Many of us can acknowledge the value and importance of self-worth. Higher our self-esteem, we feel better about ourselves and are more resilient. When your self-esteem is higher, you are also less vulnerable to anxiety and stress. Even though it is great to have higher self-esteem, improving our self-esteem is no easy task.

The act of journaling has many known benefits for cognition and overall mental health. Journaling helps to reduce stress, set goals, increase overall mood, cope with daily problems, reflect, and increase your memory. While journaling does have these benefits, a lot of times it is hard to know where to start when beginning this process. You may be wondering, what do I write about? While there are no set requirements for journaling because it is an avenue of personal expression and reflection, but seemingly this process can still present as intimidating.

As we start the New Year, the phrase “new year, new me” often resurfaces. This phrase brings up many different thoughts and reactions, first starting with, why do you need to create a “new you”? This has the connotation that you need to completely recreate yourself. Rather, why not focus on crafting the best version of yourself. The New Year tends to bring pressure to create a big resolution, but often these goals do not seem attainable and are often forgotten. This year, instead of formulating one overarching specific resolution, why not try something new? The following are just some ideas of how to be kinder to yourself while creating goals.

When one is feeling depressed and anxious, the G.L.A.D. technique is a grounding skill one can use to be more mindful in the moment and to experience positive distraction until strong negative emotions pass, as to reduce the possibility of impulsive reactions as impulsive reactions may not be an effective response in the moment. Try this practice out daily in order to notice positive shifts daily.

May is Meditation Month however it doesn’t just need to be May to practice the daily benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness is the practice of staying present, and focusing on the moment. Research shows that practicing mindfulness through meditation or other relaxation strategies daily can lead to many benefits for both our physical and emotional wellbeing.

How do we develop compassion? There are a few ways. Try to schedule time to implement self-compassion each week. Once a day, every few days, tailor a schedule that works best for you and dedicate a few moments to note these stressors and diligently preclude self-admonishment with self-kindness. Then increase the time periods in your compassion calendar to include these measures of mindfulness.

Self-compassion is thought of as giving yourself the same compassion you’d give others. That means that self-compassion involves comforting and taking care of yourself. Self-compassion includes skills like mindful awareness, self-acceptance, living your values, and loving-kindness. When we have self-compassion, we can identify when we fail to meet our standards or live our values, but we don’t judge ourselves so much. That’s why self-compassion may help us increase feelings of happiness and well-being.

We can improve feelings of happiness through changing our thoughts, behaviors, and circumstances. Research has largely focused on changing our thoughts with lots of published strategies to help with changing our thoughts. Within this there are some strategies that you can use to change negative thoughts into being more positive, and thus happier overall.

COVID-19 has brought us a year of anxious uncertainty. Sheltering in place, working remotely, or facing daily hazards as essential workers, we’ve been unable to see our extended families, meet a friend for coffee, or even go to the gym, a sports game, concert, or movie. Some of us have lost loved ones, leaving a heartbreaking hole in our lives. All of us have lost touch with the normal rhythms of life. With no breaks in routine and fewer simple pleasures, the past few months have been an endless blur. Recent studies have shown that depression rates in America have tripled since the pandemic began (Berman, 2020).

Our relationship with ourselves is often at the core of other challenges such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, or difficulties in relationships. How do we shift to seeing ourselves and treating ourselves the same way we treat others? If we can learn to be our own friends and practice self-compassion, we can boost our spirits and alleviate some of the struggles leading to that increased critical voice.