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Chloe Chats

Hey everyone, hope you are well! I hope you had an amazing Christmas. If you don't celebrate it then I hope you had a nice week and if it was a difficult time for you I hope things get better for you. ♡

Today's post is a review for a Mental Health app called Thrive. I was asked if I would use it for at least 3 weeks and then write a review.* This is an honest review and all opinions are my own. 

I'm a big fan of mental health apps, they've really helped me when I needed it. I often struggle to sleep and I always get that feeling where my chest feels super tight and it stops me from sleeping so I use an app where I usually do some meditating before going to sleep.




How are you feeling? 

When you first go into the app it will ask you 'How are you feeling?' And it's just a simple slider that you can move up towards the sun or down towards the cloud with rain. Mine's been a bit of a mixture, but recently it's pretty positive which is great to see. Once you select how you are feeling, it then gives you some bubbles and asks why you might be feeling like that.


For an example, on this one I put it close to the sun as I was feeling pretty good and clicked onto 'something good that happened recently' as I've had a lovely Christmas break, 'your family' and 'your friends' as I've spent some time with everyone, and I also clicked 'how you look' because I recently have dyed my hair and I feel good about it. I really like this part of the app as it really gets you thinking, and sometimes I often feel negative but if someone were to ask me what's wrong, I'd probably say I don't even know. So with this and the bubble options it gets me thinking, it then gives you a little message like - "Well done! 'Just because one thing is not perfect it does not mean everything is ruined. Make an effort to see what is working out.'"

Zen points and Goals ~ 

As you complete activities on the app you also get Zen points which after collecting a load, you level up. I am currently at level 3. You also get goals set for you to complete, at the moment mine are:

Use Meditation, Go for a walk, and use Applied Relaxation on the app. I love that some of the goals are outside of the app too, I completed one that was to only have drinks with caffeine in them twice a day, because too much can be bad for you and can affect your mental health. You can also set reminders to complete your goals, so I forgot to do this at first, but when I had the drink less caffeine goal some days I'd forget to go onto my goals to tick the day so it's handy that you can give yourself a reminder.



Activities ~ 

This is probably one of my favourite things about the app. I don't know many mental health apps where it includes mini games to keep your mind busy or to help you feel distracted when you need it. At the moment there is two activities, but there looks to be more on their way.

The first activity is called Wise Words and honestly I love playing it. When you click into the activity it explains: "This is a fun word game you can use for distraction if you are feeling anxious in the moment. It also trains you to look out for the positives in life." - If you find positive words you get bonus points!




The longest word I've found at the moment is 5 letters, but it has different difficulties where you can click what word length you want to do. So at the moment I've done 15 of the word lengths of 3 letters, and the I've done a few of the 4 and 5 word lengths. So, there's a lot to do!

The other activity is called Message in a Bottle - which I love. What you do in this one is you can send a positive message to anyone, you don't select who it goes to, but I'm guessing whoever has the app may end up getting a lovely message. You don't write the messages yourself, it gives you a selection of options and you click the one you like and you send! I've had two messages in return and it's such a positive thing to add to the app. It's good to be kind.



Sessions ~

There's so many sessions on this app which is amazing. I'll admit I haven't had the chance to use them all but the sessions include:

Breathing
Meditation
Deep Muscle
Self Suggestion
Applied Relaxation

In most of them they advise that it's better with headphones as they all have a voice that talks to you through the session - or the beginning anyway, and then they go silent for you to carry on by yourself.

Breathing: When you click into this one you can choose how many minutes you want the session. The voice then goes through a breathing exercise with you, so if you feel like you need to calm down this can really help. If I'm feeling panicky or like I'm close to having a panic attack breathing exercises often really help me. However, often I struggle to do them just by myself. Sometimes my boyfriend will sit with me and tell me to breathe in, he'll count to 3 and then I'll breathe out. Of course, he's not always going to be there with me, so having an app that can help you through it is very helpful for me.



Meditation: There is so much in this session. When you click into it, it has several options as there's many different ways to meditate. The other night I actually did the one that's just titled 'Meditation' as I was trying to go to sleep but was struggling, and often that's because we have things on our mind, so as meditating is all about clearing your mind, I find it's brilliant to do before I go to sleep. It also relaxes me so much! Similar to the breathing one you can choose how long you want the session to be, and then it begins.



The voice will start you off and then it usually goes silent for you to finish off the meditation by yourself. I'll admit at first I didn't like that it just goes silent for the rest of the minutes at the end because I have used other apps before and I was so used to hearing the relaxing music in the background or a voice coming back every so often. My boyfriend on the other hand preferred this one because he said sometimes on the others the voice coming back would disturb his meditation. However, last night I loved this one. I cleared my mind so much that I actually fell asleep hehe. (Although, you don't normally meditate lying down, it's advised to always be sitting up.)

