Ways To Heal Mentally and Emotionally, When You Can't Afford Therapy

By Ella Neve

In an age where being the best version of your inner self is just as trendy as living your best life on social media, everyone’s looking for the cheap hacks to achieve the “self love nirvana” many influencers preach about. Therapy is many people’s dream, but without the funds it can lack in accessibility. And in many cases, even if you have the money, therapy can be a “get what you pay for” situation. Unfortunately due to covid, the complications of an online therapist is enough to turn many away. If accesibility and pricing weren’t enough, many of us downright dont have time to dedicate 50 minutes in our weekly schedule to unpack our emotions. Despite some popular opinions, a hot bath and nail color change often is not the answer to our root problems, so below, we’ve listed 6 ways to start on the journey to being just a little bit better everyday.

Write It Out

Journaling is a highly recommended start to practice self awareness and selfcare. Allowing yourself to write for no one else, gives you the opportunity to produce something physical as a representation of what’s inside of you. There’s no money needed, its already inside of you. Studies show journaling can help to improve moods as well as set goals. Looking inward can allow you to learn more about what your thought process looks like, retrace your steps, and learn the thoughts that trigger you and the thoughts that help you cope. Chances are, whatever you’re working to accomplish whether that be improving productivity, working through your feelings, or simply getting to know yourself better, journaling can be used for all those goals, and more!

Meditation

Meditation is the perfect small commitment for all our multitasking, to-do list readers. The internet is filled with videos, apps, and step by step guides on how to find your inner peace through meditation. Most meditation tutorials options are free, accessible, and can work within a time constraint. Taking small, manageable steps to clear out your mind clutter has been drastically proven to reduce anxiety and depression. Operating with a settled mind opens the door for opportunites to align with the purposes that serve and fufill you.

Breathing exercises

Similar to meditation, the benefits of deep breathing go far beyond the mental impacts. Aside from the commonly known benefits like lowering blood pressure and decreasing heart rate, practicing deep breathing helps to stimulate the vagus nerve. This nerve controls your parasympathetic nervous system which helps you to relax. Alternatively, when you’re feeling stressed, typically that means your sympathetic nervous system has determined you are in a fight or flight situation and has triggered the body to release adrenaline and speed up your heart beat. Regaining control of your vagus nerve can act as a way to get control of your nervous response system faster. Taking deep rhythmic breaths can even help to push out old carbon dioxide in your lungs which can even increase your lungs functioning. 

Green healing (hot girl walk)

The most popular self care trend right now: the hot girl walk. Studies have been showing for decades that nature and movement everyday drastically improve your mood, but give the internet a fun drink and a perfect playlist you'll have every girl hooked on the adrenaline of a hot girl walk. The idea of green healing was pioneered by Dr. Quing Li, a professor at a medical school in tokyo. He found spending 2 hours in nature alone can improve quality of sleep by 15%, increase cancer-fighting, white blood cells, and significantly decrease stress hormones like cortisol. If your schedule is tight, even playing nature sounds while you work can help to activate your parasympathetic nervous system.

Clubbing together (no, not that kind)

Although hitting the club with your friends can be therapeutic in itself, the kind of clubbing we're talking about hits a more relaxing note. A recent study shows that group affiliation, like a club, can help with current depressive episodes and even go as far as to prevent future depressive episodes. Any new hobbies you're looking for? Research smaller events or even classes near you that center on something you're interested in, the connection is what matters, so think quality over quantity. Professor Catherine Haslam from University of Queensland states,“Social groups have this impact because they provide us with a sense of meaning, purpose and belonging, the means to enhance self-esteem and perceived control, as well as access to social support.” Not only have studies shown that social isolation is a greater threat to health than “smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise”, but also Haslam found that adding this kind of habitual human interaction under a common interest in your life can be more effective in reducing loneliness and social anxiety than prescribed antidepressants. 

Habits to be 1% Better

At the end of the day, we are imperfect humans, none of us can be expected to be on top of our jobs, education, social life, significant others, mental health, physical health, family, and the list goes on. In Atomic Habits by James Clear, Clear discusses how attempting to be just 1% better everyday would make you 37x better in a year. In today’s society it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you're not good enough, that you're the reason why things aren't going well. In Atomic Habits, Clear addresses this societal expectation and encourages everyone to examine their system for maintaining good habits and working on self improvement. He adds that typically the issue is not the person but the system, and that many of us have just not found the perfect system that helps us to stick to the things we want to accomplish. Clear’s website adds, “Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don’t want to change but because you have the wrong system for change. This is one of the core philosophies of Atomic Habits: You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. In this book, you’ll get a proven plan that can take you to new heights.” Regardless of your position in life, try to go easy on yourself and remember healing is never linear, we will all have bad days, weeks, and months, on the road to a more fulfilling inner self. Be proud of yourself for the days you make the effort regardless of how you see the results.