What is something small you can do almost (if not everyday) to improve on yourself?

ᙖᖇƐ>ᜊᙃ ッ@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 71 points –

It could be physically, mentally or in some cases spiritually

61

Pay-it-forward to yourself.

Put out the clothes for tomorrow-you in the evening. Vacuum the living room as a favor for dead-tired-10-oclock-you.

It even works on much longer time scales: Lift weights so old-you don't break a hip and miss taking the grandchildren to the zoo.

Forgive your past self. Respect your future self. Live in the present.

+ clean up after the party is over while you’re still drunk. gives your head time to stop spinning so you’re ready to sleep comfortably, plus it feels like it takes no time since your perception of that is all warped. waking up in a clean apartment is the greatest gift you can receive with a hangover

I put my clothes out for the next day! Best feeling is being able to just hop in shower and not have to worry about it. Was actually just starting to think I'm a little crazy for doing that lol

Read for 30 minutes before sleep. Not just articles, but a real, paper-bound book. Helps with sleep, learning, and reading comprehension in the future.

This combined with the other guy's "get a proper night's rest" is a tough one. I always try to read for a half hour, but end up getting absorbed and reading for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. I think I need to start reading drier books.

And write down every word you don't know.

I have an anki card deck of all those words and I've greatly expanded my vocab doing that for 1 minute every morning while I have coffee.

Exercise. A little every day will make a huge difference.

Absolutely! It doesn’t matter how small you start.

I work a desk job and told myself I needed to exercise otherwise I would continue having back/health problems. I started with a 1-2 minute workout every day just so I could get in the habit. And if I didn’t feel like doing even that, I would at least do a few push ups or squats. Once I got used to taking that time every day I saw myself taking 5 minutes. Then 10, 20, 30.. Now I commit to a 75-90 minute workout about 5 times a week. And I never thought it would get to that point but I started to enjoy it and look forward to that time every day!

Seconding exercise. Even if it's something small like taking stairs on your commute instead of the escalator. It ultimately adds up to so much over any period of time.

Learn how parentheses work.

They look matched to me... I think it's a programmer typing habit (maybe).

That's not the issue here; try rereading the sentence as if the section in parentheses didn't exist

Okay, on second examination I agree... that is some weird syntax.

I have this habit too, it's like a thought bubble in my head that adds context on top of the original sentence. I wonder if it's a trait for something but never thought it might be programming related.

Go for a walk, longer is better but even 20 minutes will help.

Eat fermented foods and plenty of fiber to keep your gut micro biome happy. There's increasing evidence that your gut health impacts your mental health.

Get good sleep. Despite it seeming like a waste of time, sleep is the most important part of our health routine, and here we are cutting out one or two or even three hours a night just to please our bosses, basically meaning our jobs won't adapt to our own humanity. For our ability to perceive each others' vocabulary, grasp our feelings, mull over complicated ideas, react to split second surprises in time, and generally be healthy physically, an hour of sleep can spell the difference between having the performance of Alexander the Great and the performance of General Custer, in fact guess which one was infamous for valuing his sleep?

Sleep deprivation is the single most cited factor in why Chernobyl happened, and fate punished us by making sure thirty square kilometers of land will be unusable for ten thousand years. Just think, we'll be in other solar systems before we can step foot in Chernobyl again, all because some bosses somewhere said "I don't care about your circadian rhythms, get in here on the dot without error or you're going to the gulags". The whole "early to bed early to rise" thing is BS and one should know the guy who said it was quite fond of sleeping in.

If I go to bed at 2100, getting up at 0600 lets me "sleep in" and get a little less than 9 hrs of sleep.

If I go to bed at 2100, I wake up at 0100 and can't go back to sleep. And that's if I have the free time to go to bed that early.

Create a sleep schedule and stick to it religiously. Drink more water.

