Smoke Sesh - how to stay sane this winter

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Happy Thursday! Sorry there was no episode on Tuesday, needed a day to stop and reconnect with myself. Winter is approaching and I can feel the big SAD creeping up on me. Seasonal affective disorder is something I’ve dealt with for a long time so I wanted to get on here this week and share some of my favorite tips and tricks for how I make it through the colder months. We talk warm foods & soup season, favorite recipes and reconnecting with your favorite things, fall activities, nesting and how to make your house a safe place, scary movies, plants, getting outside, overall simple tips to make life not so hard on us, and to keep us from being hard on ourselves. I love you all so very much and I’ll see you on Tuesday for our usual episodes

Listen, everybody needs a fairy godmother, you know, just somebody to look out for them. Some people call me their fairy smoke mother, others their internet big sister, but you can call me Hannah, the host of Smoke Sash. So come hang out, let's light up and talk everything there is to life. The good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing, I've got a story for it all. Oh good morning everybody, how the hell are we all doing today? it's Thursday I know not our usual rendezvous day but I'm not gonna lie I sat down to record an episode on Tuesday and I just not that I wasn't feeling the podcast like the questions

you guys sent in were amazing um I just felt like I wasn't at a place where I could adequately even give advice when I didn't even have the energy nor willpower to even think about my own life I was just kind of going through it you know what I mean um and so just to be fair to you guys I didn't want to put out shitty content or content in my opinion um that might have been half ass I was like I'll give myself a break I'll give myself a few days and I'll take those days to really just focus on myself focus on how I'm feeling and try and you know make myself feel a little better um we got slammed with a cold front here and it went from like 70 to 30 degrees and I think the um kind of winter blues set in very very quickly for me um that combined with

me starting my period um which I just started last night thank god not pregnant but it just kind of caused a little chaos in my brain that I needed to really just sit down and handle before I could you know give real life advice you know what I mean I was like if I'm not sane I shouldn't be you know replying to these questions i need to give myself a little breathing room and that's okay and i love this community we've built i've said this before but you guys are so fucking supportive and i was like kind of scared to be like hey i'm gonna put an episode out late but everybody was so fucking receptive like take your time girl we love you take as much time as you need we want you to feel better and that was like incredible amazing I'm so lucky to have

people who support me and understand me as much as you guys do so thank you for being patient but yeah I was just I feel like this is a good vibes podcast and it's like we get on here to kind of forget about the bad things going on or we get on here for a little distraction or a little bit of uplifting and I didn't want to get on here and just be like everything sucks I hate my life I want to die like this is horrible awful but that was just the hormones talking and the winter depression setting in um but I'm feeling better I kind of um sat down with myself and I feel like when I get into moments and periods where I just feel low low low extra low I really have to take the time to focus on what makes life good and focus on the things that I really do appreciate

and value. So here's a little just like weekly challenge as we enter the colder seasons. I think this is probably a really good practice to focus on and also something that I will be doing and have been doing over the past few days. I just take a little bit of time out of my day for me personally it's when I sit down with coffee um maybe yours is at night when you're unwinding or on your lunch break whatever it is and I just take a moment to either sit down and write write it out or just think about it with myself um three to five things that I'm grateful for if you are having a hard time with gratuity uh start with three um if you're a little bit feeling a little bit better maybe go to 5, 10, whatever, but it really is a helpful way to redirect the brain onto a more

positive route. So for me personally, number one was I am so proud of myself for getting as far as I have. I'm so grateful for myself for persevering through everything. My second one is I am so incredibly grateful for having a support system you guys are incredible to me my family my friends my partner everybody was there to uplift me when I was in a time that I was kind of feeling down and third of all I'm grateful to be able to get up to go outside to move my body and to have that privilege every single day because I think I just take a lot for granted and it's really important to kind of sit down with yourself really just like look around and be like listen bitch I know in your head you make everything out to be awful but like

look around you you're living your dream life you've made it this far you've so many more years to come things are only going to get better so let's appreciate what we have in the now so I'm feeling a little bit better I hope you guys are feeling okay I figured to start off this podcast um we'll just kind of i made just like a list of things that are keeping me sane and keeping me breathing during this season especially as we enter the colder months i know um seasonal depression is something many of you guys might deal with it's something that i absolutely absolutely deal with um during the summer i'm usually a okay perfectly fine any sort of hang ups or things that i have going on i can usually work through pretty well but during the winter