Deep Muscle: Which helps you to relax your muscles, it guides you through relaxing your body one muscle at a time which in result really helps to relax your mind. I actually really like these kind of relaxation sessions, as well as relaxing your body I find it makes me feel chilled and peaceful too.



Self Suggestion: This helps you to link words with being calm, so when you're feeling stressed at any point you can use that word to bring you back into a calm state. With this one for me anyway, I need to practise this a good few times before I can do it easily.




With this exercise you get yourself calm to begin with, and then you pick a word or a phrase that you just repeat over and over again until you hear the voice on the app again. As I said above, I found this a little bit tricky, because even though I repeated a word over and over, when I opened my eyes again, I felt like even if I said my word or phrase again it didn't really do much for me. But I know for any sort of meditation you have to practise it again and again.

Applied Relaxation: With this session you have several steps to work through. I really like the idea of having several steps because it takes time to teach your mind to do these kind of things. The first step is a little overview of what to expect and it introduces you to key concepts to help you with your understanding of anxiety.



This session once you have mastered it is meant to help you get yourself calm when you need it. They advise you to practise these exercises twice a day.

I'm looking forward to completing more of the steps and hopefully it will help me when I need it.

♡♡♡♡

There's so much more to the app, if I wrote about everything this would be an extremely long blog post, but I just wanted to give you a quick little tour of the app and what I thought of it. There are quite a few apps out there and I have actually done a post on a few before, but this app has gone to the top of my favourites. I think the fact that it has activities for you to do, and has a goal system as well as all the sessions you can do, it really overtakes so many apps in my opinion. I'm also a big fan of the whole layout and the colours of this app, you can see by the pictures it's all pastel colours so it looks so pretty and it's really relaxing and calming on your eyes.

I have really enjoyed using this app and I have found it so helpful and calming. If you're interested then please do go have a look, you can see more on their website here.

Like most of these apps there is a subscription fee for full access, they have to do this so they can continue to run it, the only other way for something like this to be fully free is through ads however, it's studied that having such ads on these things can also be bad for mental health hence they went down the subscription route.

You can also find them on social media here:

Twitter
Facebook




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14:22:00 25 comments
Hey everyone, hope you are well! I have been tagged in two Christmas tags - both quite similar so I thought I'd put them in one. I probably won't tag anyone seeing as it's Christmas in 3 days time! ♡ 

I was nominated by Lissa from rootswings to answer 5 questions about my Christmas favourites, so here goes! 


5 Favourite Things About Christmas: 



#1 What is your favourite Christmas movie? 
This is such a hard question, there's so many good ones. I think I'll go with Elf though, it's just a funny, heartwarming, and an entertaining watch. It always makes you smile when you watch it. 

#2 What is your favourite Christmas memory? 
Probably just every Christmas growing up when I was younger (and believed in Santa), waking up super early from being excited, my dad going downstairs to check if Santa had been and then me and my brother then ran downstairs to see all the presents! It's such an exciting moment for younger children for sure. Now I just enjoy chilling and being lazy for Christmas day and Boxing day! 

#3 What is your favourite Christmas ornament? 
Hmm, I don't know really. I'm going to be all nostalgic, and say when I was a kid, me and my friend made our own Christmas tree decoration - it was just two coloured lolipop sticks stuck together like a cross, we then added pom poms and ribbons ect, and attached string and hung it up on the tree. It's a lovely memory for sure, so I shall go with that. 

#4 What is your favourite Holiday music? 
Well, any Michael Buble song for starters, you just can't have Christmas celebrations without hearing it! But I also love the classics, like Last Christmas by Wham - what a song. 

#5 What is your favourite Holiday tradition?
I would say the tradition of having new pyjama's every Christmas, getting into them on Christmas Eve and then waking up on Christmas Day in them. I love it!  


The Christmas Tag:



Rules ~ 
1. Thank the blogger that tagged you and link their blog to your post.
2. List the rules in the post.
3. Answer all the questions asked by the blogger.
4. Nominate some other blogger's and provide them with 12 new questions!

Thank you to all those hat nominated me! Here are their blog links: (I hope I haven't missed anyone out, I've been a bit absent recently so I may have lost track of those who tagged me - please let me know if you did! ALSO, I may not answer everyone's questions because there were quite a few!)

hanmwill
disoriental
entangledwords
SeaofVenus
LittleBlogOfPositivity 

So I have lots of questions to answer, here goes!

#1 What's your favourite thing about Christmas? 
I would probably say just having a lazy Christmas Day, eating lots of food, and doing not much!

#2 What's the worst Christmas present you've ever received? 
Hm, I'm not sure! I remember ages ago when I was kid I got these cardboard cutout things that you put together, I don't think I ever really played with it...

#3 What meat do you have with your Christmas dinner?
Usually Turkey. I think we have two meats this time, I can't remember what the other is. (This is on the 15th though as I'm having an early Christmas Day because my brother won't be around for Christmas. Then on actual Christmas I think we're just having a Chinese.

#4 If you could only watch one Christmas film for the rest of your life, which would it be? 
ELF!

