Celebrate the small things and small wins. Tomorrow I’m getting back my widescreen monitor that I sent in for warranty repairs. Just by that I’m excited for the next day. We have leftover cake in the fridge. After cooking and eating a meal we’re excited to get to dessert. Watching something on netflix in the evening; we’re excited for some microwaved popcorn and the white cheddar flavor powder we bought. I discovered a beautiful front end interface for lemmy yesterday (alexandrite.app) and now I’ve finally weaned off reddit and have a fun new “toy” to waste time on the internet. You don’t have to go out of your way to do anything new to make things happier.

I like having goals that I can achieve, whether that’s something at work I can knock out or a project I can work on at home.

Lately I’ve found a lot of joy in raising my son.

Seeing him grow, seeing his smile, and being present in the moment because the first few years of his life are critically important and help define the rest of his life in ways that I don’t think the literature has nearly caught up with yet.

Being grateful every day for something, even small.

Listen to and read science fiction books. Preferably in the bath tub. I don’t think there is anything more comfortable for me than that.

Signed up to a self defense class which keeps me phisically active (unlike a gym that I can skip, the classes help me feel obligated to go) Eating healthy (more veggies, less sugary, oily or snacky foods) Long walks in nature (moves out of the city to live closed to an open field) Found a new hobby. And one that some might find weird - talking to myself out loud, just going through my thoughts and feelings this way helps me verbelise my feelings better, it really shows you how many toughts and feelings are actually much more complex then you think since you just don’t notice it until you have to put it into words.

I walk dogs at a dog shelter. Makes me feel good, helps the doggos. Why not.

play video games

There are a few different things I try to do each day to find little moments of happiness here and there. Anything, no matter how small, can have a bigger impact on our mental health than we may initially think. When I have the time, I like to sit down and do a little bit of coding, or do some design work for a new project I want to start (even though there’s a high chance I’ll move on from it soon 😅). Also getting into a good book is always nice, spending time hiking or just going to a park somewhere, or even a little DIY craft project can be a lot of fun. But when I’m a little busier even little things like music, or journaling, or even a drink I really enjoy can all go a long way in boosting my mood.

Working with my hands really helps me. I have a fairly weird life, but the times I can throw myself into making things, or fixing stuff, are the times I find the most peace. Physical work, that’s also a bit of a cerebral workout really helps my brain state. There’s a lot of the time that I don’t really enjoy being me, but looking at a thing that I’ve made that solves a problem or serves a purpose, and will do so for years, that makes me feel pretty good. That said, my brain works best when solving physical problems - I guess it’s different for everyone, so finding that thing that your brain is good at, and makes you feel good by doing is the key. You might be useless at carpentry and metalwork, but a good cook or artist, or whatever, but putting effort into creating a thing that you’re proud of will definitely give you some lasting satisfaction

Edit:- less time scrolling or playing endless phone sudoku definitely helps me have more space to find happy moments too. The fediverse is a fantastic place, but I think it can be pretty detrimental to my mental health too loose myself in here

Every morning, without exception, I get up, I make myself a cup of coffee, and I go for a walk nice and early. If it’s sunny and beautiful, I go for a walk. If it’s cloudy and gray, I go for a walk. If it’s pouring out, I grab my jacket and an umbrella, and I go for a walk. I usually walk over to the park nearby. It has a jogging trail on it, and there is a spot with pullup bars. Every time I pass the bars, I do a few pullups.

I started doing all this for physical health, just to ensure I don’t get sedentary. But I kept doing it because it’s time in my own head with nothing from home or work to distract me. I sometimes have headphones in to listen to music, but usually not. Usually, it’s just me and the outdoors, and an opportunity to really, really think. It’s good for my mental health.

Other things that help:

• I check in with my loved ones, just so they know how I’m doing and I know how they’re doing. And if something is wrong, I tell them.
• Every time I go into the kitchen, for any reason, I try to leave it more clean than when I started. If I’m grabbing a snack, and there’s a dirty dish in the sink, I rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. It’s amazing how much just having a clean kitchen improves my sense of well-being.
• Sometimes I’m sad. Sometimes it’s enough that I cry. That’s okay.

A lot of this sounds like things to do just to not be depressed, but it’s really much more than that! Taking care of these aspects of my mental health ensures that when fun and joy and entertainment and laughter present themselves, I’m in a good frame of mind to accept them.

Take care of yourself. Happiness isn’t something you can force, but it is something you can make room for.

If you’re stuck in your head get out of your head.

That is to say, if your thoughts are getting to you, you’re in you’re head. You need to do something that takes you out of your thoughts. What does that mean?

It means engage your senses, deliberately. Focus on your senses.

Huh?

Go for a walk in a park, go get some fancy cheese, listen to some good music, take a hot shower, and watch a new TV show, pick up a hobby.

Get your brain doing stuff it doesn’t do. You’ll build connections in your brain that will help take you out of your tunnel vision/ruminations.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for my wife, I’d have none. She’s my only reason for still being around.

Accomplish something everyday, one thing outside of normal life. Can be small but one extra thing.

My wife and my dogs. Would do anything for them. I pried a large dog’s mouth off of my dog’s throat earlier this year. I knew I was going to get bit, I know I’m dumb, and I’d do it again in a second for him.

At first, all my might couldn’t overpwer him. Once my hands got crunched, that’s when I went into fight or flight and pried it’s mouth open like it was nothing. He had at least a 500+ pound bite force, given his size. I couldn’t believe the strength that surge of adrenaline gave me…

Once I pried the dog’s mouth open, I shouted to my dog to release the other dog’s lip (which he peirced) and he did release, then I sort of suplexed this big dog to get them separated.

My hands had decent injuries and I had a lot of superficial gouges from claws/teeth or whatever. It happened so fast it was hard to tell what really got me. It felt like jumping into a cartoon dust cloud brawl…

Most painful part was them rinsing out my middle finger that got caught between the canines and fractured and torn up. When that cold saline shot out of a turkey baster-sized syringe into my wounds reached the bone, it felt like a toothache in my finger…

When I was in the ER, I asked the doctor stitching up my wounds (only one stitch in each because they were dog bites) how often they get dog bites, and then immediately followed up asking about human bites. He paused for a second and then said “We get at least one dog bite a day, one human bite a week.” That is at just one of 3 major hospitals in this Midwest city!

Man I’m too stoned and I’ve gone on such a tangent… My wife and my dogs are just always there when I’ve been at my lowest. The unconditional love of a dog has gotten me thru some of the darkest periods in my life. I love my dogs as much as a human family member.