months um it does get really hard for me so i wanted to sit down with myself have a little conference with myself and kind of think about things that bring me happiness bring me joy and are kind of keeping me going right now and making my life good so let's run through those things and then if we have some more time we'll get into some questions let's get into it so first of all um especially when it gets colder my immune system like immediately takes a hit so over the weekend i went to like a little craft fair um out in the middle of fucking nowhere and i made it um especially important on my to buy list was local honey um as soon i'm sure you guys heard me sniffling um in the beginning but as soon as i start sniffling as soon as it turns cold

my immune system is just like it will catch fucking anything and so one thing that really really helps me especially with like allergies and things that are brought on simply by cold weather or by local kind of things going on is just raw honey i will either drizzle it into my coffee or i will just take a spoonful in the mornings it's great for coating your throat if you have a sore throat um or if you have a really bad cough just literally let it drizzle down the back of your throat but raw honey has been incredible i've been having a teaspoon of that every morning and it's just a fun little thing to work into my routine number two has been hot coffee and hot foods it's finally winter so i can like enjoy soup without like sweating my ass off

which is kind of a blessing you know what i mean because i'm such a soup fan girly and i love that it's finally seasonal and i can enjoy my hot drinks and my hot foods again so things like a hot matcha is what i've been leaning towards or a nice hot coffee i've been also making some espresso at home um my dad made me a bunch of these little ceramic mugs um he likes giant mugs for his coffee because he could drink like liters of coffee for me personally i only need just a little one because i like making lattes but it's been really fun to just kind of have something hot to sip on after i've been drinking so many ice drinks all summer and spring like for nine ten months now you know what i mean

so that's been really nice especially a good hot matcha when i'm not in a good headspace or when i'm not in a good place and i don't want to add to that drink a non-anxiety inducing drink okay if you know coffee gives you the jitters and makes you overthink and makes you a little crazy like it does to me make sure you're replacing it with something that's just as good um but makes you feel better uh green tea matcha is a non-anxiety inducing drink and for me personally it's my go to when i need a little bit of caffeine but i don't want to feel like i'm losing my goddamn mind so that making hot soups at home um i'm such a potato soup girly i have been obsessed with potato soup since i was like a kid um maybe it's my russian roots i don't know but um love me some

potato soup love me some homemade um tomato soup with like a fucking crunchy ass grilled cheese like come on there's nothing better for me personally winter is something that i really fight and fight and fight and i have been fighting and then it hit and i was like fuck when in reality it's like why don't i just embrace what's going on why don't i just embrace how i'm feeling and the seasonal aspect of everything and really just take the time to enjoy it instead of hating everything so much because listen in my heart i am a hater but she will overpower me she will just like she will overpower me so i really have to push hater hannah down and i have to just like force myself to enjoy life every once in a while you know what i mean with that being said now that

is seasonal we're getting towards halloween we're getting towards um like christmas you know all the like seasonal things that bring me joy i'm trying to indulge in such as like halloween movies um old comfort movies that i used to watch when we would just be like locked inside because it's too cold to go outside all those things that bring comfort and like like closure to you and like remind you of your childhood those are the kind of things that you need to indulge in right now i feel like when i'm going through a period of hardship or i'm just having a little bit of a harder time um that is not the time where i need to be consuming new things my brain doesn't want new things my brain doesn't want to listen to new music and hunt down new music my brain doesn't

want to watch a new show or watch a new movie i mean like of course i could but in reality i want the things that are going to soothe and comfort my brain because they are familiar to me so i've really been trying to indulge in those find some good spooky movies there's nothing better than like scaring yourself a little bit you know what i mean watching an extra scary movie at night um but yeah i've been really trying to indulge into some things that i know bring me peace and comfort especially seasonal things what else oh i was not prepared for the cold at all actually i walked outside in shorts and i was like what the fuck why can i not feel my legs why is it so cold so i used to think oh winter was something you just had to power through when i was younger i'd