#5 When do you open your presents on Christmas day? (i.e. as soon as you wake up, after your lunch/dinner etc.) 
As soon as I wake up for sure! Now I'm a lot older I do get quite hungry but my mum won't let me do anything else until the presents are opened.

#6  Chocolate or cheese?
CHEESE! I don't eat chocolate that often, don't get me wrong, I do love it, but I definitely eat more cheese.

#7 What is the most underrated Christmas song? 
Maybe Santa Baby by Ariana? I know she's SO popular, and I love her too. But I feel like when people make their Christmas song lists they always put the old classics in it rather than the newer ones.

#8 What is your go-to Christmas dessert? 
Just a chocolate swiss roll.. I don't like mince pies or Christmas pudding so I'll go with that.

#9 What would your ultimate dream Christmas entail? 
For snow to fall on Christmas Eve, so we wake up Christmas day in a Winter wonderland. Then it stays till Boxing Day and then disappears.

#10 Do you have a Christmas day routine or do you just go with the flow? 
Go to sleep Christmas Eve in my new pyjama's, wake up, open presents, have breakfast, chill and watch TV, eat Christmas dinner, play games, have pudding, drink, watch more Christmas TV then go to bed!

#11 Have you ever had a white Christmas? 
I think so... I'm sure England has had one at some point.

#12 Are you a brussel lover or a brussel hater? 
A LOVER! Although, I only have like 4, I get a bit bored of them after 4!

♡♡♡♡♡

#1 If there is one person (alive/dead) that you would invite for your Christmas dinner, who would it be? 
Probably all my grandparents that have passed away, would be nice to have them all back for one meal. I know that's more than 1 (it's 3 to be precised but pls forgive me.)

#2 What is one Christmas memory you cherish the most? 
Just every Christmas I guess, I haven't had a bad Christmas yet, and hopefully I never will.

#3 Do you prefer small or large gatherings for Christmas parties?
It depends how I'm feeling at the time, I like my Christmas Day just with like 4 people which it usually is every year. Christmas parties though, I don't mind having large gatherings if it's at a big place!

#4 Eggnog or mulled wine?
Mulled Wine. I haven't actually tried Eggnog before.

#5 Cranberry sauce, or no cranberry sauce?
Cranberry sauce definitely!!

#6 That one Christmas song you find yourself singing all the time?
Probably Last Christmas by Wham, it's so easy to sing along to.

#7 Are you someone that writes personalised messages in Christmas cards, or the minimal 'Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!' type? 
I actually don't give out Christmas cards, I like to for birthday's as I feel they're more personal.

#8 What was the best Christmas gift you've ever received?
Oh gosh, errrrm, I don't know really! Maybe my keyboard!

#9 Are you a baubles person or tinsel person?
Baubles person I'd say! There's so many amazing ones you can get now.

#10 What is the one Christmas/Winter activity that you do every year? 
Go to a Christmas Market! It's easier now there's one right on my doorstep, but the food is delicious and the atmosphere is great.

#11 Are you on the naughty or nice list this year?
Well only Santa can tell you that, but I'm going to go with nice please!

#12 One makeup/skincare/accessory essential for Christmas? 
LIP BALM! My lips become dry anyway but throughout Winter it's pretty unbearable.

♡♡♡♡♡

#1 What is your favourite thing about Christmas?
Being around family, eating lots of food and playing games with everyone!

#2 Do you have any Christmas traditions you CANNOT forget about each year? 
Getting into new pyjama's on Christmas Eve and then waking up on Christmas Day in them! I have never done anything different my whole life.

#3 Is there a song that just gets you into that Christmas spirit?
ANY Christmas song to be honest. The classics, Michael Buble's album, Ariana Grande's Christmas songs..

#4 What is your favourite Christmas movie?
Elf or The Holiday I think!

#5 Which food is your must-have at Christmas time?
After eight chocolates for sureeeee.

#6 If you had to choose between Michael Buble's Christmas album and Justin Bieber's Christmas album, which one would you choose and why?
Michael Buble's for definite because I'm not a fan of Justin Bieber not going to lie!

#7 What is your favourite memory about Christmas?
Probably just being with the family, I think more so this year because I moved away from home this year so I'll be driving home for Christmas and I can't wait.

#8 When do you start decorating your place for Christmas?
As soon as December hits, although I put Christmas lights on my balcony in like November lol.

#9 What are your top 4 Christmas movies?
Elf, The Holiday, Love Actually and Arthur Christmas.

#10 What does Christmas really mean to you?
Being around loved ones.

#11 How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa?
I'm not sure to be honest, I can't remember! I'd say like when you hit 5 you kinda stop, I mean I had an older brother so I probably stopped believing in Santa earlier because he probably told me.

#12 What do you think makes Christmas so magical?
The atmosphere, the lights everywhere, when you go somewhere in public and you hear people singing!

