can really
play
a huge part sometimes in mental health
and i know that it has for me in the
past.
of course a huge one is you need to be
drinking water. everybody talks about
that but so much of the time when i feel…
i start to feel like, i’m just upset and
i don’t know why,
and then i think, okay when was the last
time you drink some water?
are you are you really upset? or are you
just feeling kind of off because you’re
maybe dehydrated? and of course a big
one for me is that soothing cup of tea.
again i’m always cold.
and so a hot cup of tea can be really
soothing. i love to get me like a
chamomile and lavender tea
right before bed, and that actually it
soothes my body
and so then that soothes my mind as well.
and of course things like getting
enough sleep. oh my goodness!
getting enough sleep is so important for
your mental health.
if i don’t get enough sleep i am like… i
am just a zombie for the whole day and
i’m
snapping at people and i am not myself.
okay the next thing that we’re gonna
take care of in order to take care of
our mental health
is our soul. it is so important to have
a rich and full spiritual life where you
feel like your soul
is nourished on a regular basis. so for
me that means going to church,
connecting with other christians, reading
my bible, staying connected with God,
and of course praying, spending some time
just quietly meditating and praying,
and really kind of connecting with
myself, connecting with my Savior,
connecting with other christians. so much
of that is so important for my soul
health
and my mental health. another huge thing
that really helps
with my mental health is spending time
with my family. i’m very close with my
family. we get along really well.
and if i don’t see them for a few days
or for a week or two
i start to feel like, what am i even
doing with my life? i need my people.
so no matter how busy my schedule gets i
carve out time
for my people. that might be your actual
biological family, or that might just be
like your friends, your family that you
have constructed for yourself.
those are your people. another thing that
really nourishes my soul because i am a
musician
is listening to music and playing music.
i find that if i go a couple of days and
i have not sat down to actually play
music that i enjoy on the piano, i start
to feel
pretty bad. i start to get kind of a mild
depression and my anxiety just
skyrockets.
because sitting down at the piano is
such a
core thing of who i am and
just how i function in this world. so
maybe finding whatever that creative
thing is or whatever that thing is that
you enjoy
so much that you feel like is just
that’s a core function of who i
am and when i do that thing i feel like,
ah,
this is where i belong. this is the thing
that i am meant to be doing.
make time for that thing. so we’ve taken
care of our body. we’ve taken care of our
soul.
let’s think a little more about how we
can take care of our mind.
reading obviously. reading a book that
you really
enjoy, that you’re totally immersed in,
can be so
fantastic for your mental health. and
then
sort of… i feel like the flip side of
that coin
is writing. if you sit down and write in
a journal or just write a silly story
that you’re never gonna show to anybody
or just journaling about how you feel.
journaling about what is making you
stressed out can be so so helpful.
one thing that i try to do every day is
i try to spend at least a couple of
minutes at least a few minutes
in meditation. so my mind will just be
racing all the time. like i… i literally
cannot stop my thoughts from just racing
all over the place.
so in meditation i try to focus. i try to
calm down those thoughts.
and it really really does help me to
kind of
find a moment of peace in my day.
something else that has really helped me
especially in the last year has been to
minimize the news.
i really feel like i’m such a sensitive
soul. i just cannot
handle the news. i try to get like the
main highlights
of what’s going on in the world and then
the rest of it i’m like,
nope. i don’t need that in my life. you’re
stressing me out over there with all
your crazy news stories.
i don’t want it. another thing that
people might talk about sometimes and
that some people might sort of just
discredit is aromatherapy.
man, when i start freaking out
about something that is going on and it
is stressing me out so much
and i’m so… i’m so angry or i’m so upset
or i’m about to cry,
man, if i can just get like a little bit
of lavender essential oil.
i mean i know you guys are like, oh boy,
here she goes essential oils. but
that really pleasant scent really helps
me to calm down.
instead of focusing on whatever that’s
stressing me out, i have a little moment
to
stop and focus on a pleasant scent.
and then that helps me to kind of detach
myself from whatever it is that’s making
me upset
and it encourages me to take deep
breaths
and it helps me to calm down. if you
haven’t tried it, i really encourage you
to
look up aromatherapy. especially lavender
can be really calming.
it’s one of my favorite scents and it’s
just one of those tiny little things
that can really be helpful. alright so
those are all of the self-care
things and all of the kind of calming
tools that i will use
to manage my anxiety, my mild depression,
and whenever i’m just getting stressed
out. but recently and i mean recently
like in the last couple of days,
i came up against a very difficult
situation.
