By: Agustina Jorquera, M.Ed., Registered Psychotherapist
It’s summer time – almost. Many of us may be taking time off work, off school and off of regular routine that has been established for almost 10 months! We may find it appropriate to be more flexible with our relationship toward time and daily structure. Breaking routines and creating new ones are a rejuvenating way to feel vital and revived… AND let’s not forget our PLEASE skills:
- PL: tend to physical needs (i.e., rest your body if you are feeling fatigued)
- E: find balance in your relationship with food
- A: avoid mood-altering substances (especially if you struggle with aspects of mental health for which unprescribed mood-altering substances may exacerbate struggles)
- S: find balance in your sleep (keep a routine and differentiate between ‘week-days’ and whatever your ‘week-ends’ are! Try to implement daily structure of a regular sleep pattern)
- E: find balance in your relationship with exercise (avoid being sedentary and/or excessive in your exercise). Mood and activity are inter-related. To boost mood, we sometimes have to boost activity.
PLEASE skills are first line of defence against many mental health difficulties (i.e., including low or anxious mood) and overall Emotion Mind. If you don’t believe me, consult with your Wise Mind when you go to the grocery store hungry and see how quickly Wise Mind runs away on you. We are much more vulnerable to making impulsive decisions when our PLEASE skills are not balanced even when we think we are on summer holidays. PLEASE skills add to our holidays rather than take away from them. They can help us maintain Wise Mind and connect with values that are meaningful to us (i.e., making plans without feeling fatigued, making the most out of the long days and blue skies, being pleasant around our family and friends).
Our PLEASE skills impact how willing or unwilling we can be toward the changes in daily life and our ability to form resilient patterns of coping mechanisms. The summer holidays can be a tempting period of time to lose routine without implementing some type of structure.
So, let’s agree to make a commitment to checking in on our PLEASE skills on a daily basis. Think about those skills that tend to get mildly neglected or minimized in your life and try to invest more ‘tokens’ into them while also acknowledging if you are excessively focusing on other parts of the PLEASE skills that may need less attention.
Balancing our PLEASE skills does not mean having to lead a ‘boring summer break’ or ‘saying no to fun stuff’. It just means that in order to feel more entertained and connected, we may need to work at replenishing our PLEASE skills.
PLEASE enjoy your holidays!