#13 If you were at Christmas karaoke, which 5 songs would you choose to play? 
Oh gosh, I probably wouldn't take part in a Christmas karaoke lol. But Last Christmas, I wish it could be Christmas everyday, Santa Baby, Santa Tell Me by Ariana, and maybe if I'm drunk, All I want for Christmas is you!

♡♡♡♡♡

#1 What's the worst part of Christmas for you?
Probably just trying to get out and about when it's so busy outside! Because I live in Birmingham, if I know I need to go somewhere, work or just to the bank or something, I know I'll have to walk through the Christmas Markets and it can be pretty much chaos sometimes!

#2 Is Christmas your favourite holiday? If so/not why?
It's a great one. I'm unsure if it's my favourite, but I like that you can just be lazy, eat loads of food and just do nothing!

#3 What's your most memorable Christmas memory?
They've all been the same really! I don't think we've every done anything different so it's all been the same, so they've all been memorable!

#4 What's one thing you miss about Christmas from when you were a kid? 
I think I miss the whole 'magical-ness' of it. How exciting was it when you were a kid, you'd find it so hard to fall asleep on Christmas Eve because you knew Santa would be arriving to deliver presents, and then the morning you wake up SO early, my dad would check to see if Santa had been and then we would run into the living room.

#5 When do you open your Christmas presents?
Christmas Day in the morning!

#6 If you could spend Christmas with only one person, who would it be?
That's so difficult! I guess I'd spend it with my boyfriend, although I have never spent Christmas with him before, but I feel like I can't choose between my parents??

#7 What's something you would change about Christmas if you could?
Hmm, maybe if it was made less stressful about buying gifts for people, I feel like we shouldn't worry about how much  we spend on someone, all the gifts no matter what price can be just as thoughtful.

#8 When does the Christmas season start and end for you?
I'd say when it hits the start of December I usually start thinking about buying presents and then when it gets to the 22nd I start looking forward to Christmas Day, but there's no real celebrations for me until the day, unless I have a work Christmas party before.

#9 How do you feel about cuffing season? Is it real?
lol, I'm not really sure to be honest if it's a thing? If there's a study on it showing that more people couple up in the colder months then maybe it is a thing!

Thank you so much for all the questions, this has been a massive Christmas tag!!! Hope you enjoyed getting to know more about my Christmas favourites, traditions, and festivities!

What's your favourite thing about Christmas? Let me know in the comments below! 

This is my last post before Christmas, I know I haven't been around much in December but it's such a busy month and I wanted some time for myself to just chill out and relax. I shall be back just after Christmas and then you'll see a lot more of me in January! 

HAVE A FAB CHRISTMAS ❤

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18:12:00 18 comments
Hey everyone, hope you are well! Today's blog post is a lovely book review, you probably know by now how much I love self-care books and I buy a few of them because I find they are so helpful. Especially when the author has experienced certain issues themselves and talk about their recovery journey and what they do to help themselves. I've spoken about one book in particular before on my blog, but one of the best things for my anxiety was reading and learning about it. I have suffered with anxiety all my life, and it wasn't until this year that I properly understood it. I read about all the symptoms, and it helped SO much. Instead of worrying about a million things at once, I started to realise they were all related to my anxiety, this meant that I then had the one thing to worry about rather than a million things, and that is anxiety.

The book I am reviewing today is called: *365 Days Of Happiness by Jacqueline Pirtle. I have been sent the book to review but I immediately said yes because of the type of book it was, and I knew it would be beneficial for me.



First of all, let's meet the author: Jacqueline Pirtle. 

Jacqueline's professional background is in health, wellness, holistic medicine, energy healing, law of attraction, and happiness. She has an international wellness degree and is internationally certified as a Reiki Master. So with a lot of experience on her side, you just know this book is going to be amazing.

Jacqueline has been leading life-changing workshops, talks, and private sessions since 2006. Her passion for 'sprinkling happiness' and being 'high for life' shines through in all of her work as an energy healer; mindfulness and happiness coach, and author of 365 Days of Happiness.

In relation to the book, Pirtle spent every day of 2017 devoted to her own happiness. She wrote every single day about the things she did to honour her joy and used those writings to create this 365 day step-by-step guide.




Follow Jacqueline on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram ♡

365 Days of Happiness: The blurb. 

"How often do you really pay attention and choose things to improve your day? In 365 Days of Happiness, author Jacqueline Pirtle has created daily inspirations that help you mindfully work towards living a more vivid experience of daily happiness. Showing that you can put in work to change your life while having fun, the practises are full of whimsy and delight. Through light, bubbly, cheerful passages, each day teaches you to find happiness, use those sour lemons, and shift yourself into a 'high for life' frequency where you can reach happiness anywhere at any time." 


My review: Thoughts. 

I have read this book quite quickly (in a week) just for reviewing purposes, but I will be going back to the start and reading day by day for the whole 365 days. 
The first thing that grabbed my attention was the front cover. There is a delicious looking cupcake on the front which immediately draws my eyes to it, and underneath the title it says "because happiness is a piece of cake!" Which is a lovely touch, and really suits the front cover, I know cupcakes make me pretty happy!


