Tips for Calming Your Mind and Improving Self-Esteem

Even though it may be normal to feel low from time to time, if you frequently find that you're feeling bad about yourself, you might have low self-esteem. Often, this can be a result of childhood experiences, or even things that happened later in life that made you feel inadequate. While some may feel stuck with poor self-esteem, the reality is that you don't have to let it hold you back. It might not seem easy at first, but there are things you can do to start improving your self-esteem, calming your mind, and feeling better about yourself. If you are looking for ways to help reduce your anxiety and to start feeling better about who you are, then here are some things to try. 

Eat a Healthier Diet

One of the easiest places to start when it comes to improving how you feel is with your diet. Each meal you eat directly impacts how you feel physically, and by extension how you feel mentally and emotionally. The more that you eat junk foods that are high in refined carbs and sugars, the more that you will feel sluggish and exhausted, which can in turn worsen self-esteem and make it more difficult for you to make other changes that would boost your mood and outlook. By eating a diet that is full of nutrient-dense foods, you can not only help ensure that you are feeling better physically, but you can also help improve your energy levels and attitude overall. 

Try New Herbs

Along with including more healthy foods into your daily routine, it can also be helpful to include different kinds of herbs as well. Whether you try herbal teas or cbd capsules there can be many different ways to include supportive herbs into your health regimen. Not only do many herbs have health supporting properties, but many of them are also great for helping to ease tension and stress, which can be contributors to poor self-esteem. 

Get the Sleep You Need

Getting plenty of sleep is another essential component of supporting both your body and your mental health. When you sleep, your body undergoes many healing processes that not only repair your organs, but also help to process your emotions and stressors that you have experienced throughout the day. If you don't sleep, or don't get enough sleep, your body will not be able to carry out these processes, and you will likely wake up the next day feeling exhausted, disoriented, and in a poor mood. While it may not always be easy to get the 8 hours you need to be fully rested, there are things you can do to help improve your sleep quality and quantity. One thing is to cut down on screen time, especially before bed. Even though some may think that watching TV or scrolling through feeds on their phone is an acceptable way to relax at night, the truth is that screens emit a light that signals to your brain that you should stay awake. Another way to help ensure that you get quality sleep is to make sure you have a bedroom that is cool, dark, and quiet so that you aren't dealing with discomfort or distractions when it is time to sleep. 

Practice Yoga and Mindfulness

Something else that can be great for boosting your self-esteem and increasing feelings of calm is exercising, especially a relaxing exercise like yoga. Yoga can not only help you to increase muscle tone and flexibility which can be great for your self-esteem, but it can also help to calm your mind and boost your brain's production of feel-good chemicals like serotonin and endorphins. Along with beginning a yoga practice, it can also be a good idea to start a mindfulness practice as well. Mindfulness, or meditation can be great for calming your mind, and clearing out negative thoughts. Over time this can help reduce stress and even help make your mind more resilient to stress in general. 

Keep a Journal

When it comes to healing your self-esteem, taking care of your physical body is an important part of it. However, you also need to take time to work on your emotions and mental attitudes as well. One good way to begin doing this is to keep a journal. Journaling can be a great way not only to release negative emotions by getting them down on paper, but it can also be a good way to track your growth process as well. Because it can help provide an emotional release, journaling can be a great stress-reliever, and can help you to calm down when you are experiencing turbulent emotions. Along with that, it can help you to get in better touch with what your deeply-held thoughts and beliefs are, and aid you in getting to the root of your self-esteem issues. 

Take Up a Hobby

Taking up a hobby can be another great way not only to calm your nerves, but also to help boost your self-esteem, as well. Whether you enjoy reading, gardening, fishing or drawing there are many different kinds of activities that can not only provide you a sense of relaxation while you are doing them, but can also increase your self-esteem as you get better at them, too. The more that you work towards a goal or watch yourself improve at a task, the more that you can gain a sense of pride in your achievements and feel a sense of accomplishment that can be great for your self-esteem in the short term, but also in the long term as you build your skills.

Have Healthy Relationships

Another way to help increase your self-esteem is to work on maintaining healthy relationships. Relationships, whether they are romantic relationships, family relationships or friendships are important to your emotional health, and can have a direct impact on your self-esteem as a result. Not only does having positive, healthy relationships help you to feel better about yourself, but they can be part of a great support system when you are struggling and in need of help. The more that you maintain strong and healthy connections with those close to you, the more that you will feel comfortable going to them when you need help, and the easier it will be for you to bounce back from difficult times. 

Tune Out Your Inner Critic

One major contributor to a poor or low self-esteem is an inner critic. Most have an internal voice that is critical, but may not even realize it because they are not tuned in to their own self-talk. The reality is that this voice can be dragging you down and perpetuating negative thoughts without you even realizing it. Even if you think that you are generally a positive person, it can be a good idea to take some time to turn inward and listen for the inner critic inside. The more that you can zero in on some negative thoughts that you are habitually thinking, the more that you will be able to discover the roots of your self-esteem issues, and begin to reverse some of your negative thoughts. By stopping a negative thought when you experience it and reminding yourself of some positive aspects of yourself instead, you can help to slowly erase your inner critic from your thoughts and improve your self-esteem as a result. 

Embrace the Positive

While you are learning to tune in to your inner critic and analyze the negative thoughts that may be keeping you down, you also need to take some time to tune in to the positives in your life. The stronger that your inner critic is, the more difficult that this may feel. However, it is still very important to take time to recognize the positive aspects of your life and appreciate them. Some ways to help put the positives at the forefront of your mind can include doing things like keeping a gratitude journal, or saying affirmations to yourself. By keeping a gratitude journal and reminding yourself of the things in your life that you feel grateful to have, you can help shift your perspective of your life overall, and begin to see it in a better light. By doing affirmations you can begin to build up more positive thoughts in your mind that will help crowd out some of the negative ones that are keeping you down. Another benefit of affirmations is that you can tailor them specifically to what you need to hear the most, or the kinds of positive thoughts that would have the most impact for you. 

Parting Thoughts

Dealing with low or poor self-esteem can be difficult. Not only does it impact your mental and emotional health, but it can bleed into other areas of your life and end up impacting things like your career and relationships as well. While it may not always feel easy to deal with poor self-esteem, the reality is that there are things you can do to help improve it and start feeling better about yourself today.