How Do I Boost My Self Esteem? 5 Easy Tips
If you have it, the world is your oyster, but if you don’t, then the world can be a pretty unpleasant and scary place to be. Especially as low self esteem tends to lead to problematic relationships and poor self care. Are there simple steps you can take to boost or repair your self esteem?
If you find yourself worrying about such things or have a negative perception of yourself, then you may find yourself wondering, how do I boost my self esteem? Are there any quick fixes for self esteem? And if so, do they require much effort?
The short answer is YES!!
As human beings, we are often driven to seek out the easiest tips to boost self esteem, and want to get results fast. If that sounds like you, this list will help tremendously!
Go for A Walk
Have you ever heard the phrase, walking to clear your head? Well, that is a truism that certainly plays a big part in our overall mental wellbeing. Something as simple as a daily walk can transform our outlook. Here are the main benefits to a daily walk:
- It gets your heart pumping oxygen around your body which in turn improves cognitive function. It has been shown that your brain relies on a consistent and healthy flow of oxygen, something that walking helps to provide.
- Walking is a form of low stress/risk cardio that gets your heart-rate elevated and shouldn’t cause injuries.
- Because it is cardio, over time you will notice that your body gets a little stronger and potentially if you create a calorie deficit by walking, you may also lose weight.
There are many other benefits to walking of course, such as lower risk of serious illness, improved life expectancy and better mental health. In terms of self esteem, it might be as simple as feeling proud that you have done something healthy. It is relatively low effort, and you can implement it immediately (or almost immediately, read the next four tips first). Then go for a walk.
Prioritise Self-Care
Most of the time, when someone says that someone else looks depressed – it is because the ‘depressed’ person has let their self care routine slip. This can be anything from basic care like personal grooming, washing and wearing clean clothes to more in-depth stuff like applying cosmetic products to improve your appearance.
While it isn’t massively important to slap on plenty of makeup or cologne, it should be important for you to ensure you wash daily, wear fresh clothes and keep yourself groomed to a level of presentability. If you know you have put in that effort, it will help you feel better when you’re around other people.
Even if you feel rubbish on the inside, the fact you’re not worrying about being presentable on the outside will raise your wellbeing bar. And that is what this list is about, little improvements that will ultimately add up to a significant change.
Sleep Consistently
People get sleep wrong for a number of reasons. Mostly with sleep, people focus on quantity over quality. Am I getting enough sleep is a highly googled question for example. The answer to that question depends on the person, their age, their weight, workload etc.
Only you can know how much sleep you need, because there are so many variables. A good rule of thumb though is that humans need at least six hours on average and that on average better health outcomes are experienced by those who manage 8 hours a night.
This has unfortunately led people to conclude that more sleep is better. Oversleeping though has a very detrimental effect on the body and causes it to adopt a semi-hibernation state even when awake. Have you ever heard someone moan they have slept too much? That is their body’s way of telling them they need to cut back.
It is very easy for oversleeping to lead to feelings of depression and fatigue. The solution is sleep in moderation and make sure you have your electrical devices away for at least half hour before bed. Have a cup of chamomile tea and curl up with a book, let your mind know it is now safe to switch off and recuperate.
Cut Down on Carbs, Caffeine and Cigarettes
The three things modern humans over-indulge in, myself included (although I gave up the cigarettes).
Cut Down on Carbs for Self Esteem
Before we start, your body NEEDS carbs so don’t go extreme and cut them out altogether or even seriously restrict them. However, we tend to overeat carbs because we don’t tend to think about how much carbs are in our food. Sugar is a carb that is in almost everything nowadays.
My tip for cutting down on carbs is to simply halve your carb portion size.
This will help you benefit from carbs and the energy they provide but also cut down on dead calories you would normally be taking in. It allows you to diet effectively too as carbs tend to be calorie dense (sugar especially), and you won’t feel as though you have cut out food groups or gone without your favourite chocolate bar. You just eat half of it.
Caffeine and Self Esteem
Caffeine is hugely popular and for good reason, it focuses out minds and it is in drinks like tea and coffee that we love. The unfortunate truth is that caffeine is a very strong stimulant and we tend to have way more each day than we should.
And, too much caffeine makes it harder for our brains to regulate energy levels and makes sleep that little more elusive.
For one day, calculate how many mgs of caffeine you actually get and then decide if dropping a cup of coffee would be the end of the world. You might find your sleep and the quality of your sleep drastically changes just by having less caffeine in your diet.
Cigarettes and Self Esteem
I used to smoke so much that even now in stressful situations my mind wanders towards wanting a cigarette. I still have that conditioned response after more than a year of not smoking.
I also know I used to hate people being preachy about cutting down or giving up. I will say that if in the back of your mind you have that voice telling you that you want to stop – then visit your doctor and dig deep and be strong enough to do it.
I can’t tell you how much my life has improved without the cigarettes and I think if you do it too, you will without question agree!
You just got to be committed to listening to that little voice.
Practice Self Love
No, not that kind of self love. Many problems around self esteem are because you’re too hard on yourself. You have expectations about what you should be and when you fail, you see it as a huge setback and potentially give up altogether.
Start viewing failures as a lesson. Okay I failed, what did I learn.
And then see them as a challenge. I learned this, so I might not fail if I try this instead.
Then fail again and learn again.
Those lessons over time will help you improve and with your attitude to failure being more positive, it will help you take more assured steps in future.
Self love in this context is realising that no one has an easy life and beating yourself up about your shortcomings has no positive outcome. I genuinely believe that everyone has the potential to be great at something, you just need to figure out what it is.
Forgive yourself, treat yourself well and find the thing that makes you grin like a child. Then dedicate yourself to getting better at it. Fail along the way, we all do.
The key is always believing you will get to where you want to be and carrying that positivity in spite of setbacks.
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