As you go through the book, on each page it is titled with the day number - which is why it's a lovely idea to read the book once a day for the whole 365 days. Each day is also mostly just on the one page (there are a few days that go over a few pages), however, this means that it's definitely a light read and if you chose to read it day by day it would only take you a few minutes each day. There's something different every day and most of them include little activities you could do to help with your daily happiness.

Here are some of my favourite days:

Day 7: "Imagine a person laughing so hard that tears are rolling down her cheeks. And even if she tried, she can't stop laughing. Now notice everyone and everything around her, and how they start to laugh too."

I love this one because it's so true, when you see someone laughing about something it makes you feel joy and can lead to you laughing along with them. How many of you have started laughing because someone else's laughing has set you off? And then, just like that, you feel happier.

Day 8 is all about wish lists, which I feel like is so important to have. How many of you go onto a clothing website and add loads of items to your wish list? Firstly, it's a really fun activity to do and it gets you really excited. If you have the money to treat yourself, you can then buy a couple of the items. Or, if it's Christmas or your birthday coming up, you can send your wish list to a loved one and that way you know you'll be getting something you love. I also like to add items to a wish list and keep checking back to them because they'll definitely be included on a sale at some point!

Day 16: "Imagine waking up, smiling and saying, 'this is already and will be the best day ever.'"

I really enjoyed reading this quote because you really can just 'trick' or change your mindset so easily. If you wake up and automatically tell yourself today is going to be rubbish, you've already set a negative mindset and so your thoughts will be thinking about how bad your day is going to be. However, how do you know it's going to be a bad day until you experience it? Therefore, if you wake up and tell yourself, it's going to be an amazing day, you've put yourself into a positive mindset, and you will more than likely have a great day.

Day 54: "What do you love right now?" "Ask yourself this question first thing waking up..."

Similar to day 16, this is putting you into the positive mindset. If you find you wake up feeling negative, take yourself a notebook by the side of your bed, jot down things that you love right now and you'll find that your mood will change to become more happier.

Day 59: "Imagine that you cover all your floors with glitter."

I LOVE this one. I remember when I was younger, I went to the cinema and the floor in the foyer room was purple with specs of glitter, and I used to think how cool it looked and it most likely had a positive impact on my brain.

Day 207: "Create a morning, mid-day, and night-time feel good ritual."

This was a great one too. If you can give yourself a routine that you love to do, may that be having a bit of a pamper session in the evenings, or waking up and making sure you have enough time to watch a funny YouTube video etc, you may find that your day becomes a lot more happier.  
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I am looking forward to reading it day by day. I love the simple layout of the book, each day is motivating and fills you with positivity. I felt like this book can really help with how you treat your mind and successfully helps with giving you 365 days of happiness. Obviously, I know you will definitely have a fair few bad days in a year but if you read this once a day you can most definitely find something positive about each day of your life. 

Get your copy: Details below. 

365 Days of Happiness is available for sale on Amazon 



Let me know your thoughts below, is there a self-care book that you love to read? 

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*This is a sponsored post as I received the product in return for a honest review. All opinions are my own. 

17:30:00 48 comments
Hey everyone! Hope you're well. In today's post I'm going to go through a self care pamper day - or more specifically a long pamper morning. I know it can be difficult to find time to have a morning or a day just for you, but I would recommend making time for it, if you need to schedule it into your calendar to remind you, then please do! Looking after yourself can really help with your mental health. My pamper day could be different to how you would have yours, but I shall include pictures of some of the products I use and what I get up to. I actually did everything I included in this post today - so I could write about my pamper morning as I do it!

*This post is written in collaboration with Panasonic. 

A Self Care Pamper Day: 

I woke up this morning feeling pretty refreshed already, I had a great nights sleep - I didn't go to bed too late, it was around 11.30pm - which is pretty good for me as I usually struggle to sleep. 



A warm relaxing shower - 

The first thing on my pamper morning is to have a warm shower, the hot water relaxes your muscles and I find it really gets you off to a positive start. Sometimes when I wake up feeling groggy a shower is just what I need to get me back up on my feet again - especially if I have any early morning starts. At the moment I like to use my British Rose Shower Gel which I got from The Body Shop, it smells amazing and I always like to make sure I have at least one of their shower gels in my bathroom! 

Before I even start getting dressed, I like to blow dry my hair - 

I sit wrapped up in my towel on my bed and blow dry my hair. I find as well if I am going out then blow drying my hair is a lot better than leaving it to dry naturally. I don't know about you, but when I dry my hair after washing it, it always feels amazing, and makes it so much easier for you to put your hair into a fab style. The portable hair dryer Panasonic is a great product to use. There's a select few products that I like to spend more money on, I'm sure you have them too (like perfume for example), but I know how damaging hair dryers can be for your hair so it's always a good idea to read into these types of products so you know you're getting the best one you can. 

