Sustainable Self-Care: 16 Ways To Look After Yourself & The Planet
We list 16 simple sustainable ways to care for and restore your mental wellbeing that won’t cost a lot or even a thing, or cause unnecessary waste, extraction from, or harm to the Earth.
Self-care is vital for restoring a sense of self, critical for mental and physical health, and indispensable if we’re going to be successful in regenerating our planet and rebuilding the world we want.
Restoring ourselves should not involve the destruction of or damaging the Earth. Hurting nature and the planet hurts us. We are nature. We are of the Earth. This is counterintuitive, and we cannot regenerate ourselves by endangering the planet we live on and thus ourselves. And there are many ways we can rejuvenate and care for ourselves while caring for and restoring our planet.
Connecting with the natural world, our inner creativity, our community and each other, and dreaming of a better world and working to regenerate our home and rebuild a greener and fairer society holds benefits for all of the natural world, including us.
Buying does not make us happy. This is a myth sold to us to keep us buying unnecessary possessions. It may provide a momentary distraction and dopamine hit, but it soon fades. Overconsumption affects our health, our happiness, and our planet.
The Story Of Stuff shares that national happiness has actually been declining in the US according to polls, with national happiness “peaking sometime in the 1950s, the same time as consumption mania exploded”.
Affluenza, which is the addiction to economic growth and personal material gain, often results in high levels of disappointment and depression, Psychologist, Oliver James imparts, adding that “you cannot profit or buy your way into joy”. While another psychologist, Tim Kasser has demonstrated that there is a connection between an excessively materialistic outlook and increased levels of anxiety and depression.
“Mania for individual satisfaction and this idea that buying and collecting more stuff will make us happy has produced a spectacularly unequal world, and it has, in my opinion, left people less fulfilled and more empty inside”
Carl Cederström, author of The Happiness Fantasy
Burnout - exhaustion from overworking - is common among eco-activists. It is important to recognise the signs and take regular time out for yourself so that you don’t burn out. For more on identifying and avoiding activist burnout, read Eco Warrior Princess’ blog post on the issue.
For 16 simple things that are proven to improve mental wellbeing that won’t cost a lot or even a thing, or cause unnecessary extraction from or harm to the Earth, keep reading!
1. Do Nothing; Just Exist & Watch The World Go By
When last did you just sit and do nothing? So much is vying for our attention these days it is hard to ignore everything and simply stare off into the distance without something pulling at our mind or pinging in our pockets.
Research has found that we are slowly but surely losing our ability to be still and do nothing because our brains are now wired to oppose any kind of effort to be inactive! Continuously being busy is also not good for our health, with medical research findings indicating that an overly busy life is frequently the cause of burnout, anxiety disorders, insomnia, depression and heart-related problems.
Niksen or the art of doing nothing is a Dutch concept and is practised by slowing down and celebrating the “moment of not achieving”, according to Caroline Janssen, author of Niksen: The Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. While, La Dolce Far Niente, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing", is an Italian concept for piddling around.
Simply stare out the window, sit at a coffee shop and watch the world go by, lounge on the couch and just hang out with your pet, lay on your bed and listen to music, watch a fireplace burn, or stretch out in a park and gaze at the sky, watching clouds go by.
You don’t always have to be doing something. Be idle, give your mind a break, and teach it that it is okay to just stop churning and just chill.
The Art of Doing Nothing book (US here / AU & UK here) is a great resource for reading more on this!
2. Go Outside For a Relaxing Walk - In Nature If Possible
Clear your mind by going for a walk and getting some fresh air (and hopefully some sunshine) if your brain is foggy, you’re unfocused and/or you have a headache.
Ways in which walking help our mental health, according to The MindShift Foundation’s Clinical Psychologist Dr Lars Madsen, are: stress relief (it increases concentrations of brain chemicals that moderate our response to stress), mood boost (releases endorphins), alleviates anxiety (chemicals released help maintain a sense of calm), increases relaxation (aids sleep), and improves self-worth (physical fitness can improve self-image).
In fact, “walking is one of the best non-drug related ways to assist in controlling mental health conditions”, according to Dr Madsen. Walking also has heaps of other health benefits and keeps us active.
Walk around and explore a natural environment, if possible. Being in nature is proven to have a calming effect on the mind, it promotes mindfulness and gratitude, and it encourages healthy physical activity, a major factor in battling depression, RtoR notes. It adds that simply reconnecting with nature has also been shown to ease symptoms of depression and experiencing natural light improves our sleep patterns (poor quality sleep can have a negative impact on mental health).
