Do something nice for your body

Physical solutions for mental struggles

Has anyone else been having a hard time lately? There’s lots of reasons why, perhaps: maybe you’re feeling the state of the world, maybe you’re feeling the onset of the winter darkness, or the change in temperature and weather. Maybe it’s something else, totally unrelated. Maybe there’s not really any reason that you can discern at all.

As a psychologist, an intellectual, and a chronic over-thinker, I’ve really internalized the explicit and implicit message that there’s no problem you can’t solve by thinking about it enough. If I’m feeling down, there must be a solution - a way I can logic it out if only I can approach it from the right mental angle. Anyone curious how I ended up as a mindset researcher?

But when I’m Really Down, thinking through it doesn’t really help. Not only because sometimes there is no solution - I’m just going through a hard thing, or a hard time, and there’s not much to be done about it but accept it and try to move forward - but also because when I’m feeling like this, sometimes my thoughts are not helpful. Sometimes they are part of (most of) the problem.

At times like these, often the best thing I can do is try to turn my brain off. I have a friend who talks lovingly and admiringly about what she calls “no brain dogs.” These dogs are often tiny and seem to be wandering around with no thoughts in their head whatsoever, just vibes. A floopy tongue that won’t stay in their mouth is helpful but not required. When I am Really Down, I try to pretend I am a No Brain Dog and go through the motions without thinking.

Although I have never met her, I believe that Demi Moore’s dog Pilaf is a prototypical no brain dog (picture via Vogue)

Because the things that seem to help me most at these times are not mental: they are physical. I can (and do) analyze my feelings with my partner, my therapist, and my friends, but sometimes I encounter diminishing returns on this analysis. And that’s when my husband, Rob, encourages me to focus on solutions that are of the body, even in the face of problems that feel like they are of the mind. He is an endless fountain of rightness and wisdom that would frankly be annoying if it didn’t make my life better in every conceivable way.

So, when I can muster the resolve, I do things that are nice for my body. I take baths. I eat food that feels healing and nutritious. I force myself to go outside and take a walk and do cardio exercise and go to yoga. I do a cold plunge in the canal by my house or I go to the sauna.

And so far, reliably, if I can do these things, I begin to feel better. My brain starts working better again. It’s a difficult loop, because even feeling like I can do any of these things is a good sign, but sometimes I really feel like I can’t and I do the easiest possible version of them - a 10 minute bike ride, a 7 minute walk outside - through tears.

To help myself with deciding what to do when I’m in the thick of it, I’ve developed a menu of nice things I do for my body and organized them into a personal matrix. Two things I take into consideration are 1) how effortful does this activity feel and 2) how expensive/accessible is this activity.

The easiest things to do - those that are accessible and affordable - are things like taking a bath, napping, taking a walk, or stretching. These tend to help for sure, but also are perhaps less impactful than some of the more effortful activities, so they are deployed best, for me, as starting activities to help me calm down a little and build my confidence that I can do some of the more effortful things. Some of the things that feel the most effortful - going for a cold plunge, cardio exercise, strength training, and sauna - help me the most, but I need to work up to them. And this matrix is very personal: I do cardio and strength training at home, so for me those items are affordable; I live near a place where I can swim in winter, so likewise for cold plunging. I practice yoga in a studio, however, making that exercise less affordable, and perhaps more effortful than it would otherwise feel since it requires leaving the house. A massage is a very nice reset, but its expense makes it an occasional splurge, not an everyday resource.

You might have gotten this far and started wondering: what does this have to do with winter? Winter is a chance to practice tuning into ourselves, asking: what do I need right now? It’s a chance to start noticing our patterns - which effortful activities yield high-benefit rewards, or how we can respond adaptively when we’re feeling down. And winter is also an opportunity to practice building resilience in the face of darkness. Sometimes, if you’re feeling down, the answer is: Do Something Nice for Your Body.

So I challenge you this week to make your own menu - your own matrix - of nice things you can do for your body. Maybe you use my axes, maybe you use different ones entirely: effort vs. reward, or time required vs. affordability. Almost certainly, even if you used my same axes and activities, your matrix would look different: maybe for you, cardio feels easy, or you have access to a free sauna, or eating something nutritious is especially effortful. The goal is to identify your own personal ways of nourishing and recharging your physical being.

Then, pick at least one, and do something nice for your body.

See how you feel before, during, and after: how it influences your mood, your day, your week. Maybe you’ll find, like I have, that doing one nice thing for your body makes it easier to do another, and also gives you more capacity to do nice things for others. Maybe you’ll find that it makes the lengthening nights feel a little more peaceful. Maybe it will make whatever you’re facing feel a little lighter.

Notes from the slush pile:

• A cozy recipe that has ticked the boxes of “eat something nourishing” in my house lately, from Alison Roman: squash soup with lentils.

• An article in NatGeo featuring yours truly about how ancient cultures around the world lean into seasonal change (you have to put in your email but the article is free to read).

• The benefits of seasonality go beyond winter: Cal Newport recommends embracing this approach to cure burnout.