This hair dryer can give you a healthy glow, dries your hair quickly, and comes with 3 different speeds, 3 temperature settings and 3 attachments. It also comes in two colours, a rose gold and a pink, both are super pretty! One of my favourite things about it is the healthy mode it has, which is a heat protection mode, pretty awesome. As it has Nanoe technology it retains the moisture balance in your hair, which then leads to the shiny and frizz-free hair. I dye my hair an awful lot, I actually have brown hair naturally, but I've been dying it for 5 years now, I just love my blonde hair too much! Obviously, the chemicals have been pretty bad on my hair, so I have stopped and haven't actually dyed my hair for most of the year now - which is good for it BUT the hair dye actually kept it looking and feeling good, it now often feels straw-like and frizzy so a hair dryer that helps with the frizz and gives it a shiny look is definitely something that's helpful to me. 

♡ Here's the link again! 

Put on my clothes for the day, and start the face masks and moisturising - 

After my hair is feeling fabulous, I then tie it up - I know this defeats the object slightly but I dry my hair first and then style it after my face is all cleaned and my make-up is on. 

After my shower, my face does feel a little dry, this won't happen to everyone of course, but even though the warm water feels fab on my body, my face doesn't react amazing to it, so I often get red blotches and it's dry. I use my cream that I was prescribed with, which is the Doublebase Gel - it's basically a very thick moisturiser but it helps to hydrate and protect your skin (you can put it on before you get into the shower too, I like to do both). You can use it however many times you like too, if my skin is feeling dry then I like to whack some on. I got mine from my doctors, but I think you can them from your local chemist. 

♡ I then move onto face masks!  I have a few different masks and creams that are my favourites. I don't use all of them at once, but I thought I'd share two of my faves, one being a sheet mask, and the other being cream mask. 



Mega Moisture Mask, Dry and Thirsty Skin ~

I first bought this from Boots a long time ago, but recently it's pretty hard to find these now, Amazon may still have them so I'd check their site if you wanted to try it out. There's a few different ones but this is the only one I have tried. I absolutely love putting on a face mask and the feel of it doing its magic, and then once you wash it off - the softness of your face is unreal. It makes me feel so relaxed, I try to do one at least once a week. As the name suggests, this helps when you have dry skin (which I mentioned before, I get this issue often.) It comes in a 100ml container which gives you about 10 facials, you just have to squeeze some out of it, and put a thick layer all over your face and then leave it to dry for 5-10 minutes and then wash it off with a flannel and warm water! Easy as that. 

Dermal Korean Face Mask Sheets ~ 

One day I was just looking at Amazon and I wanted to get a bunch of face mask sheets, so I found these! I actually got 24 different ones for less than £20, it's pretty decent. There's a massive collection, the one in the picture is a 'Vitamin Collagen Essence Mask' and it has the 3 words to describe (as they all do), 'Brightening, Firming and Refining.' I find them more refreshing when I've had them in the fridge for an hour or so before I use it, you just pop the mask onto your face - it's one of them where it has the eye holes and the mouth hole so you look super scary, I leave it on for 20 minutes and then take it off, and as the sheets are often pretty wet from all the essence it's always nice to wipe it on your face before you chuck it away. This makes me skin feel SO refreshed, and I let it soak in all the goodness for a little while longer. 

♡ If I'm feeling tired, I like to use some eye treatment masks too. I think I started to hear about these from YouTubers, I always saw them using these and I wanted to try them out myself. They are tiny masks that you can fit under your eye, and you let them do their thing for around 20 to 30 minutes and then you take them off! You must use these when your face is clean of make-up and it's usually best if your skin is properly cleansed beforehand. As they're wet, when you pop them under your eyes they tend to stay there, obviously, too much movement could lead to them falling off, so I like to use them when I'm lying down on my bed. You can actually pop these an hour before applying into the fridge too, I guess the cold temperature makes your under eyes feel good. I use: Pure's Eye Treatment Mask, you can get normal ones or gold ones which are pretty cool, I got both just because! 

Have some breakfast and a nice cuppa - 

I don't want to starve myself of course, and it's so important to have some breakfast, I'm sure you've all heard the saying 'it's the most important meal of the day' main reason is because it gives you that energy you need to start your day off! So please, don't forget to eat something, I know a lot of people often don't have time for breakfast if they're in a rush to work, but at least grab a cereal bar or keep some cereal at work that you can eat when you arrive. I try to limit how many cups of tea I have too, just because it's not good for you to have so much caffeine, I know it's tempting to have loads of tea and coffee in a day though, so I try to limit myself to two cups. One in the morning, and one in the middle of the day around lunch time.

♡ Here's my ADORABLE mug, yes I am aware it is no longer Halloween but I will continue to use this every single day. I also am a big fan of big wide mugs, just something about them. (More tea can fit in of course, but they just feel comfortable to hold and you can easily warm up your hands with them!)