Being in nature ground us and gives us a sense of peace. Also, importantly, connecting with nature makes us want to protect nature, and if you’re already an eco warrior, it can renew hope, provide inspiration, and remind you what you’re fighting for.
3. Get Gardening & Get In Touch With Some Mood-Boosting Soil
I never thought I would be a gardener and I was unable to keep a plant alive for many years, but my balcony garden is now my happy place and brings me so much peace and joy. When I need time off from all that’s going on in the world, I spend some time with my plant babies, and I’ve found going out to give them some care each morning to be a great start to the day.
Gardening can reduce stress, improve mood, and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, and it also provides a real sense of achievement, which boosts confidence and self-esteem, Thrive, which uses gardening to bring about positive changes in the lives of people living with disabilities or ill health, or who are isolated, disadvantaged or vulnerable, says. It adds, “There’s also good evidence that just looking at a green space has positive effects on people’s mental health, helping them relax and de-stress.”
Also, there are antidepressant microbes in soil! Soil microbes and human health have a positive link that has been studied and found to be verifiable. Mycobacterium vaccae in soil has been found to “mirror the effect on neurons that drugs like Prozac provide” and “may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier”. Amazing!
And that’s just some of the many benefits of gardening - Happy DIY Home has listed 25 benefits of gardening!
There are also knock-on benefits, as plants improve air quality and are nice to look at, bee-friendly plants help save the bees, and food plants provide food, negating all food packaging and food miles (truly zero waste food!) and increasing our self-resiliency, so get planting in your garden, on your windowsill, on your balcony, or help out at a community garden.
4. Enjoy a Zero Waste Pamper Session
Schedule a self-care Saturday or Sunday sesh and pamper yourself with zero waste products that you have DIYed or bought from a local small business! There’s is no doubt that we feel rejuvenated after taking some extra time out to give ourselves some extra primping and preening.
According to experts, specifically the ones at Pain Doctor, pampering ourselves is a relaxing activity that triggers the production of feel-good hormones like serotonin and oxytocin, reduces the stress levels and impacts, and even improves cellular function. Pampering ourselves also results in less inflammation, more restful sleep, and an improved body image.
Low to zero waste ways to pamper yourself:
slather on a face mask or hair mask: and wile away the hours until it can come off! There are loads of DIY recipes - we share one which involves saving overripe avocado from being wasted here - and lots of low waste options to buy like clay face masks (AU here / CAN/US here / UK here), hair masks in glass jars (UK here / AU/US/CAN here), and individual conditioning hair mask cubes in cardboard (UK here)
slip into a bathtub with a bath bomb: these can also be made yourself or buy one from a small local business like Sleep Soak (AU), a home garage-based zero waste bath bomb business in Ivanhoe, Melbourne - search Etsy to find one near you (suss out how it is packaged and avoid the ones packaged in plastic)
exfoliate your whole body and/or your face with a natural exfoliator and exfoliant: make sure not to use one with plastic beads! We have a recipe for a homemade version using used coffee grounds here or support a small business that sells one (lots on Etsy!). Loofah, sisal, and coconut fibres are examples of excellent natural body scrubbers (AU / CAN/US / UK)
give yourself a self-massage or get someone to give you a massage: massage oils and body oils for massages can be bought in glass bottles (worldwide)
5. Do Something; Take Action On An Environmental Issue
Feeling frustrated about the situation the world is in? Angry and overwhelmed? Doing what you can about it in some way and taking action to create the world you want to live in or you want your children to live in can go a long way to feeling less anxious and more in control.
The opposite of another mental health helper we’ve mentioned, namely doing nothing, doing something can help to soothe issues like eco-anxiety.
This can take away the feeling of helplessness that fuels eco-anxiety, as well as alleviate feelings of guilt about the impact that your behaviour may be having on the environment (note: individual actions can only help so much and that governments and industry need to do some heavy lifting so you shouldn’t feel guilty for not making changes you can’t realistically make right now).
Examples given by Medical News Today are: talking to others about good environmental practices, volunteering with an environmental group, and making greener choices. It adds that helping others has well-established psychological benefits.
Increasing your self-sufficiency by learning new skills that will make you less reliant on consumerism and more prepared for the future will also foster feelings of being prepared rather than feeling in danger.
In addition, accepting that we can’t get where we want to be through individual action has therapeutic benefits, according to Emma Marris, an environment writer and activist, who suggests focusing efforts on changing systems, not yourself.
