I have been making psychology videos for over 10 years I have done my own research in Psychology
I've given lectures and one thing that I noticed just recently that is never kind of acknowledged
in simple terms is that life is hard and it's difficult and it's hard to do stuff I've had
a tough time over the past year and because I'm me I did a deep dive into the psychology
of resilience and coping and what I started doing was finding all of these ways that I could try to
help myself cope that were backed by science and I figured that this could be helpful to
other people so whether you are having a bad day having a bad go of it you just want to build a
small daily practice that might help you just get through the day this video is for you this
is what I did to get through the worst year of my life I've had this video idea for about 6 months
it's been hard to get around to filming it so I had to enlist a friend to come and help me also
hope that was like a of just my nose we'll get to the science and my strategies soon but first
I'm sure you have a lot of questions so here's a quick rundown of my terrible year so it all
started probably about a year and a half ago this is going to be news to a lot of you and I'm really
sorry but my dog Luna passed away she was sick for some time before she died and anyone who's
had a pet go through that experience which I know was a lot of people it's really tough because you
don't know when the right time is she had a brain tumor and she was having seizures for a long time
which is really stressful for you because you never know when it's going to happen and I was
waking up in the middle of the night because I thought she was having a seizure so I went into
this kind of stress response over it after that happened very suddenly my dad also passed away
he just dropped dead there was no warning so I had all of this loss around me and then I had
some personal medical stuff come up which I'm not going to get into but I had to have surgery five
times in 6 months I was depressed for some time I was really emotional I couldn't sit in front
of a camera and talk to a camera I was terrible at doing patreon updates and telling everyone
what I was going through but what it led to was me doing a deep dive into okay how can I try to
cope with everything that's going on one of the first things I noticed was a physical change my
resting heart rate was elevated I was jumpy and constantly in this stress response and it
turns out that being a giant ball of stress when it's not necessary sign typically referred to as
prolonged HPA axis activation leads to hormonal imbalances and is just all around bad I wondered
out so I started exercising every single day which I had never done before and the only way that I
could do this is by purchasing a membership at a pilates studio and booking a class every single
day I forced myself to go because research shows that exercise can help buffer against stress and
reduce your cortisol response I was in a really for forunate position where I had the time to
do this and I think a lot of people could also do YouTube there are a lot of great videos on YouTube
10 minute workouts 15 minute workouts even before bed some of the research actually suggests that
doing low impact exercise before bed is fine or you could just like go outside and crack a whip
And then the other thing that I did was I stopped drinking alcohol which actually has
some links with modulating your HPA axis and your stress response so the main reason I did that was
to try to get out of the stress response and then what I discovered is I actually felt much
better I slept much better and my sleep was a lot more regular which was a big marker of health and
overall health as well it took a long time I don't know if I'm fully out of the stress response yet
but I just feel better and that is helpful and at something that is within my control while my
body was becoming more calm I was still looking for more ways to deal and I wanted to get out of
this headspace that everything was bad all of the time so I started a gratitude journal in a
way that finally stuck now I will say gratitude comes up so much in Psychology and I have never
successfully done this in my life as I've said I've been making psychology videos for like 10
years I've made videos about gratitude before I have never kept a diary or a journal before and
the only way that I could figure out how to do this was after watching a video by
Matt D'Avella where he used an app called Daylio that you can put in all of these custom things
like categories of things that you might be grateful for things that you did and I just
started logging my mood and keeping a gratitude Journal through tapping icons in an app before I
went to bed every night so I brainstormed all of the things that I needed in order to have a good
day exercising maybe going for a walk having some good food going out and getting coffee all of the
things that brought me joy that I would try to fit into every day just to find these little moments
where I could feel joyous in what was otherwise a crappy situation but then what you get is some
kind of like algorithm that you've invented for yourself where you're like well I've done this
and I've done this and I've done this and I've done this these are all of the elements that I
needed to have a good day today's been a good day and so I raided all of my days like on a like art
scale and what I found was all of my days were like four stars out of five my mood was actually
quite stable even though I was going through this really tumultuous times a data data data data yeah
I know and I have all of this data now bubble tea time I guess for me moments of Joy were where I
would just feel a bit lighter a bit frivolous where I could laugh at something being with
friends being able to be outdoors in the middle of the day where the weather is beautiful and
warm where I could experience something without having distracting or racing thoughts or kind
of feeling sorry for myself I don't want to say that Joy is always positive in an emotional sense
but I would feel more content with how things were it's my dad's birthday today and I keep
getting reminders from Google Calendar and Google assistant and Google assistant is like do you want
to plan something for Dad birthday I'm like bro he's dead do I have to delete his birthday from
my calendar now like stop reminding me I'm aware I'm hyper aware that it's his birthday
today I think it's important to say that some time has passed since these tragic
things happened to me so I did grieve for a long period of time and I'm now feeling okay and that's
why I haven't been posting on this channel a lot over the past few years but I didn't want anyone
to get the impression that these things hadn't affected me because grief also affects everyone
differently sometimes things are just hard and there's no perfect routine that you can have or
perfect habit that you're going to do every single day sometimes you just need to find
moments of Tranquility or joy whereever you can can and they might look different to you every
day and that's okay I am the type of person where I wanted to have some kind of regimen because it
helped me feel in control and that is what worked for me I don't want people to feel like you have
to do exactly what I've been doing because people deal with everything differently and I was really
focused on my HPA axis and trying to control my stress levels and this kind of chronic stress
that I had so I think find whatever works for you there are all all different kinds of ways that
you can relax that some people find video games really therapeutic uh so I think just find what
works for you cut yourself some slack be kind to yourself and just try to stick to whatever works
as well as you can data data you say data what do you say data why data why you've been in America
too long we say data here do we yeah data they say data in America oh my God what's happened to you
I'm on the wrong side of Tik Tok yeah you're on the data side of Tik Tok in the UK they
say data mostly Australia just has this really long daaahta good day going to have some data