Things I Do Not Buy to Reduce My Anxiety | minimalism + saving money

living with chronic anxiety is a lot like dealing with noise pollution when your anxiety isn't that bad it's not much more than a low buzzing in the background like the sound of your refrigerator running or the hum of electricity in the walls but when things happen they increase your stress levels and Trigger your anxiety that buzzing starts to sound a lot less like a fridge and a lot more like a freight train about to run you over I think noise pollution is the Perfect Analogy because if you take a look at this chart you can see there's a normal range of noise that we can tolerate with no negative side effects things like the sound of rain falling or conversations going on around you at an office or at a restaurant but the louder that noise gets the harder to ignore it it becomes and then when it crosses that threshold and you're getting exposed to it over a long period of time it can become harmful to both your body and your mind and the same thing can happen when your anxiety levels get out of control and we all have different thresholds for how much stress we can tolerate and I think that as a trauma Survivor and someone who also happens to be I really sensitive person my threshold is a bit on the low side I've had anxiety for as long as I can remember but it wasn't until I began decluttering my home back in 2016 that I started to become more aware of how the environment around me could Trigger or increase my anxiety now when my home was messy and chaotic I could feel my heart start to race and I would start feeling more on edge and notice myself becoming less patient and more short-tempered so when I cleared away all of that clutter and I started being more mindful about the things that I buy and give space to in my home it was like a dial turning down my anxiety and my home became a place that supported my peace of mind and well-being instead of a constant source of stress and so in today's video I wanted to share a list of things that I've stopped buying not only to reduce my Stress and Anxiety but that have also helped the rest of the family feel calmer and happier as well and one of the best things about this is that when you stop spending money on the thing that you don't need you have more money to put towards things that have a positive impact on your life and for me one of those things is therapy and that's why I want to take a moment to think better help for sponsoring today's video betterhelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100 online with better help you can tap into a network of over 30 000 license and experienced therapists who can help you with a wide range of issues to get started you just answer a few questions about your needs and preferences in therapy and that way better help can match you with the right therapist from their Network then you can talk to your therapist however you feel comfortable whether it's through text or chat or a phone call or a video call you can message your therapist at any time and schedule live sessions when it's convenient for you and if your therapist isn't a good fit for any reason you can switch to a new therapist at no additional charge and one of my favorite things about betterhelp is that I can get the same level of quality and professionalism that I would expect from an an office therapist but with a therapist that was custom picked for me based on my history and needs as well as a fantastically flexible schedule at a more affordable price right in the comfort of my own home right now you can get 10 off your first month at betterhealth.com a to Zen life that's h-e-l-p or you can find my special URL Linked In the description box and pinned comment below thanks again to betterhelp for sponsoring today's video and let's dive into the topics number one loud toys remember how I showed you that noise level chart earlier and there was this threshold kind of around 70 to 80 decibels where noise levels once they pass it start to become dangerous well guess what a while back they did a study where they tested the noise levels of 200 kids toys and they found that 98 of the toys were measuring sound levels greater than 85 decibels from an arm's length distance which is about the same level of noise that you'd expect from an airplane taking off or a vacuum cleaner running right next to you and after I read the study I was thinking to myself no wonder that it used to make me feel so anxious when I would be cooking dinner or doing some errands or folding the laundry and my kids would be playing with these loud obnoxious toys with the lights and the sounds and the moving and all the things and if we as adults feel this way what do we think that those toys are doing to our children now after decluttering we have gotten rid of most of our loud toys but sometimes my kids get gifts from their friends for their birthdays that are a bit louder than I would like but if it's really bothering me what I'll do is I'll ask them to go back and play with the toy in their bedroom and luckily they don't really play with those toys for long periods of time so they naturally limit their exposure but can still enjoy playing with it from time to time so I decided to test the noise level of my son's toy and I'm using an app called neosh that measures the decibel levels so let's turn this on and see how loud it gets as you can see my oldest son is much better at controlling this toy and he loves to play with it but it drives his little brother bananas so luckily the battery only lasts for around eight minutes so he plays with it for limited windows but you could see how it was getting up to above 80 and 90 decibels so definitely check out the Neo shop if you're interested to know how loud your kids toys are number two coffee this is something that my husband and I cut fairly recently and it's also something that I remember discussing with my therapist because she was telling me that drinking too much coffee can make anxiety worse and at that point I was probably drinking around four cups in the morning and then still drinking tea later in the afternoon and I was really pushing back and saying that it was something that I could never give up but then when my husband and I decided to challenge ourselves to not drink coffee for a month we ended up feeling so much calmer and more focused throughout the day that we decided to make it a more permanent cut and if you want to know more about that and the rest of the 10 items that we cut from our budget