Examples of this are: letting your MP, local councillors and mayor know that you think action on climate change is important, and writing to your bank or pension provider to ask if you can opt out of funds that invest in fossil fuels.
6. Express or Calm Yourself Through Art
Whether you are a true artist or truly terrible at it, drawing, painting or making something is a way to practice mindfulness, which is a way of managing mental health and improving emotional well-being.
“The relationship between the arts and mental health is well established in the field of art therapy, which applies arts-based techniques … as evidence-based interventions for mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression,” The Conversation notes.
Just put pencil or paint to paper and doodle or get a colouring book to colour in, start making things out of clay, or get stencilling and stamping. Whatever takes your fancy and takes your mind from worrying to too busy working on a masterpiece.
7. Escape Reality For a Bit By Reading A Good Book
Reading a good book is a perfect way to escape reality for a while. Get sucked into another world and take your brain on a holiday by reading a good book.
Not only a good healthy form of escapism, it has been found that 30 minutes of reading lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and feelings of psychological distress just as effectively as yoga and humour by a study on the effects of yoga, humour, and reading on stress levels!
Books can also lessen people with depression’s feelings of isolated and estrangement from others and they help you get a good night’s sleep.
8. Engage in Meaningful Joyful Planet-friendly Daily Rituals
Make time in your day every day for moments of joy and acts of self love like tea ceremonies, affirmations, journaling, breathing exercises, and expressing gratitude. Engaging in daily rituals and ceremonies for self love are a vital element of self care.
Daily affirmations provide confidence and clarity, tea ceremonies provide calm and focus, journalling helps organise your mind, straighten your priorities, and the making of good decisions, and expressing gratitude for something daily encourages gratefulness and seeing the good so we aren’t overwhelmed by the bad.
Whatever moment in your day makes you feel content and in control, make it a ritual.
9. Do Yoga and Practice Meditation
Not something I do or am good at doing personally (although I have really enjoyed it when I have, I’ve always struggled to get into a routine of doing yoga and/or meditation), but something that is well-known to have many mental health benefits.
There are numerous studies that show that contemplative techniques like meditation and yoga that encourage relaxation and reduce stress help with mental disorders like anxiety, stress, depression, and panic. Harvard Health notes that yoga functions like a self-soothing technique - “by reducing perceived stress and anxiety, yoga appears to modulate stress response systems”. And Better Health explains that “meditation produces a clearing of the mind in ways that promote a sense of calm and heightened awareness”.
Doing yoga and meditating regularly enhances health and reduces stress, depression, and anxiety.
10. Connect and Laugh With Those You Love
Get together with family and friends and talk and laugh the day/night away. Spending time with people who make us feel good and feel loved make us feel good and loved.
And laughter is scientifically proven to benefit mental health. The benefits of laughter include stress reduction, strengthened social connections, and the release of endorphins, according to Newport Academy. Laughter also decreases anger and can defuse anger, conflict, and self-blame, eases distressing emotions, counteracting feelings of anxiety and sadness and helps release grief, and relaxes and revitalises us.
And it and beloved family and friends just bring more joy and fun into our lives!
11. Take a Break From Technology/Your Phone/Social Media and/or The News
Put your phone on silent and send it to the timeout corner for a few hours or a full day. It is liberating! Since I started putting my phone on silent, I feel much more at peace and less like I’m constantly at my phone’s beck and call.
Of course this isn’t an option all the time for everyone. A lot of people need their phone off silent for work for instance, but try turning it off or on silent after work hours or on weekends if you can, and choose a day or two to not go on the apps.
Taking a break from your phone and social media takes away the pressure of always having to keep up, to post something, to reply straight away. It improves focus and enables enjoyment of the present.
Using social media too much undermines our sense of wellbeing and can lead to symptoms of depression, and it impacts our self-esteem and self-acceptance, as well as our satisfaction with our own life, Bupa notes. A study has found that life satisfaction and the amount of positive emotions experienced can increase when taking a break from social media.
“A constant stream of sensational or "disaster" reporting, whether you are exposed actively or passively, can elevate stress levels and trigger symptoms like anxiety and trouble sleeping,” Verywell Mind notes. This is why it is necessary to take a break from watching the news when you’re feeling overwhelmed by current events. It is important to stay informed, however, so a balance between being on top of things but not weighed down by things needs to be struck.
12. Dance!
Let go, shake your booty and shake it off! Get out of a funk by getting down to some funk.