♡ My favourite breakfast at the moment is a egg sandwich, although I tend to get bored quickly and change up what I have a lot.

Time to apply some make-up -

I find that even if I'm not going out anywhere, doing my make-up and getting dressed into something more than joggers and a hoodie really helps me to become more positive and really uplifts my spirits. So today I went all out, although I didn't put any eyeliner on today (mostly because I am running LOW, and so I didn't want to use the last bits of it for today). I shall give you a list of everything I used, maybe you have used them too, but these are pretty much what I use day to day anyway.


♡ I first use Rimmel Lasting Finish Breathable Foundation, and afterwards I use Match Perfection Skin Tone Adapting Concealer just for under my eyes and if I have a few spots. I then top it all off with Glow All Out Luminising Face Powder which gives me a bit of a glow!

♡ Next up is my eyes. I am currently LOVING Sleek's i-Divine Mineral Based Eyeshadow palette, the colours are so shimmery and perfect for the festive time of the year. I would normally put my eyeliner on next but I didn't today - I used a darker smokey look for my eye shadow instead. I then used the Thick & Fast High Definition Collagen-coat Mascara by Soap and Glory.

♡ I then popped on some blush - Rimmel London's Lasting Finish Soft Colour Blush in the colour Live Pink, and then I put on some highlighter, which was from Sleek's Solstice Highlighting palette.

♡ I then filled in my eyebrows, just with brown eye shadow to be honest! And last but not least, I added some red lippy because why not! I used Sleek's Lip VIP Semi-matte Lipstick in the colour 'Walk of fame.' I prefer my lipsticks semi-matte just because I feel like the full matte ones really dry my lips out!

Voila. There's my make-up done.


And the last part - 

This is when I do my hair, although I do have fairly short hair, it goes to my shoulders or just about, so there's not too much I can do. My favourite thing to do at the moment is to have some of it down and then have the rest in a bun!

There's my pamper morning - it totally relaxes me, makes me feel and look good, and generally helps me to have a positive day! 

Do you do anything similar for a pamper self-care day? Let me know in the comments below! Also if you are loving any of the products, lemme know too ♡

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08:56:00 63 comments
Hey everyone! Hope you're well! Today's post is some helpful ways for de-stressing. The title is for when you're having a bad 'day' but this isn't always the case, and you might feel stressed for a lot longer than a day. I get stressed so easily, so it's something I am working on too.



It's so important to take care of ourselves, it's normal to get stressed every so often, but when it starts taking over your life that's when it can get serious. It's quite difficult to actually pin down what stress means, you might feel stressed because of certain situations or events that might make us feel pressured, it may be that you don't have much control over the situation. Also, the feelings we get when we are under pressure, I'm sure you've all felt this at some point, it may be that you've got a lot of work to do which is piling up - this can then cause you to feel stressed.

From looking into stress, I found on the MIND website that there is no medical definition of stress - health professionals often disagree whether stress is the cause of problems or the result of them. This means that it can be difficult for you to work out what it is that's causing you stress and how to deal with the stress. However, there are many different ways for you to manage your stress.

Helpful ways to de-stress: 

#1 Stay positive - I know that's a lot easier said than done. Often when you're feeling down or stressed it's so difficult to stay positive. Laughing more can really help, it is known that laughing lowers levels of stress hormones. Have you ever heard of the saying 'fake it till you make it.' I know this is often more directed to a job and people say to fake being good at something and you'll likely end up 'making it.' It's all about being more confident, tell yourself and others around you that you can do something, if you believe that you can, you'll find that you'll be able to accomplish it. I find that if you're feeling down, force a smile onto your face, even 'fake' smiling can make a difference, you'll start believing that you feel fine and then you actually will feel good. 

♡ I like to make sure I find the positives in situations. If you've had a busy day at work and it's made you feel quite stressed because of the workload, think about the things in the day that did make you smile. What about that conversation you had with your colleague, that was funny wasn't it? That's just an example, but you get the gist. I know personally how hard it can be to focus on the positive things, we tend to get hung up on anything negative that happens rather than thinking about the positives. Try and give it ago, maybe throughout the day have a little notebook with you, that way you can write down something that was positive. Then, at the end of the day you can look back at it, and that should help. 


#2 Exercise - Yes, I'm sure you've heard it a lot, I've probably spoke about exercise in the majority of my mental health posts. It really does help. Every time you are physically active your body releases mood-boosting chemicals called endorphins. Therefore you start to feel more positive and happy, and also perhaps while you are exercising it's a little distraction for you. Also it doesn't matter what your fitness level is, you can do anything from going on a stroll for 20 minutes to running a marathon if you want! (I definitely cannot run a marathon at the moment). 