i was getting really upset. i could not
stop crying.
i just kept going over and over and over
it in my mind like just
saying the same things to myself over
and over again in my mind, and like
replaying
the situation that it made me upset. and
they said that. and i said this. and they
said that. and i should have said this,
but i didn’t!
and just… oh my goodness! i was spiraling
guys.
i was spiraling. so i
took a breath. tried to calm myself down.
it really wasn’t working.
and i thought of a meditation technique
about how you can
sort of detach yourself from the
situation and try to look at it
the way you imagine another person would
look at it.
and i had the idea to actually review
my day as if i were reviewing a book
that i had just read. as if that day
today
and that difficult situation and my
response to it
were all part of a story, and this is
just a chapter
in a story that i’m reading, and how
would i review
my day. because i write a lot of book
reviews y’all.
i mean last year i wrote over 400
book reviews in 2020 alone. that’s more
than a book review a day.
so like this is …this is a thing that i
do.
why not turn it around to be
a coping mechanism for stress? so i’m
going to read to you guys
the book review that i wrote of my
stressful day this past week.
i gave my day a rating. 3 out of 5 stars.
our main character kailey had a tough
situation in this chapter
but she handled it with grace and
patience.
what a cool and complex character! then
she went home and cried about it
but she had some supporting characters
who rallied around her
with prayer and encouragement. i loved
the emotional storyline
and the challenges that the main
character had to face.
i was on the edge of my seat with all
this nervous dread
to see how it would turn out at the end
of the day. it’s so great to see this
character
achieving her dreams in the face of
opposition.
the writing style was a little too
jumbled with overthinking
but the character made an effort to stay
calm
and focus on Christ during this minor
crisis.
i liked the part where she prayed and
read bible verses.
overall a pretty dramatic chapter with
some anxiety,
but the way it was handled was very
encouraging and sweet.
characters: 4 out of 5 stars. anxiety: 1
out of 5 stars.
prayer: 10 stars. and God doing his thing:
20 stars. so i tried to completely
shift my thinking around. instead of
thinking,
this person said that, and i was trying
not to lose my temper.
instead i said, i handled it with grace
and patience
in the face of this opposition. instead
of thinking,
oh i’m so upset about this i went home
and cried about it for hours.
i put it in my book review, no okay i was
crying
but i had some really supportive people
who were texting me and calling me and
praying with me and encouraging me. so
i’ve taken the focus off,
oh i was upset and crying, and now the
focus is on
encouragement and prayer .and a lot of
the time when i go down that spiral of
overthinking, i will be
so mad and frustrated with myself. why
can’t you stop thinking about this?
why are you like this? why can’t you just
get over it?
you know, why are you always overthinking
everything?
and then five minutes later i’m right
back thinking about the same thing again.
so i acknowledged that in my review, that
i was overthinking, but
i wrote in, the character made an effort
to stay calm
and focused. so i tend to beat myself up
about the things that i feel like i’m
doing ‘wrong’. you cried about it. you over-
thought. but the truth is there are
positive
things in there as well. so instead of
beating myself
up, if i think about myself as i would
think about a character in a story
it actually really helps me to see…
kailey you’re okay.
you’re doing the best you can in a
difficult circumstance,
and there are some good things that
happened in this day and there are some
bad things that happened in this day,
and you handled it and it was actually
fine. i mean
if i had really read a book about a
character who was going through what i’m
going through,
i would have a lot of compassion on that
character. so why am i so hard on myself?
why can’t i have that compassion for
myself?
so i found that this exercise of writing
a book review
of my day and thinking of myself as a
character in a story
really helped me to get some distance
from everything that i was experiencing
and be able to think about it in a more
balanced way,
to recognize there were bad things and
there were good things.
so it really just pulled me out of that
spiral of overthinking,
that spiral of self-criticism,
and it helped me to reevaluate my day.
it helped me to look at it… it from a
different perspective.
and now a couple of days later, i’m fine.
like
i had some anxiety, i dealt with it, you
know. the next few days
have been drama free, so i… i’m not upset
anymore. i’m okay.
at least until the next incident.
i hope that you found some of these
things helpful and i hope that maybe
you’ll try
my little trick of you know writing your
life
as if it was a book review. please leave
me a comment down below.
and please feel free to share about your
own mental health
or little tips and tricks of things that
you do to help yourself stay calm.
i really hope that this can kind of open
a dialogue and be a safe place for
everybody
to you know maybe share if you feel like
sharing
about your own mental health journey.
thanks for watching. please subscribe and
remember
the right book in the right hands at the
right time can change the world.