4 Lifestyle Changes That Might Help Your BPD
Living with BPD is unpredictable. It’s not always clear what sets you off, and often, it can feel like something you were fine with yesterday is suddenly not okay. Trying to make healthy changes to your lifestyle can be difficult when you have such an aversion to change itself.
Perhaps it may be best to not look the actions we’ll discuss below as lifestyle changes, but as acts of self-care. It’s incredibly important that you make the time for self-care when you have BPD if you want to learn to cope with the illness better. Focusing on yourself is exactly what you need to do for the best chance of recovery.
Here are 4 tips to help you grow stronger and manage your BPD more successfully:
Start a mood diary
It’s common with BPD to have moments or irrationality and mood swings. Some people with BPD find it useful to document their feelings in a diary, which can not only act as a form of therapy at the time, but can help them to spot patterns in their moods and understand what may be a trigger for them.
Take up meditation
Don’t be so quick to dismiss meditation as useless – it takes a long time to get used to, but can be incredibly healing as a daily practice. Learning mindfulness in particular may help you to learn to more effectively cope with your more difficult emotional experiences, and meditation has been linked to a reduction of cortisol, the stress hormone. If you struggle to sleep because of your BPD, some people find that daily meditation helps them get a better night’s rest.
Get into a habit of regular exercise
Any form of physical activity is better than nothing, especially as exercise is linked to an improved mental wellbeing. Don’t be put off by the association between exercise and gruelling gym workout sessions. It may be enough to go for a simple walk around your local park, or take up weekly yoga classes with a friend. Just five minutes of exercise is thought to induce anti-anxiety effects, and even a peaceful exercise environment can help to promote feelings of calm.
Consider a whole foods diet
Although no diet can ever fully cure you of BPD, studies have shown clear links between diet and mental illness – namely that a good diet has a far better effect on your mental health. A whole food diet focuses on foods that are natural, cutting out processed foods, white flour, bread and pasta, and soy. We still need to research more into how whole foods may help BPD sufferers in particular, but a few people already swear by it for improving their symptoms.
