Yes, you haven’t been in a physical car crash, you may not know anyone who lost their life to Covid, or experienced a near death incident, but the mental stress and trauma of this long war is very real and I believe is the main reason or a huge contributing factor why so many people are struggling with their mental wellbeing.

Ok. Now take a moment to consider you could be suffering with Post COVID Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PCTSD) what now?

Well, here’s the thing. PTSD takes time to fix and everyone deals with it differently and there is no one size fits all. And of course, the level of stress an individual copes with is different from one person to the next.

I had severe PTSD for two decades and didn’t deal with life very well during this time. It took me way too long to tackle it. I did however learn a lot along the way and here are my top tips for success.

Understanding the reason why you are feeling like you is key to healing. 

Knowing you are feeling like this because you may have PCTSD means you can work on ways to help yourself and create realisation that it’s okay and you can fight back. 

Without a shadow of doubt, movement is one of the most important elements for recovery. When we move more/exercise and create a fitness regime, we produce “happy” positive chemicals. 

These chemicals relieve stress and counteract the sympathetic system (the one responsible for the flight or fight stuff). The heart rate rises in a more positive way when we exercise, flooding the body with freshly oxygenated blood and washing away “bad” blood-soaked muscles.

Yes, you don’t feel like exercising, however if you just move more such as, walking, gently jogging, joining a fitness class, Yoga etc, your body will crave more and more and more. In a just a few weeks, you’ll be able to push yourself a tad more and so on.

With every week that goes by, you’ll feel better and better.

You are most likely “winging” It right now, aren’t you? 

But like it or not our brains like rhythm. We have something called the circadian rhythm (physical, mental and behavioural changes that follows a 24-hour cycle) and I'd suspect your rhythm is all over the place, which could be making things worse for you every single day. 

If you create a daily schedule; strict wake up/bedtime, make the bed, exercise, eat, etc, it is a great way to stay grounded, less stressed and disorganised. 

Even if you think you have a decent schedule right now, make it more structured and organised. 

Sleep is one of the most important elements of life and disturbed, restless and insufficient sleep can impact the brain’s ability to function correctly. Such as, regulate emotions, attention span, thought processes, learning, focusing and so much more. 

This is before we discuss the physical disadvantages of lack of sleep such as weight gain, aches and pains.

Sleep is ridiculously important for your overall health and wellbeing, so make it a priority to fix. With 1000’s of ways to manage better sleep, it’s down to you to find something which works for you.

Creating a sleep routine (something you do every night to signal your brain its sleep time) should be your first go to.

Always ask why you’re not sleeping or waking up and how can you make changes until its nailed.

This is really simple, food is fuel. If you put in good quality fuel, you’ll have lots of energy. Put in “bad” fuel, or not enough fuel expect to run out of fuel and feel sluggish.

This doesn’t mean you have to eat like a rabbit, far from it. 

Understand your nutritional needs – not wants – and try to eat well regularly.

If you wanted to travel in your car 100 miles, you wouldn’t put in £5 of fuel in an empty tank. So don’t do this to yourself.

Water is the second most important element your body needs after the air you breathe, so give it plenty. I don’t care for your water excuses. 

Aim to get the bare minimum of 15ml per pound of body weight a day. (15ml x per lb of body weight = daily water intake).

Build this up within 6 weeks from today and do what it takes. No excuses. And I promise you’ll feel so much better!

Consider joining my Lifestyle with Jelly Fitness course by clicking here. 

I now adopt this pattern.

Going away to London, the coast or a new city every 8 weeks or so instead of one big holiday a year has been incredible for my mental health and is much cheaper than an all-inclusive holiday on some island for a week or two once a year.

Whatever you do, however it looks for you, make downtime – regularly – happen.

By creating discipline and perseverance you are building a tolerance to hard situations.

For example, going to exercise when your thoughts say” no”, “go back to bed” or “sit and watch Netflix”, “it’s too cold”, “it’s too dark”, “it’s too hot”, “I can’t be bothered” and so on – which is just about every day, you are forming a response to emotional thoughts, which in turn will benefit you when the sh%* hits the fan.

Doing hard things for an easier life or do easy things for a hard life.

Drinking more water every day will make the body work better – easier life.

Exercising everyday will help you stay stronger, fitter, leaner, focused and healthy – easier life.

And so on.

Just because everyone around you might be sitting and watching Netflix doesn’t mean you have too?

Watch it on the treadmill or stair master instead!

I soon realised other people dragged me down and made me feel worse. So instead I cut them out of my life and built positive relations and connections.

There are a few people who have no idea how much they saved my life through the darkest moments in my life. Those who sat with me and giggled and laughed so hard in coffee shops. Those who walked with me talking nonsense and so on. The sort of people who when you see their name or face just light yours up and make you all fuzzy inside!

I loved the negative cull!

Take social media or your phone contacts for example.

If you scroll through social media and you come across someone who makes you feel Urg, meh or gives you the ick, unfollow!

I spent weeks unfollowing anyone who made me feel urg and it was so liberating.

The same applies to your phone. If you see their name pop up and you don’t want to answer the call or text, get rid. Even family!

Now my feeds are full of fun, informative and joyful things and people. My social life is only for those I want to spend time with.

Mood hoovers have no place in my life. I don’t care who they are. Toodles!

Take small steps, frequently, to make little changes, understanding the journey isn’t going to be smooth and easy. With every diversion off the path, you can and will get back on it and it might require evaluation and a different tack.