Don't be a dick. Just not being a dick everyday is a great improvement and it will make no only yours but everyones lifes better. In todays society this can be a big chalenge so don't be a dick tl anyone, not even to a dick

Especially while driving. I found that if I felt bad for idiot drivers as their lives must be much harder than mine due to their latent impatience, rage, or incompetent, I was much less stressed. Just let them get on with it, slow down, and get home safe.

Now I almost never drive and that has helped even more.

I second this. My life massively improved when I started to set out to leave the world a better place than I found it in - on average, people feel happier when around a friendly person

Respect yourself and accept what achievements you've made and struggles you've overcome. Everybody is fucking amazing and while you shouldn't think you're more important than other people you should acknowledge that your story is unique.

Great advice. It's hard being kind to yourself if you've beaten yourself up all your life. I'm still working on that.

While eating place your utensil down, or the food in your hand like a sandwich, and then chew what’s in your mouth into a smooth paste before swallowing.

This slows down your eating process, correctly prepares the food for maximum absorption by your body, and gives you time to allow the feeling of satiation to develop.

You’ll eat less and naturally lose weight without counting calories.

Sing to yourself. You can have a much wider vocal range with just a little bit of practice. It doesn't have to be anything challenging, even a simple "row row row your boat" is already a nice exercise.
Personally I find it very soothing and it helps me focus when I'm doing something on my own. Plus I love how my voice can sound when I put in a little effort :)

I sing to my dog when I get his food ready. I'm almost certain he thinks I'm a weirdo appreciates it

Don't push too hard when you poop, or stay on the toilet too long. Your sphincter will thank you.

Mobility Exercises! Started doing them at work, and most notably I've worked from barely being ablr to touch my toes to almost being able to touch my palms to the floor. I need to work on opening my hips to help with squats now.

I’m a bit of an asshole, so whenever I start feeling kinda sad I just let myself cry & try to think about others during that feeling, in the hopes that it’ll make me less of an asshole over time.

Not really something I do everyday, but I definitely allow it when it presents itself.

Some kind of sport. It dont have to be competitive/dificult just some exercise. Preferably outside, 150 min per week can make wonders.

Daydream. Take a few minutes, pace around your place thinking about the things you want to do, not need to do. Its amazing what forcing the time to think can have on action, and the changes that can occur that you didn't think you had time for.

Make your bed each morning. Your bedroom will look more organized and you will have a nice bed to lie down in at night.

Gonna have to disagree here. Messy beds are healthier because they get to air and so cool down and dry out. This is good because bacteria, fungi and dust mites like it warm and damp, and they can cause illness, asthma and allergies.

Interesting. I'm not going to stop doing it, but still, interesting.

Lol from the footnotes:

Next in the Public Health series on the Organic Household: Targeting bathroom congestion — innovative uses for the kitchen sink.

This article was not reviewed by the authors' wives before publication.

Jokes aside, I’d rather make my bed. Washing sheets regularly can handle sweat and dead skin problems just fine, and mites are going to be there no matter what. I’m more concerned with keeping out larger bugs like house centipedes and stopping my cat from tracking litter on my pillowcase.

i choose to believe that this is not an issue if you regularly change your sheets

This might be the best citation I have ever read! Take my upvote!

Also less chance of spiders when you go to bed

Well there's something I wasn't concerned about before...

Oh yeah, I've had a few brown recluses crawling around in mine.

We have "white tails". They're little bastards. They don't seem to make a web or nest or home, they just rove around everywhere like assholes.

find/develop a psyche anchor: a concrete reminder that everything will be okay.

this is specially helpful when times get you to lose your composure.

it doesn't have to be a complex one. and you don't have to find a perfect one in one sitting.

Can you elaborate? What is an example of a psyche anchor?

It can be anything that you feel highly relates to you. The goal is for that object to help get your mind back in check when things in your life go out of control. Linus' (peanuts character) security blanket is a form of an anchor.

Some people choose religious symbols like rosaries or the mudra, but it doesn't have to be limited to that.

In books, I've seen people keep old pictures or small tokens to do just the same thing.