It didn't really dawn on me that my routine was out of whack until I'd lived with my boyfriend for around six months. Before then, I'd always lived with my parents (with the exception of an 8-month stint in a 1 bedroom flat a few years ago when I thought I could afford to live alone - spoiler, I couldn't.)

Before we moved in together my boyfriend lived just over an hour from me so the location we moved to was half-way between us and a completely new town to both of us. I'd visited once before we moved here and it definitely took a while for me to realise that I wasn't adjusting as easily as I'd hoped and that's not because I don't love living where we do or that I don't enjoy living with my boyfriend because I really do, I think it was just because it turned my life upside down.

Routine helps with feeling settled when you might otherwise feel a little out of your comfort zone and it can really be a great tool for managing your mental health. I want to share what I've done to carve out a new routine for myself and also what I'd like to do over the coming months myself - hopefully some of this helps.

5. HEALTHY EATING & DRINKING
It's a bit of a no-brainer that to start a new healthy routine you'd need to eat healthier and cut down on alcohol which is proven to have a very negative effect on mental health. Now, I am not a fruit or veg girl, it's terrible I know but I struggle to get my 5-a-day in (heck, I struggle with 5-a-week) but that doesn't mean you can't still eat well. I've cut out junk food and most processed foods and I stick very loosely to a Slimming World plan to give my diet some structure; in all honesty we love so many SW recipes and snacks so it's not difficult. Following a healthy living plan will become part of your daily routine and you'll start to form new eating habits in no time.

4. WORKOUT REGULARLY
Making exercise a part of your routine will take feeling good about yourself to a new level. As I was completely new to the area we moved to I was keen to join a new gym so that I'd be able to get into a new fitness routine...the only problem is I hate the gym and really didn't enjoy it. I stopped going and got into a bit of a rut about working out, I was in desperate need of finding some form of exercise that I enjoyed. Luckily I stumbled across an amazing fitness instructor who runs 8 different classes a week in a school hall only 5 minutes from our house - it couldn't have worked out better.

I now do Barre, Pound, Fight, Zumba, Clubbercise and a Full Body Workout class each and every week. It's probably my favourite part of my new routine as through these classes I've met some wonderful women and it's really made our new area start to feel like home. It also makes me appreciate the 3x days I get off from classes each week!

3. START A NEW HABIT
One way to make your routine interesting it to start doing something completely new and different. When your surroundings and circumstances change it can feel like the easiest thing to do is to revert back to your old routine to make everything feel somewhat normal again but it's probably the best opportunity to take up a new hobby. I started practicing yoga and blogging again and have tried to make both of these activities part of my routine. Why not start reading more or incorporating a daily walk into your routine?

2. TRY AND STICK TO A BEDTIME
I know bedtime sounds like it's for 5-year-old's but I think it's a really important part of a daily routine and definitely one that I've not nailed myself yet and still struggle with. Sleep is crazy important for mental health, it's the one time a day we can give our brains and bodies a rest and ensuring we get enough sleep is really important. I always try and turn off the telly each evening at 10pm, my boyfriend will usually watch something on his iPad for a further 20-25 minutes whilst I get ready for bed and then I'm in bed by 10:30pm at the latest. The problem is we then sit in bed and watch silly YouTube videos for a while or we'll play with the cat or end up chatting about something or other. It can be 11:30pm or even midnight before we go to sleep and then we're both up again at 6:30/7am for work. I'm slowly starting to realise I'm just not getting enough hours.

To correct this, I'm going to start switching off from 10pm onwards so that means limiting the time on my phone and not putting the television on in the bedroom before we go to sleep. I also want to start reading more and winding down before bed. One of our worst habits is my boyfriend going on Reddit or me going on social media then going to bed and going 'oh my god did you hear this story about that guy that did this? Look at this video! Look at this gif!' etc.

1. HAVE A MORNING ROUTINE MAPPED OUT
This goes hand-in-hand with the previous tip and because I haven't got the night routine figured out I haven't really got my morning one sorted yet but that doesn't mean I don't have good intentions set out.

If you've had a good night's sleep it's very likely that getting up earlier will be easier, that's just science (maybe?). I was actually doing really well in the new year and I'd get up half an hour earlier,  do ten minutes of yoga whilst the cat ate her breakfast, then I'd sort my breakfast, lunch and snacks out for work before getting ready. This meant I wasn't rushing round the house like a mad woman, I'd had a morning stretch and I was never late for work and that's all down to getting up just half an hour earlier.

If you suss out your evening/night routine and get enough sleep, setting your alarm for half an hour earlier the next day will only have a positive affect on your day and that's what I'm intending to try out this week!

My Counselling Journey So Far...

It's a strange one is counselling. It's a place where you go and completely spill the contents of your head to a complete stranger who you can only hope is not going to stare at you like you've got three eyes and a wooden leg by the time you're finished talking.

Good news, counselling isn't anything like that. Four days ago I completed my sixth session with my therapist and now I have a two week break as she's on holiday and I won't lie, I feel a little nervous but also really keen to see how I get on going it completely solo for a couple of weeks.

Counselling for me was a no-brainer after Christmas and New Year when I felt like my anxiety was controlling me and I wasn't controlling it anymore, so I decided to do something about it and found a lovely therapist jusy five minutes down the road who can see me after work.

The first thing I'll say about my journey is that it's a slow one. I've had years of 'managing' my anxiety myself without any professional  help and in that time I've probably developed a ton of unhealthy habits and routines that I continued to use for managing my mental illness so I always knew it was going to take a long time to unpick and unravel the knot that had formed in my mind - but we're getting there.