Dancing boosts our mood and has been scientifically proven to reduce depression. “‘Letting loose’ helps improve your mental and emotional health by reducing stress, decreasing the symptoms of anxiety and depression, and boosting your self-esteem,” Healthline imparts.
And, of course it also has physical health benefits.
Sign up for dance classes, find dance YouTube videos to follow along, or just put on your favourite song and pull you best moves up when you need a pick-me-up.
13. Find an Animal to Pat or Be Your Companion
Animals are some of the best stress-relievers there are. I may be biased as a vert nurse, but they bring so much joy and unconditional love into your life.
There is lots of research supporting the mood-enhancing benefits of pets, as well as the social support, stress relief, and general health benefits they bring. Verywell Mind notes that those with pets are less likely to suffer depression, anxiety and loneliness, and they are more likely to go for a walk and spend time outdoors, which has its own mental health benefits.
Just the act of touching an animal, for example petting a dog, lowers our blood pressure!
Sit and pat your dog or cat or someone else’s dog or cat when stressed to help calm you, spend some quality time with your or a friend’s pet, or take a shelter dog for a walk, help out at a shelter or foster or adopt an animal for companionship.
14. Eat More Fruit & Vegetables
Stress and depression often lead to cravings for unhealthy foods like chocolate bars and fries. However, giving into these cravings for junk food (which is almost always packaged in plastic) only makes us feel worse, as what we eat affects our mental health and wellbeing as well as our physical health and the health of the planet.
What we choose to put in our bodies three meals a day is incredibly important to the health and wellbeing of the Earth and ourselves.
High levels of wellbeing are reported by individuals who ate more fruit and vegetables, which is also better for the planet. Among Professor Felice Jacka, director of the Food and Mood Centre’s tips for eating a healthier diet for your mental health is to try to avoid eating too much red meat.
A poor diet with high levels of saturated fat, refined carbohydrates and processed food products is linked to poorer mental health in children and adolescents. This is generally poorer for the planet as these foods will have covered many food miles and will come highly packaged.
A poor diets makes us feel sluggish and low, and it increase symptoms of depression and anxiety, Headspace notes. It lists colourful fruits and vegetables, foods high in fibre (wholegrain cereals and bread, beans, chickpeas, lentils and nuts), fermented foods like unsweetened yogurt, olive oil, and fish as foods that are good for a healthy mind.
If you need a sweet pick-me-up treat, eat some fruit or make stuffed dates, bliss balls, chocolate peanut butter cups, oat cookies, or chocolate bark, or if you’re craving something savoury, make popcorn on the stove or make homemade oven chips from potatoes or beetroot. This are healthier versions and will give you the salty/sweet hit you crave without the preservatives or plastic packaging.
15. Make Sure You’re Drinking Enough Water
Something else that can affect our mood and mental wellbeing is not drinking enough water.
Drinking sufficient water can help reduce the negative psychological and physiological impacts of stress, according to Solara Mental Health, which states that staying adequately hydrated throughout the day helps depression and/or anxiety.
“Social stresses such as anxiety, fear, insecurity, ongoing emotional problems, etc., including depression can be tied to not consuming enough water to the point that your brain’s tissue is affected,” it explains, adding that dehydration also impedes the brain’s serotonin production and negatively impacts other amino acids, resulting in feelings of dejection, inadequacy, anxiety, and irritability. Further, it notes that “panic attacks typically have physical triggers, and one of those triggers is dehydration”.
Keep your reusable water bottle close and filled when out and about and keep topping up your glass at the tap when at work or home!
16. Have a Nana Nap or an Early, Regular Bedtime
Literally switch off by closing your eyes and saying goodbye to the world for a fifteen to thirty minutes. The Sleep Foundation describes napping as “a pleasant luxury” or “a mini-vacation”, as “it can provide an easy way to get some relaxation and rejuvenation”. It warns that a nap should not be too long and can cause problems with sleeping at night, so they’re not suited to everyone.
Getting a good night's sleep is crucial for your mental and physical wellbeing, Not getting quality sleep, makes us feel fuzzy and irritable and can lead to increased anxiety and depression, Head to Health notes. Things that benefit/improve sleep quality are: “going to bed at a regular time, avoiding things like caffeine that might keep you awake, and getting enough sunlight and exercise during the day”.
How many of these 16 sustainable waste-free self-care practices do you practise? Are there any you are going to start making time for or any we haven’t mentioned that we should add?
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