Jolly's posts

@koneko:
After writing all this, I ended up taking a nice detox bath
I only used orange essential oil in it and used a hemp based salt scrub.
Orange is really good for mental health :vanora_icon:
Felt pretty good after! Highly recommend!

@macsen191:
That sounds like a nice blend too :D
All essential oils are dangerous to animals, they can cause respiratory problems. So its not recommended using diffusers around them. Just be careful and watch them for signs of discomfort! (cats hide discomfort tho)
I keep my cat out of the bathroom when I use these so she isn't directly in it ^^; she hates it cause she loves sitting on the tub when Im in there lol

I've decided that among all these routines and health rituals that I have been wanting to try for the sake of my mental health, that the first step is actually taking more care of my physical health! Just because I don't feel pain or unwell, doesn't mean improvements cannot be made.

So I want to adopt some Springtime detox rituals. Nothing crazy like shooting water up places it shouldn't go--I moreso am referring to simple, comfortable naturopathic methods with the use of essential oils.
That aside, I'll be quoting an Essential Oils and Aromatherapy book on this because its quite useful~

"Used in therapeutic baths or massage blends, healing oils can help to free the body of impurities and improve health [Jolly: if done correctly]."



"To maximize the effects of the bath, dry-brush your skin with a natural fiber brush before bathing to open up pores and remove dead skin cells. Spend a few minutes doing this before you enter the bath. Always [Jolly: important!!] work toward the heart area when brushing the skin."

I quote this part mainly for the directional mention. I am glad this book includes that! In massage therapy, it is always very significant to focus most of our strokes toward the heart. It encourages healthy blood flow. Working away from the heart discourages it. The body subconsciously knows this because any time a therapist doesn't do this, the session does not feel very good comparatively.

Anyways, when soaking in a detox bath, work your loofah or sponge in gentle circles to draw circulation to the areas. It feels good, it is good, and especially if you have sore muscles. A gentle massage while soaking in a warm bath can do wonders.

1 "Detox Bath: Use a jar of plain bath salts or fine sea salts and add a few drops of detoxifying, regenerating lemon oil, along with a couple of drops of fresh, green rosemary oil. Grapefruit oil can be substituted for any one of these oils; it is diuretic and decreases unwanted mucus during detoxification. [Jolly: This can be a thing--sniffles during detox is pretty common] This oil may be an irritant for some, so do a patch test before use."

Patch tests are when you give your arm a good wash with unscented soap, pat it dry, then you put a sample of the essential oil on your skin. Just a little, like a single drop on the underside of your arm. Cover it with lightly a bandaid or something (I'd use self adhesive wrap, cause adhesives can be irritants) for about a day. If you feel any signs of discomfort, don't use that oil.

2 "Use a jar of plain bath salts or fine sea salts and add a few drops of lemongrass, an oil that is good for drainage of body fluids, and calming lavender oil. Do not bathe for longer than twenty minutes, as bathing for longer than this will dry out the skin. Avoid high concentrations of this oil."

OK so lemongrass essential oil is one of those may be dangerous ones. It does affect blood pressure by lowering it. I almost didn't include this piece because when it comes to blood pressure, I just find it hard to recommend these even if I do a full intake form with yall. Just be careful!! It DOES have antifungal/antioxident properties though, and can help with digestive issues, so there are definitely benefits to this oil if its safe for you. ALthough its only animal-tested so even that.. XD patch test it

3 "Juniper oil helps detox the body by ridding it of toxic wastes, improving elimination, and supporting liver function. Add it to a cup of fine sea salts, as these salts encourage sweating, which is another way the body eliminates toxins. Juniper is nonirritating in dilution. [Jolly: By my studies, I believe all oils should be diluted anyways]
During the detox regimen, add two drops of juniper on the pulse points of the wrists each day and inhale its stimulating aroma. This oil helps tone up the glandular system, particularly the pancreas and adrenals."

I'm obligated to repeat the same kinds of caution warnings. But for this one, the book itself DOES disclaim Juniper oil; Do NOT use this if you have any sort of kidney disorder. The book suggests that you can substitute with grapefruit oil, which supports the liver and lymph. But only on a very low concentration. Personally, I would ask a legal aromatherapist for this one if you have any relative conditions.