you can and go watch this video that I'll link up here and in the description box below to check out more about that topic number three is more of a concept versus an actual item and it's the minimalist aesthetic sometimes I like looking at pictures of homes that are decorated with the minimalist aesthetic but the idea of trying to keep up with a home that looks like that hey Vogue it's Kim and everything in my house is really minimal and live in a home that looks like that 24 7 is actually too much an anxiety inducing to me so I found that for me personally the minimalist aesthetic can start feeling really toxic and restrictive that's just my opinion that's the way I feel about it some people might be able to have you know the minimalist aesthetic and still be able to live exactly the life that they want I bet they don't have kids that might be the the determining Factor there for kids hasn't messed up my cream house it's kind of like when you're trying to buy clothes you don't just want to pay attention to how the clothes look you also want to pay attention to how the clothes feel and fit your body it doesn't matter how good something looks if it's uncomfortable to wear I'm not going to be reaching for that thing in my closet I'm going to go to my tried and true hoodie sweater and pair of jeans and the same thing goes with the minimalist aesthetic it's funny because I don't think that I would use the word minimalist to describe the aesthetic that I have in my home at all like yes we have some Ikea furniture but we also have like a very solid Farmhouse industrial style dining room table that we found on sale at a local furniture store and I would say that our kitchen is a more like wabi-sabi asymmetrical Vibe versus like the standard minimalist gray or white kitchens that you typically see I mean I have a pink flower quilt that was Handmade by my grandmother over in my bed in my bedroom for crying out loud so I definitely don't buy into the idea that your home has to look a certain way for you to be considered a real minimalist number four on this list is too many clothes and I used to go shopping for clothes all the time just on a whim I in fact used to work at a mall and so I would be working in the fine jewelry department my best friend worked over in the lingerie section and then during our break after our lunch we would go and we would browse and see what kinds of new items had come in and if there was anything we wanted to buy and I would just end up buying stuff literally just because it was there and then I would always just end up having like piles of clothes on the floor you know my dressers would be literally hardly able to shut because there were so many clothes inside of them and then if I had a closet it would be overflowing with clothes too and it was just too much inventory to manage now when I open my closet because I've decluttered my clothes and I've really curated a wardrobe that fits my style and I feel comfortable in I open my closet and I feel good when I look at it because I can always find what I want to wear and there's not enough stuff to just start piling up on the floor and getting out of control to the point where it's Weighing on my mind and increasing my anxiety so definitely declutter clothing if that's something that you haven't done already and just that one thing will reduce your anxiety levels so much number five physical books I used to have a mental block about audiobooks and I was like it's an audiobook it's not like reading a real book oh you are a snob and a half and I felt like I had to own it to be able to feel the cover the weight of the book the paper in my hands the rustling as I turned the page and it was like a tactile experience but now as I've gotten older I don't feel as motivated to read physical books anymore and it's so much easier to just set them aside and do something else when I have free time but with audio books I actually love listening to audiobooks when I'm doing things like folding the laundry and washing the dishes and so it means I'm able to read more because I'm listening to the audiobook while at the same time getting things done and it's helped me be able to read more books without having to own a physical copy of the book and have it take up space in my home and I remember recently I had seen a challenge that was like called the project 50 challenge I think it was going around on YouTube and I thought oh that looks like fun I might try that but when I went and I was reading the rules they were like you have to read a real book it can't be an audiobook audiobooks don't count and I just felt like a balloon deflating I think this idea that audiobooks are not real books is just as toxic as saying that a minimalist can't be a minimalist if they have color in their home so I am rejecting this toxic mindset and I'm actually in the middle of a really good audiobook and I feel like the audiobook must be better than the real book the book is called the power of vulnerability by brene Brown and I can't imagine that the actual book would be better than the audiobook because it's her actually her speaking on stage so they recorded some of her sessions and it's like uh the content that's in the power of vulnerability if you're a reader and you like books no matter if it's audio books or physical books make sure that you go down and subscribe to my channel and ring the bell to turn on all notifications because next month which is mental health awareness month I'm actually going to be talking more about some of the best self-help books that I've read that have completely changed my my life and power of vulnerability is definitely one of them if you haven't already please give this video a like and if you want to know what I do buy and consider essential to me as a minimalist you can go check out this video or I'll see you next week until then take care bye bye foreign foreign

Channel: A to Zen Life

Views: 131,194

Keywords: things i do not buy to reduce my anxiety, 50 things i do not buy to reduce my anxiety, things i don't buy, things i do not buy, things i stopped buying, things i do not, things i do not buy as a minimalist, things i do not buy anymore, things i stopped buying minimalism, things i stopped buying to save money, 10 things i stopped buying, 50 things i do not buy minimalism, 50 things i do not buy, minimalist, minimalism, anxiety, reduce anxiety, mental health, clutter, a to zen life

Id: 2U2uvzrIIYA

Length: 12min 31sec (751 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023