Daily writing prompt

What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?

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Discomfort is necessary in order for people to grow and learn; comfort is necessary for healing, and for the longevity required to put that growth to use and encourage more in the future. Sometimes comfort aids productivity and practicality; it’s a great way to reduce the effects of PTSD when everything else around you feels very uncomfortable. My biggest strategies for comfort are integrated into my day-to-day in a way that makes room for the discomfort necessary for growth.

I’d like to focus on what I do on work days, or “productive days” (for when I have planed tasks but no paid work hours). Sources of discomfort that negatively affect my productivity – as someone with chronic physical illness, PTSD, and ADHD – should be quickly dealt with so that I can bring my best self to the proverbial table. I’ve got an arsenal of strategies at hand that will hopefully help some readers with similar problems:

• Staying hydrated:
  • Filling up multiple, or one large, water bottle(s) first thing in the morning helps conserve dopamine during the day and ensures you’re drinking the best amount of water for your body’s needs.
  • Chew ice. It’s especially nice in a warm environment, or if chewing helps you focus.
• Gain nourishment:
  • Sometimes cooking is difficult or too time consuming. Eat single ingredients right out of the package, or bulk meal prep on a solid day off and freeze your favorites to be eaten on a rotating basis all month (or longer).
  • If food helps you focus, keep dopamine inducing snacks nearby while you work – like your favorite treat or, my personal favorite, spicy snacks. Nothing helps me focus like a bowl of Fuego Takis, a V8 with Tabasco sauce, chili chocolates, or a spicy jerky stick.
• Fight fatigue:
  • Whether you’ve got a heart condition, chronic pain, PTSD, ADHD, various forms of narcolepsy, other illness, or you just aren’t able to get as much sleep as your body needs, being able to fight extreme drowsiness is useful when taking a rest isn’t possible. Some of my favorites are also strategies for increasing dopamine to reduce ADHD issues:
    • Spicy foods
    • Scary podcasts/audiobooks (if it doesn’t interfere with your task)
    • Ice cold showers, ice cold foot-baths
    • Self-massage or foot rollers
    • Quick breaks for stretching or calisthenics
    • Wim Hof method breathing
    • Doing a quick walk around the room/up the stairs/around the house/block.
• Reduce sensory overload or sensitivity:
  • If you tend to itch/hurt/lose focus etc. from certain stimuli or from stress, this is for you. The easiest one: wear something comfortable; how can you focus if the itchy lace from your blouse or your too-tight collar are distracting you?
  • If you’re feeling anxious, try to identify why or if there are things going on making it worse.
    • I like to try changing whether or not music is on or off, the type of music, and the volume.
    • I think about whether my sitting position is giving me pain that I’m consciously ignoring, but I’m sub-consciously being distracted by.
      • Add pillows, sit on the floor, change locations, take a pain-reliever, make sure your physical needs are being met (did you have water? food? sleep?).
    • Maybe you deal with itchy scalp or dry skin, or allergy itch;
      • See if applying a gentle moisturizer/oil, taking a cool shower, wiping with a cool cloth, applying ice, or brushing your hair and pulling/pinning it back help.
      • Wipe out your ears, wash your face, or brush your teeth (or chew something minty) to feel a bit more refreshed.
• Adjust your momentum flow:
  • Sometimes, the greatest tool at our disposal is our own inner momentum. I keep my daily momentum by adjusting my schedule to suit my brain.
    • You’ll have to find your own schedule but here’s one of my options depending on the day/my needs: I wake up early enough to get showered/eat breakfast/feel awake, partly because this gives me time before work to complete an errand. I don’t clean on the weekends, I use the early morning time to start with a cleaning task, and spread them out across the weekday mornings.
      • This starts my day with high momentum and lets me decrease it slowly throughout the day. I spend the rest of the day completing work or self-improvement tasks, then I can wind down into personal time and resting. This means I don’t have to deal with the difficulty of transitioning from a high momentum task (like showering, which uses a lot of spoons for me), to a lower momentum, then back to a high momentum like cleaning.
• Increase your confidence:
  • A high level of confidence can greatly improve your comfort and willingness to try something new, meet new people, speak publicly, or tackle a difficult task. One of the ways I improved my own confidence was to build a wardrobe that made me more comfortable and confident.
    • Find out what clothes you feel more confident in, and then identify what’s stopping you from wearing them. For example, I love skirts, but I hate the limitations in sitting and movement if I want to meet the level of modesty and professionalism I personally prefer to have, and dislike not having pockets. Instead of just not wearing them, I wear tennis/bike shorts with large pockets underneath.

Ultimately, what works for one person may not work for everyone. In fact, what works for me, might have the opposite effect for you. My hope is that this list sparks your own ideas and helps guide others to incorporating the type of comfort into your life that helps you be the best you can be. Good luck!