just be like yeah i'm just gonna be freezing cold outside and i just won't go outside at all it doesn't have to be that way life does not have to be miserable okay i discovered some thermals that i actually really love and i've learned winter is all about layering for comfortability okay so instead of just like one layer of clothes as in like a tank top and shorts which is what i personally like and is what i'm obsessed with you have to wear like five six seven layers of things um and thermals are a great way for layering so if i'm wearing jeans i'm wearing thermal pants underneath if i'm wearing a tank or a t-shirt i'm probably gonna wear a long sleeve thermal underneath if i'm wearing a hoodie i'm gonna wear a long sleeve thermal underneath

and amazon so uh sells these matching set thermals in like a bunch of different colors so i got like a black pair i got a white pair and i got a pink pair because i figured that could honestly match everything and it will keep me so warm during the winter and also they're very easy to just like wander around your house in absolutely been loving that but yeah staying warm is key absolutely key and instead of just like powering through things i've learned sometimes surviving isn't the highest quality of living and instead of surviving why don't we try and thrive by just planning ahead a little bit you know so shout out amazon for their thermals they're very cheap um but very comfortable very warm keeping me comfy and cozy on these really cold days

i know i'm in a uh funky interesting place when i stop looking for beauty in the world and i kind of wait for beauty to approach me um i know i'm doing good when my camera roll is full of a million fucking pictures of random things of things i appreciate of like it could be a fucking pile of trash that i find beautiful the key is i'm searching for beauty in the everyday world and i felt like i stopped doing that i don't know why i don't know how but it has been a challenge of mind to kind of take more pictures to appreciate the beauty to appreciate the little things to take a moment to pause and take a deep breath and appreciate the crisp autumn air that I'm breathing in and appreciate the way that the leaves are changing and the colors in the sky and the way

the brick falls together literally fucking anything I just know I'm not doing well when my camera roll is full of just like random screenshots of just fucking randomness like get outside go on a walk discover something new um and appreciate the beauty around you because there is so much beauty and so much changing around us that i feel like sometimes we just have to look up when i was in new york when i was 16 um my we were walking with my brother's friend and he was like you could tell who's a local and who's not by who's staring up at the skyscrapers all the tourists are are staring up staring up looking at how tall the buildings are looking around them looking at their environment because it's new right but all the locals are

looking down they're looking at their feet they're looking at their phone and I don't mind being a tourist. I feel like there's so much beauty and there's so much wonder and I need to force myself to look up and look around sometimes and stop staring at my fucking feet and my phone and just take a moment to appreciate what is really around me. So that's been a big goal of mine recently too is to seek beauty and seek understanding in the world around me. Another thing that I love but I've kind of denied myself of for a while now is baking I used to bake so much I knew I was in love with somebody when I would bake them something and bring it over um and all of my exes took that for granted because they would just be like so used to it and so used to my baking that by the end of

the relationship when I just didn't like them anymore and stop baking for them they'd be like what's going on why aren't you baking for me and it's like bitch you never appreciated it but I got burnt out on baking for other people so much that now I'm like fuck the other people I'm gonna just start baking for myself um and for me personally the dishes are something I loathe and hate so I haven't been cooking and baking as much simply because I didn't want to pile up dishes but that's no way to live especially when it's something that I really truly do enjoy so i have been trying to bake more often i'm about to make some my famous pumpkin muffins with uh cream cheese icing this afternoon and i'm very very excited

i think i'm going to post the recipe on patreon if you guys are interested do a little bake with me session you know um bake and bake wake and bake and bake you know what i mean we're gonna do it all maybe i'll throw some butter in there if you know what i mean some some weed butter but it's like why would i deny myself of these things when i know i am when i know i enjoy them like fuck it just do the dishes just power through and have a little nice treat at the end of the day um also with that being said now that it's a little warmer out i'm forcing myself to get outside um instead of just like walking to the coffee shop and getting a coffee and immediately walking back um when I am in my house too much I get sick of it and my house needs to be a place

that I enjoy and I appreciate and I love coming back to so the other day when it was a little warmer out I was like I'm just gonna get a coffee and I'm gonna walk I'm gonna walk and I'm gonna get outside and even if the the wind and the air burns my face a little bit because it's so goddamn cold fuck it i need to get my legs moving i need to get moving i need to appreciate nature a little bit i need to look at the colors and the leaves changing and i need to get my body moving as much as i wanted to just go back and pass out in bed again i was like i know what's the healthiest choice for me so let's make the healthiest choice and guess what i had a fucking fantastic time i was just like walking to the end of the street and then i found this ginormous park i started

