A bad body image day can impact your entire day because it becomes so easy to judge yourself for everything when feeling bad. So what do you do to make a bad body image day a little better? Read on for tips.
Can you get rid of bad body image days?
Bad days are always just going to be part of the human experience. You might look at someone and think they have a dream life, but I’m certain they still have days where they feel bad.
This goes for body image too.
I see this all the time with people who think once they achieve the “perfect body” they’ll suddenly lose their bodies. But when they got to their goal weight or size, they still didn’t like their body.
So they would change the goal and hope at that point they’d finally feel better. Or give up because it doesn’t feel worth it.
Changing your body doesn’t mean you’ll change your relationship with your body. And changing your relationship with your body is the best way to create more good body image days.
But even with a good relationship with your body, you’ll have some bad body image days. That’s where tips like these for how you’ll treat yourself on those bad body image days help.
Tips for how to deal with bad body image days
Here are some tips to help you move through your next bad body image day.
Build awareness
This tip shows up everywhere in posts that give tips because it’s so important for growth. Creating awareness around why you feel bad about your body is how you identify the beliefs that once challenged will clear the way for a better relationship with your body.
But I often don’t like actually doing the work to challenge the beliefs on a bad day. I prefer to just journal to get down all the unhelpful beliefs and later come back to look at them on a day when my head is clearer.
Carry the feelings like a heavy backpack
It’s very tempting to try to fix things when we’re having a bad body image day. At least that’s what I would always try to do, and this tip became the most impactful for getting past bad image days faster.
The trick is that instead of trying to get rid of those negative emotions, bring them with you throughout the day like a heavy backpack. It’s similar to the concept of riding the wave of your emotions and going with the flow.
All waves and emotions end eventually, and I find they usually pass more quickly when we stop trying to rush them away.
Do some self-care
When feeling low, it can help to do a few activities to take care of yourself. Even on the days when you don’t love your body, you can still show love to your body through self-care.
Pick one or a few activities that make you feel good. That could be reading, meditation, watching a movie or TV, coloring meditations, home facial, meeting a friend, or any number of self-care activities you enjoy.
Practice shifting to more neutral or positive beliefs
There are some days you may want to take the approach of just letting yourself feel how you’re feeling that day (like carrying a heavy backpack). But sometimes you might want to shift to more positive or neutral beliefs.
Neutral beliefs don’t drive a strong negative or positive reaction. So instead of thinking “I love my body” or “I hate my body”, it’s simply “I have a body”.
When in a negative place, going neutral can feel more realistic than trying to be positive.
Check out one of these posts for a list of positive body affirmations or body neutrality affirmations.