[Bonus] Take Care of Your Self! | Neurospicy Black Girl

Even though this episode is pretty last minute, Alani wants to help give you ideas and a reminder to practice self-care!

Aromatherapy article: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/aromatherapy-do-essential-oils-really-work

Transcript

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Alani. I'm black, female, and neurodivergent, AKA I lost the genetic lottery. The only thing I could do is pull myself up on my bootstraps and live whatever life takes me. If anyone deserves to profit from my trauma. It's me. That's the life of a neurospicy black girl.[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to NeuroSpicy Black Girl, the only place where you'll learn that the host of the podcast prepared this episode last minute. I'm Alani, and today I'm going to do another bonus episode or what I'm going to refer to as neurospicy chats. OK, I'm going to be real with y'all and show you my real neurospiciness in action. So this show releases biweekly on Thursdays, and I recorded my New Year's and collaboration episode prior. By the way, check them out if you haven't already. So I thought I was good for January. Well, it turns out there was an extra Thursday in January that I forgot to count. See, there's a reason why I did not become a STEM major in college. Anyway, guess who last minute came up with a script so they were able to record something the next day? With the overwhelming feeling I had, plus my tumultuous 2024, I thought it would be a good idea to chat about self-care. I touch on this a little bit in my "Struggle to be Creative" episode. Go check it out if you haven't already. This time, I want to discuss the self-care I do to help calm my neurospicy brain. If you need some ideas for self-care, I encourage you to listen to this episode and try these out. Also, leave some of your self-care ideas in the comments or send me a text about it. Link is in the description. Number one, aromatherapy. If you're someone like me who has an anxiety disorder or is just prone to getting anxious, I bet the one thing you hate hearing is,"oh, calm down." Well, no, Sherlock. If I could calm down, I would at the moment. Duh. A common technique slash method that's often taught are breathing exercises. However, this may be an unpopular take, but I don't think they work if you're by yourself. It's easy to do breathing exercises when there's another person there to remind you to do them. However, if you're having an attack and you're by yourself, your mind is in fight or flight mode, wanting to escape the attack. At least that's what it's like for me. That's where aromatherapy comes in. Aromatherapy is the practice of using essential oils for therapeutic reasons. According to this John Hopkins medicine article,"Aromatherapy, do essential oils really work?""When inhaling essential oils, the stem molecules in them travel from the olfactory nerves, aka your nose nerves, directly to the brain and especially impact the amygdala, aka the emotional center of the brain." Now, I feel like essential oils get sort of a bad reputation due to multi-level marketing moms who don't vaccinate their kids. I know one or y'all got one of them in your neighborhood, especially if it's a suburban one. The ones that got H-O-A fees Anyway, the reason why I recommend aromatherapy is because it is a more implicit, subtle way to present or ground yourself. Your mind is not pressured to remember a technique so you can do a simple action such as rubbing some lotion. Now, here are some warnings and precautions about aromatherapy. In the same John Hopkins article, they don't recommend using essential oil diffusers as the vapor can affect people differently. The example the article gives is that if you diffuse peppermint oil around a child who's less than 30 months old, the child can become agitated. Additionally, pets can react badly to scented vapor. The article recommends that the safest way to use essential oils include aromatherapy accessories such as necklaces or bracelets, body oil, and an aroma stick slash essential oil inhaler. I'll leave the article in the description of the episode to learn more. But I highly recommend to speak to our medical professional to help incorporate them into a healthy lifestyle. Number two, dancing. Now, I don't mean professional dancing. Although if you are a professional dancer, you can incorporate this too, just with more skill and rhythm. Now, I suck at memorizing choreography, especially in the classroom setting. The dance units in elementary school and middle school were dark days for me. But when I by myself, I just turn on my music and dance my emotions out. Not only you're getting good exercise, but you're releasing emotions. The best part of dance is that there are multiple ways of doing it, so you're not hindered if you have a physical limitation. Just move. I will say that an artist whose music is good to groove to is Kaytranada. Listening to any of his production will make your head bob. However, I can't listen to him while I do work because I'm gonna be more focused on shaking my butt to "4EVA". Anyway, stream Kaytranada. Number three, journaling. Ironically, writing can be a cause of anxiety or stress for me, especially if it's for this podcast or if it's for work. But journaling is the least stressful type of writing. Why? There's no wrong way to do it. Now, when I was younger, I tried to maintain a journal or diary. But then, undiagnosed ADHD happened. I wish elementary school me knew at the time that there is no pressure when it comes to journaling. Although, considering my mother always invaded my privacy as a child, I'm gonna give my inner child a whole lot of grace. Back to journaling, the big misconception is that you have to be consistent and write every day. That's a lie. Journaling is whenever you want to do it, however you want to do it. You want to do it weekly? That's okay. You want to do it in a bullet journal style? That's okay. Do you want to just doodle instead of write? Completely okay. Journaling is the least stressful form of writing as the only prompt you gotta follow is what you feel like writing. So yeah, that's some of my self-care activities. I decided to do this for my 10th episode because I want to remind both myself and the audience that it's important to take care of yourself. It is easier said than done, especially in a society that rewards over-productivity and profit over people. But we have such a limited time on earth, so let's try to make our time on this planet worthwhile. Thank you again for listening to this podcast and this episode. Links to support me are in the description. Remember, it's okay to be human. Be kind to yourself and do what's best for you. Do it next time where something new happens and it definitely won't be born. Bye.(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music)(upbeat music) you