wandering around the park had these beautiful trees a bunch of like random history things about kansas city apparently it was like the first ever country club uh area and so i was wandering around there looking at the beautiful trees beautiful nature really appreciating it taking some deep breaths of some fresh air and I realized I coop myself up in my house a lot and it is a safe space for me but also like forcing myself into my space safe space all the time is not healthy I need to get outside I need to you know not seclude and isolate myself as much as I do and not close myself off to the world so a couple years back when i was really depressed um like really majorly depressed my dad signed us up for pottery lessons and so just like every week or a couple times a

week just to make sure i was getting out of the house and have something for us to do together like even if i wasn't into it it was just a point that i was showing up so he could check on me and to make sure that I was getting out and doing something other than just laying around the house we would do pottery together and I never really made anything cool he has made some really cool stuff um I'm literally drinking out of a mug he made me um but it just looking back on that I realized how much I appreciated it and how much I really did enjoy it even in the moment when I was like oh I hate this I don't want to get out of the house it's just an obligation I have to do i am thankful for it looking back and i think it really did save me so this winter instead of just

like not doing anything and secluding myself and isolating myself in my house for seven eight nine months i need to be proactive and i need to sign myself up for some classes so i think i'm gonna actually go back to pottery he still goes so it'll be easy for me to just reintegrate oh my god sorry of the hiccups it'll be really easy for me to either like reintegrate myself back into it or just show up with him um and also getting outside and moving my body felt so incredibly good and i realize i've been neglecting my body and movement and appreciating it for what it is i used to be so active like in nine sports at once just like constantly going to the gym and now i don't do any of that um and I think going to the gym and like getting my body moving and like actually

being one with my body and feeling my body move and feeling the soreness and feeling my muscles um made me appreciate my body a lot more and so I want to get not into the gym I guess I could go to the gym but I think I want to take a class whether it's like a little dance class or like a yoga class or maybe even a pole class I want to start something so that's my goal for today is to just sign myself up for some sort of class get myself out there and then be proactive so I'm not just a depressed piece of shit who locks myself inside all winter because I have been that and it's miserable so we're trying to take some steps forward here I also got a new journal my other journal was pretty much finished up I feel like it really encapsulated my last kind of change that

I went through and now I'm going through like a new sort of change I'm growing into a new person I find myself sitting down and re-evaluating a lot of things about myself and my life and kind of planning ahead and so I felt like I needed to honor that a little bit and there's no better place to just like lose yourself a little bit but also kind of find yourself when you've lost yourself um and have a little bit of escapism than to just wander around your local bookstore if you are unable to find inspiration if you just like need to escape the house and escape your mind a little bit um i really challenge you to just like get outside go to a bookstore and just like spend an hour in there it is so easy to spend an hour inside a bookstore i spent an hour and a half

inside barnes and noble the other day just wandering around picking up random books that caught my eye looking at art books looking at calendars being picky about what kind of journal i was gonna pick next and it was so fun and it was like oddly enough the most fun i've had in a while just because I was able to just like listen to my intuition, pick up books that were really calling to me, connect with these authors, learn more about what interests me, find new things that interest me. And the whole time I didn't think once about like, oh, I hate this. Oh, I'm miserable. You know what I mean? It was a perfect like healthy escapism kind of activity, you know and I got a new journal I'm really excited about it I've been writing in it daily

just kind of like catching up writing down to do's writing down whatever it is that's on my mind it doesn't need to be pretty doesn't need to be perfect I think just sitting taking like the initiative to sit down with yourself and check in with yourself instead of just like being avoidant and not approaching anything that is important to you and important that's going on inside um it's just way more healthy to sit down and have like a five ten minute conversation with yourself like you can get in your journal and be like this today fucking sucked i'm having a hard day um but i'm hoping to work through it or you can just sit down and be like hey checking in had a great day can't wait for tomorrow like it doesn't need to be deep in depth like