BUT ALL IN ALL
if you made it past all my bipolar "this is great" but "this is also danger" and choose to try any of these; let me know how you feel afterwords!!
If you have any other rituals for healthy cleansing, feel free to share :vanora_icon:

If you'd like to know specifically how many drops of these oils to use, its usually easy with a quick google search for each one! Healthline website is often pretty accurate as well. I actually cant remember on the top of my head what the typical doses were for lemon, orange and lavender. I think it was like.. 4-6 drops into water.

We've got big rains alllll day!
I love rain storms while I'm at home
I also ended up top-dog in sales two weeks in a row! I met my personal goals in sales volume, and I REALLY needed that during these slow periods.
So today we finally packed our fridge full again :''')
We usually have several backup meals (outside of our normal meal planning), like canned or frozen stuff, for the "bad commission weeks" when we choose to do light grocery shopping. We went through all of it! So now we're all restocked and it feels great~!

OH one thing that may help a lot with my mental health
next week I'm finally getting my bc implant removed :vanora_cry: :vanora_cry: :vanora_cry: :vanora_cry:
TOOK SO LONG to get to this point
but SOON my body will no longer be scientifically modified (lmao)

I will be taking a few weeks before I start on bc pills to allow my body to just. be.
I'll probably have a big ol hormone freak out until I balance again. I'm curious to see how well my body and mind may bounce back?

These are all real helpful advices ;v;
tyty
I'll definitely see a dentist when I can to help with the teeth grinding. I looked at teeth guards but I have two bottom "fangs" that are not aligned, so the normal guards may not fit right (I wanna try but they're also insanely priced for something that might not fit!)
I only need something for my back molars >> maybe something exists that doesn't need to wrap around my whole jaw?

Anyway, I do wanna try Kaira's suggestions too. I think it does sound helpful to categorize my thoughts and organize them in a structured fashion.
I do this when I want too many "things" like material items. It helps me not impulse buy XD


@koneko:
"Without fixing the sources of stress it’s almost more stressful to force yourself to eat."
YES to this so much. Food only becomes easy when my mind is not in scrambles. ;;
I like what you mention a lot too. The closest I've gotten to journalling so far is using that Finch app. Found that after posting htis thread and it kiiiind of helps? It asks me questions and I either answer or dont if I dont feel like it. I'm a bit choosey cause I prefer the bullet points than paragraphs. I'm also too lazy to explain anything I write about, so very vague. But I have my husband doing it with me (he's also looking for self help for depression) and I think it is helping him more than me. That makes me happy~

Either way, I am proud of you for being able to help yourself in these ways. Its such a hard thing to keep up with long term or routinely. My husband is better at routines than I am so he's trying to help me keep on track with it. I may need to start setting alarms haha

Even right now I'm getting so pent up with anger
I lost a serial number to my art program
left my ipad charger at work
so all in all, cant digital draw at all like I had planned to until I get that number, but it was a gift so idk if the support team will even be able to help ;;;;;;
tv from the neighbors upstairs is so very very loud.
I just cant relax

@Totalanimefan:
I could never figure out how to journal. Ive always been terrible about writing diaries because I feel like I'm bringing myself back to what has passed and sitting in it. My brain does that all day long, but by writing it I feel I'm just immortalizing the day. I dont know how to make it work I guess, my brain might just be too negative in how I think about it ;;

But obviously my methods don't work either. I just try to take breaths and tell myself I can do it, and just keep charging through the day. Yearning for the hour when I get to go back home. But then at home time gets ruined every time because I have so many other things I've been trying to deal with that keep going wrong. Doctors being dumb, incorrect bills I have to fight, usps of all things creating problems for me too. Its endless. I just had a 3 day weekend where I tried, SO, HARD, to do just have at least a half day to play video games with my partner and not think about anything else. But so much went wrong, we didn't even have time. I almost didn't have a PC either, cause the one I got came broken so I had to run an hour out of town to exchange it. Every task takes like hours of my day and then I end up fuming for even more cause I failed to relax again.