♡ I feel like I mention this a lot too but just to show you how I feel personally after exercise can hopefully encourage you to do some if you're feeling stressed. I used to go to a gym class once a week which started at 8pm - I had times where the thought of going to the gym so late was just a definite no from me. However, I used to force myself to go because I knew that I really enjoyed the class and the feeling I got during and afterwards was so positive, I felt so happy and good for pushing myself to do it. 

Like I said above, it doesn't matter what your fitness level is. Maybe you don't even want to leave the house, then sure, do some exercise at home. There's so many YouTube video's and exercise DVDs that you can get nowadays. I find that when I'm at home all day and I do some exercise in the morning - just a half hour workout, I feel so motivated and positive for the rest of the day. 

♡ Adding onto this, you could do some yoga or meditating too. At the moment I'm feeling quite anxious, and I often go to bed at the end of the day feeling terrible - I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest and it just takes me ages to sleep. So, I have been using the meditating section on the Calm App I have - I wrote about this in another post here. I've not done much meditating before so I'm no expert, but this 7 day meditating section is teaching me and I have to say it makes me feel very relaxed before I go to sleep. 

#3 Unplug - This is so important to do, especially after you've been at work or you've been doing work all day at home. Don't come home and continue to work through your emails, you can still talk to your partner or a family member that you may live with about your day, but perhaps try and stick to the positive stories. Although if something did upset you in the day, maybe talking to your loved one can help too. I know if you're a full time blogger it might be a bit more difficult to get out of 'work mode,' but give yourself the same amount of breaks you would get when you work in an office, or in a shop, and if possible give yourself some time in the evening to settle down and do something else - or if you like to blog more in the evening, then have a few hours in the morning or in the afternoon to yourself. 

♡ I always try to leave any work thoughts when you walk through the door on the way home. It's not always easy, but I try and clear my mind completely, and I forget about work until the next morning when I walk through the door. 

I always find it's important every single day to take some time for yourself. Even if you schedule it into your diary as a reminder, give yourself half hour, or an hour of the day for you, and only you. Run yourself a bubble bath, put a facemask on, do some tidying up if that's something that makes you feel relaxed (I only say that because I tidy up to relax.) 

#4 Identify your stress triggers - As I said at the beginning, I know it can be hard to find out what it is that is stressing you out. Try and think about what stresses you out? When you find something that triggers it, how do you react to it? Do you let it consume you, or do you try and shake it straight away. Like most things, when you come to learn about something and really understand it, it's not as hard to deal with. Obviously, you'll still have your bad days of course, but if you know how to manage it or what it is that stresses you out you can try to avoid it - sometimes it is unavoidable though. 

♡ Sometimes I feel stressed and my partner asks me what it is that's stressing me out and I can't even give him a proper answer sometimes - and that's pretty normal. If I'm feeling stressed I will try and do something that I know will distract or me, or help me to feel calm again. I often find as well that talking to someone about it can be super helpful. If you know what it is that is bothering you, then get it off your chest and tell someone, it can help you when it is out there, but also that person you tell can help you with managing it - maybe they'll give you some great advice. 

Understanding how stress manifests in your life is the first step to finding balance. 

#5 Do something you find relaxing - Similar to what I said in the 'unplug' point - but please if you're feeling stressed don't just sit there worrying about it as it'll only get worse. Do something that you love to do, it may be that you really enjoy lying in bed, with some treats watching movies or your favourite TV show - I know I do! Even when you're not feeling stressed, I'd advise you to make a list now of everything that makes you happy or makes you feel relaxed, and put it somewhere safe - perhaps put it on your fridge or hang it up somewhere! Then, when you're feeling stressed go and have a look at that list and pick one to do. You can also keep adding to the list too, and if you live with others you may find that your list can help others too. 

♡ One of my favourite things I like to do to feel relaxed is to run a bath, get my laptop propped up on my washing basket, and then sit in the bath whilst watching Netflix or watching something that I love and you don't have to get out of the bath to change it - so for example, I don't tend to put YouTube on because the videos are normally like 15 minutes at most, and then it just flicks through ones it thinks you may like! Because of that, I usually stick to Netflix, stick something on for an hour and then get out of the bath. 

Adding onto this as well, I'd definitely recommend getting fresh air. This is something I need to do more, but if you work inside all day it helps so much to just go outside on your break and go on a little walk if you have the time. If you work from home, or you're just at home all day normally, go for a walk for an hour, give yourself a lunch break and see the outside. I know it's so cold at the moment so it might not appeal to you, but wrap up warm because it's not healthy for you to be locked up inside all day. I know for some it can be so hard to leave the house, so if that's the case, I'd recommend opening your curtains, opening the window and letting some of that fresh air inside.




These are my tips, I hope you enjoyed the read and that they have been helpful. Tell me in the comments below what you like to do to de-stress! Like I said at the start, I get stressed so easily, so I'm always looking for advice. 

As always, chat soon! 

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17:44:00 72 comments
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Hi everyone! I'm Chloe and I spend a lot of my time blogging. I blog about mental health & lifestyle. Always here for a friendly chat, enjoy my blog.

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