fucking 1600s literature you're writing out a memoir no it just needs to be a like proactive step for you to not be avoidant with yourself and i have such an avoidant personality and i'm kind of starting to reach into that and try and fix that just like the random things that i seem to be avoiding um I feel like a lot of it has to do with me and how I'm feeling inside and so just having that check-in every single day has been really nice um and kind of is helping me move onto the right path so yeah if you need a little activity go support your local bookstore go pick up a new book that you probably would never imagine you picking up um go try a new type of literature go ask the person working there what their favorite book is and go pick it up and

explore there's so many different minds out there and so many different ways of seeing the world and when the world is closed off to us especially during the winter um and the world seems to have shut down the way nature is not act or actively participating anymore it doesn't mean the world is completely closed off and there's so many different ways to experience and enjoy the world so why not do it from somebody else's point of view um and somebody else's way of expressing and enjoying and participating and within the world i feel like literature has so much to offer us i talked about lighting before and this is something that i'm trying to implement more around my apartment um as the sun kind of like the sun's still out but i feel like the sunshine

shine especially during winter and fall it gets a little gluey it gets a little cloudy and whenever the weather is like that i feel myself taking on those kind of behaviors as well so something i really try and implement not only a getting outside even if it's just going for a little coffee run going for a quick walk going to the bookstore just like getting out of your house is to also make sure your house is prepped with enough like good light sources to make it feel like summer where you're living and for me personally um literally i feel like when things are marketed for quote-unquote depression or seasonal defective disorder they up the price by like 50 to a hundred dollars because they know they're marketing it to mentally

ill people and they know mentally ill people will spend the money on something if it means they feel good which is all sorts of fucked up if you ask me i learned that grow lights led lights um ring lights all act the same way that those like sad lights do or like the depression lights um they're all the same fucking kind of lights so instead of you spending a hundred dollars on a light why don't you spend 20 on three and for me personally i have been loving these like lanterns like these round lanterns that i got from ikea i've mentioned this previously i only have one up right now because that was good for summer but i'm about to hang another one up as well and i might get another one for my room but lighting is very important exposing yourself to

like an adequate amount of quote-unquote sunlight or light source is very important it's an easy way to kind of trick your brain into thinking that like oh we're in summer all year round um and instead of just sitting in the quiet dark cold why don't you do a little home decor so i've been meaning to hang up some extra lights in my apartment i might get around to that today but another easy way that you can kind of make sure that you're um getting enough light is just changing your light bulbs from a white light to more of a yellow hue um i got these led changing lights on amazon is a pack of two for like 15 or something super cheap but not only do they give you like the white light the yellow light but they also change colors so you can do like red

pink orange blue whatever the fuck you want which is even better at night and makes it more funky fresh makes me enjoy my space a little bit more um but yeah I am definitely going to do some more organizing some like nesting one might say that being said I've kind of been neglecting my plants they're all thriving um just like the ivy-ish plants I have like the pothos the ones that grow long i haven't trimmed back or pruned or replanted any of my um little cuttings that i have so i've been getting into doing that today i've been replanting them repurpose repurposing them putting them into better windows just to make sure that i have enough green around me and that summer kind of lives on within my own space i'm probably also going to go buy

some more bigger plants just to fill the empty spaces that I have in my apartment maybe some big like monstera plants maybe a little fiddly fig even though it might not do well in the winter time here but yeah I just want to fill my space with some greenery and enjoy that during this winter especially when all the trees are going to disappear on us I'm looking out my window I'm looking at all of the orange trees around me i like i live on the fourth floor so it's like i'm up in the trees which is really super fun um but i know that we're gonna lose all of this soon and i haven't spent a winter in this apartment so i'm just trying to prep and plan accordingly babes last but not least i think the most important thing for me personally and something

that i've really been missing um is just working with my hands as a creative person as somebody who kind of loves escapism and loves healthy forms of escapism the best thing for me is to use my hands so like pottery great way using your hands escaping your mind putting your effort and your time into something that you're going to get a product out of right planting plants today i got my nails a little dirty i got my fingers dug into some soil it felt good to prune my plants to take care of them and to kind of have some you know new foliage around the place i feel like i got something accomplished i also sat down and painted for the first time in a while the other day and it's kind of an ongoing painting um i just really needed to sit down and force myself to do