The first few sessions my therapist spent getting to know me, we spoke in particular about an event last year that I feel brought my anxiety back to the surface again. We spent three sessions on that event and worked our way through it piece by piece and as each week went by I felt a little lighter. By the time we'd worked our way through that issue we mutually agreed that we had spent enough time and energy on it and I finally felt as though I had closure to a situation that had caused me lot of pain and heartache for months.

The problem was that my anxiety didn't dissipate instantly following that closure, it's so deep-rooted that I can't switch it on or off as anyone with a mental illness will know. It's there and sometimes it's quiet and shuts up and let's me live my life and other times it doesn't.

Counselling has helped me to manage those difficult days. It provides me with a validation and reassurance that I so desperately needed and that only a professional can provide. It made me realise my thoughts and feelings are valid and even though they're not pleasant and I want to work towards banishing them as much as I can I felt as though someone finally got me.

Don't get me wrong, there have been the odd day where I've left counselling feeling exhausted because you know, trawling through the inner workings of your mind can be knackering but I've never left a session feeling heavier or more negatively than I did when I walked in.

The one mistake I made before when I had counselling a few years ago was giving up when I felt 'better' - even if I'm having a good day now I still take myself off to my session as there's always something to work through and to improve upon and I know that realistically I'll probably continue attending for quite a long time. Even if i reduce my sessions to once fortnightly or even once a month, it's 50 minutes where I'm grounded and can focus on myself.

Counselling is something we should all do for ourselves if we feel we need it - a lot of us spend so much time focusing on other people; on work, on kids etc but sometimes we need to physically allocate time in our diaries for ourselves and counselling is just that.

I Blogged My Anxiety Attack

Right now as I'm typing this post my heart is racing. I can feel myself heading into fight or flight mode and I'm aware of that because all I want to do right now is be somewhere safe. Whether that's under my duvet or having a hug from my mum, my brain is starting to send signals to my body saying 'nope, nice try pal, I'm not having any of that, I'm out'.

It started with worrying about money. Today is payday and I am in a sticky situation with my finances right now so I managed to work myself up in a frenzy this morning which lead to me messaging my boyfriend, mum and best friend about it. I also ended up on Google, looking at forums and getting myself into a right tiz and before I knew it I couldn't stop the barrage of negative, snowballing thoughts which flooded my head.

It's hard to explain as even though you might struggle with anxiety yourself, all anxieties are different. My anxiety is different to yours and yours is different to the next person's and so on, so I will try and explain what an anxiety attack is like for me.

WHAT ATTACKS FEEL LIKE FOR ME

An attack for me is like watching a really crappy straight-to-DVD movie; but it's about my future. I'll be sat at work, minding my own business and then I'll think of payday and my money situation, before you know it I've watched the next 5 years of my life play out in my mind. I envisage my friends being so ashamed of me that they slowly phase me out, I imagine my parents feeling disappointed that they have to support a daughter in her late 20s and I picture my boyfriend's face as realization dawns on him that there's other women out there who don't have these problems.

The hard part is being strict with myself and telling myself that these are simply thoughts that entered my head and they are not factual things that have actually happened but that' easier said than done. I feel the panic course through my body when I have thoughts like that and it's a real effort to stay grounded, stay in my seat and to let it pass over. The comfort lies in the many times I've suffered attacks before and have come out okay the other side and by 'okay' I mean able to rationalise and think more logically.

Today I also tried writing down my feelings. I physically put pen to paper and wrote down how I felt in that moment. I then did a conference call, went to the loo and came back to the piece of paper and re-read it. It made me sad to think that I'd genuinely thought that negatively, even just for 2 or 3 minutes and in a way, that's good. I didn't come back, read the paper and agree. I'll never invalidate my own thoughts because part of my management of my anxiety is to stop using the words 'stupid' or 'ridiculous' to describe my thoughts or feelings because that creates more of a conflict against the anxious part of my brain which is trying to convince me of the opposite. I just try to acknowledge them as 'anxious thoughts' and that's where I leave it. When you're fighting anxiety the last thing you want to do is feed it by putting yourself down by throwing around words like 'stupid.'

THE AFTERMATH

Now that an hour or so has passed I'm starting to see the haze clear a little (because that's also what an attack is like for me, it's like a foggy day where you can't really make sense of anything and are just stumbling around in the dark for a bit looking for something to hold onto). I can begin to see things for what they really are; including myself. I begin to give myself more credit and respect again without just putting myself down and I begin to try and see all of the positive attributes I hold as a person and I try really hard to let go of the things I'd been telling myself an hour before in the middle of the attack.

I also feel proud that I didn't act on my attack. There have been days where I've needed to leave work or call my boyfriend and unleash nonsense down the phone at him to console myself but I am proud that today I dealt with it - and survived. On top of the anxiety I don't have the added embarrassment of having to drop everything and go home and nor do I have to enter into a difficult conversation with my boyfriend or friends about it which can sometimes drag the attack out and ultimately makes me suffer more before I finally get over it.

Thinking and living more positively was pretty much my only goal for this year and I think even on the days like today when things get so hard I feel at breaking point it's important to acknowledge even the smallest of triumphs.

A LESSON IN SELF-LOVE

I'm my own worst enemy 99.9% of the time, if not 100% of the time. I think I've learnt more about myself and changed in more ways during the course of 2016 than I have any other year.

Now let me stop being so vague and mysterious, what I'm talking about is learning to love yourself. We all want to stop judging ourselves when we look in the mirror and to not care about things we can't change but hello, those things make us the perfectly deranged, crazy, wonderful people that we are and it's not about eradicating those qualities but about learning to have full control over them.