My Personal Heath and Wellness Tips
Welcome back to a new blog post. How is it mid-September already? It’s finally fall-ish weather where I live, and I love it. I stay inside most of the time because the pandemic is still a thing (even though it doesn’t seem like it). My area has been extremely smoky because of a massive wildfire, but thankfully, it seems to have gone in the opposite direction. The air quality is at dangerous levels, but I’ll be delighted when it clears up enough for me to go back to sitting at an outdoor coffee shop.
If you’re new to my blog, hi! I welcome you to the craziness that are the things I’m passionate about. My name is Selene. You’ll find a lot of seemingly random content here that all fall under the “lifestyle” umbrella. I talk about skincare, self-help, recipes, coffee (my main addiction), college, young adulthood (post-college), theatre, and dance. I am also always open to ideas for future posts. You can email me at selenelaszlo@gmail.com
I don’t know about ya’ll, but I love reading articles about how celebrities live and the things they do that keep them looking as effortless as they do. I’ve recently been loving Claire Danes in Homeland (Seasons 1-7 are on Hulu). I read an article about her skincare secrets and touched a bit on other parts of her life too. That article inspired me, and well…this post is the result of that.
OVERALL DISCLAIMER: I know a lot about health and my medical conditions, but nothing I say should be taken as medical advice. You should never take what I say in this post as absolute truth. I am simply sharing what I’ve done/do to get to the place I am at now. For any medical things I do, I have gotten full support from my doctors to do. This post simply shares some BTS things you wouldn’t necessarily see on social media.
Remember: You know your body best. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.
Heath
Disclaimer: This section discusses medications and how I have dealt with some health issues. I am not saying that prescription meds are wrong and you should never take them. They may work for some people, and I fully support that, but it wasn’t the case for me. Do not take my post as medical advice or something you should copy. If what you’re doing is working for you, don’t change it. Do what works for you because everyone is different, and what works for me won’t work for you.
For those of you who know me IRL and not just another face on the interweb, you’d know I have quite a few health issues. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my adult journey with health issues is to listen to my body. I know it sounds weird and hard to do, but I’m telling you, listening to my body is what has helped me get to the state I’m in now. I used to struggle massively with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety, amongst other things. As counterintuitive as this sounds, getting off all my meds was the best decision ever. It wasn’t an easy one, and I had full support from my doctors to do this. It was a long and arduous process, but since being fully off of them as of January 2020, I have never felt better. It felt like a giant dark, gloomy cloud had lifted off me. I feel like I became (a stronger and more mature version) of the person I was before my illnesses took over. I still have my chronic pain med that I use only when my pain is really bad. (Like can’t get out of bed, bad). I still take my antidepressant but only for maintenance. I also have a much safer anti-anxiety med for my panic attacks that is again - taken only when needed. This is not to say that I still don’t have health issues; they are still very much a part of my life; I just have found better and more constructive ways to deal with them.
Taking daily supplements is also a crucial part of my health routine. I get my daily vitamin packs from Care/Of via a short quiz you take on the website. Currently, I take a Probiotic Blend, Vitamin D, Rhodiola, Astaxanthin, Fish Oil, Adaptogenic Mushrooms, and a 50/50 mix of Spirulina and Chlorella. If I’m honest, though, I have no clue how these things work, but I feel better when I take them, so they must be doing some good.
Naps are also a key factor in my health. I need a lot of sleep, and I never seem to get enough sleep at night, so I almost always take a 2-hour nap during the afternoons. I use an app called Rise Sleep which tells me my energy peaks and dips based on how long I slept the day before and the quality of said sleep. Naps are essential during my afternoon dip.
Wellness
Wellness can mean a lot of things to different people. For me, wellness is more about the mind, body, and soul. A part of listening to my body, as I mentioned above, also means listening to my mind. I am a deeply emotional person, and I get stressed out easily, so I tend to filter out all the negativity in the world. I’m not saying that I’m oblivious to it; I’m not. Still, I’m not going to agonize over every single article that comes out about the shit going on in the world. If there is a behaviour or habit of mine that relates to things going on in the world, I will, of course, read up on how to change that behaviour. I’m aware and informed by reputable sources, but other than that, I stay out of it. This includes discussions with people who only want to argue and tell everyone else they are “wrong.”
I’ll be honest when I say that “working out” is not my thing. In dealing with CI, I have limited energy, and working out the way you see people do, just depletes all the energy I can use for other things. I guess you could say that I used to “work out” when I was a dancer, but dance didn’t seem like physical fitness. It was just something fun that I enjoyed. Now that I am no longer taking dance classes, my life is less physically active. To keep sort of active, I try to stretch daily, and I incorporate some ab workouts in my stretching routine. However, if I feel inspired to exercise, I will likely use a video from Blogilates, XHIT Daily, or Chloe Ting.
I fulfil my soul by practising the Law of Attraction (believing that the universe will give you what you want) through affirmations, raising your vibration, and practising gratitude. I love reading my affirmation cards because I’ve found a lot of truth within them. I enjoy drawing a card and figuring out how the word on the card and the corresponding book’s meaning will fit into my life. I also fulfil my soul by reading my daily devotional and singing all day. Musicals, in general, have always been very soulfully healing for me. Plus, musicals are just fun to sing to.
Finally, the other part of my wellness is reading books. I was an avid reader when I was a kid before smartphones took over my life. While downloading books onto a smart device is cheaper and more convenient, I prefer physical books. I love going to bookstores and having books find me. I love how they smell (I know I’m not the only one who agrees with that). I’m currently reading Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust. I kept getting ads for it on Instagram (it chose me), so I pre-ordered it, and it’s SO GOOD!!
I hope you guys liked this post on my health and wellness tips. Remember, what I do is not a be-all-end-all. What works for me may not work for someone else. I try to be as transparent as possible, which is why I’m sharing this BTS part of my life with you. If you enjoyed this, don’t forget to give this post a like/comment, and follow me on all my social media (links below). Sending you all the light and love in this world. See you next week.