something i haven't painted in forever and art has always been my biggest form of self-care my biggest form of just like checking in with myself and i realize i have been neglecting that and so i sat down and i just did a little abstract painting i started with words of affirmations how i'm feeling what i want to do my dreams and i did that all in different colors and then i poured white over it and i kind of mixed it all together so it gave this beautiful kind of like ever changing effortless rainbow throughout the painting um and i want to paint something on top of it so i think that's my goal today is to kind of touch back in with that painting and just let myself lose myself a little bit and enjoy getting lost in the artwork um there's nothing better than

when you were like fucking 16 in your room at night it's like 3 a.m you have your earbuds and you're listening to music you have your fun lights on you know the vibes are set everybody's asleep it feels like that you're the only person in the world and you're losing yourself in some artwork or in a project or in something that you're feeling so overwhelmingly passionate about that is the best fucking feeling ever and it's something that i'm constantly chasing and I need to make more time and more space and put more effort into having that for myself so yeah those are just like the small little ways that I have been implementing trying to stay sane throughout this little winter session that we have going on I know a lot of you are probably

going to go through the same things that i'm going through so i'm just glad that we can kind of go through it together and we can each take it like one step at a time together and just appreciate you know just putting effort into trying to make ourselves feel better instead of just putting effort into self-sabotaging and isolating and removing ourselves from people it's hard but honestly taking the first step is the hardest step once you take that first step everything gets so much easier and it's like prepping for a storm um if I know I'm going to get like sad and especially sad during the winter I have to take the initiative to you know like if your house is going to get hit with a hurricane you are going to board up your house you're going to take the

precautions necessary to make sure that you and your family are safe that you have food that you're stocked up and to me personally my depression is the hurricane and my i myself am the house so instead of just like leaving my doors and my windows open and letting it engulf me and overtake me because that is so easy and falling back into sadness is so fucking easy because it's a feeling that i'm so used to and something that i find oddly comforting in a way um i know the comfortability is not going to help me at all and if anything it's just going to dig me deeper into a hole and my house is going to collapse so i right now am in the mode to prep for the storm and to prepare for the storm and to make sure that i thrive and survive afterwards um but yeah i love you guys

i hope you guys have been doing well i think this is just going to be a short little thursday episode for us all as we all kind of prepare and take note of the things around us um really focus on gratitude this week really focus on taking the time to look around you and really appreciate what you have i feel like i take so much for fucking granted and like just being able to like cook for myself um to have warm meals on my table every night to have the supplies to paint um to have my own place these seem like such little things but like looking around i come here i go to my house every single day and i don't think about it and i really need to take the time to think about and look around my life and take appreciation and step my fucking game up when it comes to

living and not just surviving and actually taking the time to thrive because unfortunately if you just live it one day at a time and you don't plan and you don't look towards the future and you don't take that time to sit with yourself and ask yourself what you want i feel like you really lose yourself a little bit um so journaling great thing to do during this time check in with yourself do a little gratitude every single day um and really just look around you and take in the beauty that surrounds you every single day we are all so incredibly lucky to have this lifetime that feels like an eternity sometimes and feels too short others but why not spend every single day appreciating what we have and trying to move forward and do better i mean that's the point

of life right um if we're not moving forward and trying to do better then what's the point but i love you guys i hope this has kind of helped us all get back into a like healing mindset to get back into kind of trying to work our way forward and make ourselves feel better um i'm gonna do some more prepping this afternoon to secure my house and i hope you guys do too i love you all so much so sorry this episode was late i will see you all next tuesday for a normal ordinary regular episode definitely hour and a half per usual episode but i just wanted to take a moment to share with you guys what's keeping me alive and thriving and sane right now because i felt like when i was going through those questions a lot of you guys kind of had the same worries

or have the same anxieties that I do about winter and about just life and how overwhelming life can get sometimes so I just wanted to sit down and talk about the little things that I can appreciate and maybe it'll inspire you guys to sit down with yourself and you know check in with yourself and kind of go over the things that you appreciate the things you maybe have taken for granted and the things that you really really want to focus on coming up but I love you all I hope you all have a safe and wonderful rest of your week I am going to keep diving into who I am and discovering who I am and I will have more absolutely more to share with you on Tuesday but I love you all have a safe weekend see you soon