I've begun grinding my teeth at night and I can feel it :vanora_stunned:
idk how to just snap out of it

(Update: You all are wonderful as always <3 I've had a week of feeling better, so here's to trying new routines)

Therapy is seemingly forever out of my reach, no matter how hard I work for it. Even the "cheapest" of options is still just too much for my wallet to handle. But I didn't wanna pop on here to complain about mental health system.

I'm real bad at routines and healthy habits, but I still wanted to ask anyways. Like maybe there's something simple, like a phone app or a book, or a specific kind of journal (not the diary kinds) that have helped you or seem helpful in working on inner peace?

I know I need to learn how to let things go, I feel that so many things have piled and stacked on my shoulders that its always as if I have a mountain on my back. Its almost like a curse.
Unloading by talking about my problems seems the opposite of helpful, so for this maybe therapy isn't exactly what I want. Heck, maybe I just need a job that I'm not gone 12 hours a day. But thats a distant goal :vanora_sweat: And frankly, as much as I blame my stress on working too much, I don't think that's actually the main factor to my mental health. I think its a variety of things, and a lot of it is just internal.

Or maybe I'm wrong and work really is breaking me down too much? I don't have much choice with that, anyways. Not a good time to bounce careers. So I ought to balance my brain so I can endure these things.

Definitely one factor is my diet, which is probably another thing I need to work on with all my strength. I have always had a really bad food aversion issue. I love love veggies, can't get enough of them. Noodles, pasta, rice are all so easy for me to eat even when I'm having a really bad aversion day. But as my overall mental health shrinks, my desire to eat also does. It gets difficult. I can hardly stomach meat anymore, with all the fatty gritty chewy textures it gets. I always hated seafood but I want so badly to like it, cause that could eliminate a lot of the texture issue ;; and its good for mind and body. Its also lean.

I'm rambling a bit though!
Share with me any ideas you may have for self help practices?
I may be gone at work 12 hours a day but sometimes I can bring things to my job if its portable enough. I actually need to practice doing more things for myself on my downtime at work, cause some of where my physical health keeps slipping is cause I usually care for that at home. But at work I dont, I just sit and play Mystic Mansion all day. ineedtostop. ;v;'''

hooo boy, I am sorry at how slow I"m being~!
I had to trade shifts with a girl at work so I had a 8 day work week! I'll be able to work on the last order sooooon :D

Sooooo the game had an update the other day that released some new features, such as becoming an outlaw and all that.
Shiny ships too.
Since this update, and idk what triggers it exactly, but I discovered by accident that if I have an item in my ship's cargo that I go to sell it wont remove it from my inventory. So like, I have infinite of this item. I may have gotten too excited and spam clicked it to a point where I probably screwed up the economy system for a specific item, dropping the demand for it significantly >>
But it also seems to work when selling to traders! AND for nanites too!

My partner's game crashed so he didn't keep the units he spammed for lol
But he did get one of the new shiny ships out of it
and I'm rolling in units and nanites, searching for the best freight ship I can find

Any of you play?
I JUST got back into it and I feel like such a noob again. Its so different now from what it was a few years ago lol

On the downside of this game, my new PC is W11 and I get a lot of crashes compared to my partner who is on my old W10 PC. I pretty much cant do any of the Nexus quests (at least not in multiplayer, I havent yet tried for single player yet). Even outside of Nexus and the Anomaly, I still crash occasionally and earlier got a good ol BSOD. Which I read is likely caused by Directx/W11 bein dramatic

I think I'm a day late but happy birthdayyyyy!!

Every night, I come home from work to find it missing


Its the only cable she messes with! She doesn't want to chew on it. Although she'll grab it with her teeth, she just wants to play with it and pull it off the desk. Once it hits the floor she leaves it alone!
I'll get bitter spray so she doesn't damage it but it cracks me up lol

(blurry photo cause I took this at night, was dim in the room)

This makes me happy to read. Trips are fun but there's a special excitement about returning home to family and home life. Glad you're having a good time!

@Spider:
Thank you for the trade! :D
Here you go