Fake it to make it is not just for projecting success. It can also be used for conditioning our emotions, in improving our mood.
It’s not about denying what you feel, but knowing that you want to consciously change it. Studies have been conducted showing the effects of smiling, the smile that reaches the eye muscles, to feel better. Aside from ending up laughing because you’d feel silly faking a smile by yourself, the smile has a relaxing effect as well.
Other than smiling, there are other things we could do to make us feel physically unburdened from anxieties and stress.
Cutting hair or getting a new hairstyle
Because your hair has some weight however light it is, when you cut it your head will of course feel lighter. How our hair stays limp and covers our face or how it’s bouncy and flutters in a slight breeze could also make us feel heavier or more carefree. Also, it’s understandable why women who want to feel better buy hair care products online. A good hairstyle could immediately make you look good and thus feel good. That’s how the phrase, a good hair day, has become popular after all.
Scrubbing off dead skin
With a facial treatment, the oil and dead skin cells are scraped off your face, leaving you with smoother, fresh-looking skin. Extending it to your whole body by getting a good scrub or getting a more convenient spa treatment would of course also extend the over-all feeling of freshness. And you would also see it in your brighter complexion. The entire process of shedding your old skin would feel like a ritual of being renewed.
Getting a full body massage
While your skin will visibly give the message to your brain about your new self, you also need to work on your insides. First, get those muscles that had been twisted by stress smoothed out. Your shoulders would feel more relaxed and unburdened. A full body massage will also improve the circulation of your blood, making you feel more invigorated.
Detoxifying food
The best would be to hit the exercise room, sweat it out and feel lighter even just a few pounds. But depending on your body composition, losing weight may not be that fast. However, detoxification through food or drinks yields a faster result. Since you’d immediately excrete the toxins from your body, and you’d smell it too, you’d instantly feel better.
Improving the way we dress
Being restricted mostly at home in the past, we might have gotten used to just wearing pajamas and sweatshirts the entire day. Now is the time to bring out the clothes we used to wear when going to work or hanging out with friends. It doesn’t matter if you’re just staying at home. When you need to work, dress as if you’re going to work.
Making sure that you still go through the routines of preparing for work had been recommended at the start of the pandemic when we worked from home. Unfortunately, many of us didn’t heed it and went on video calls by just putting on a coat that would hide their shabby clothes. Going back to our usual mindset of dressing to impress would consequently replace our depressing feelings and the anxieties we felt when we were cooped up at home.
Getting rid of clutter and restyling your home
Our mind can be conditioned by what our senses perceive. For example, if we see documents and maybe our laptops when we’re already in bed trying to sleep, our brain automatically associates these things with work. Most likely, we will find ourselves thinking about our schedule the following day, the things that still need to be done, and consequently end up sleeping later.
So what we would want to have now is a home that wouldn’t remind us of the stresses we had to undergo the previous year. If you associate a sofa with your days of being in front of the TV set, feeling unproductive, scared, and suffocated, it would be better if you get fresh, new furniture.
If you can’t afford to buy a new one, there are several cheaper ways to achieve a new look for your living room. You could change your throw pillows, put out a sofa blanket, or change the upholstery. Move around the things as well so that you get a different feel of the room.
So many things have been said about mental conditioning. Many of them rely on the mental strength of a person, like consciously shifting thoughts, doing meditation, and a lot of work that’s also very much inside our brains. However, there could be conditions we couldn’t focus our minds to do that. Rather than feeling worse because our mind is not strong enough, it’s better to do something physical to gradually but firmly change our frame of mind.
