Hi, hope y’all enjoyed last week’s guest! Today will be a solo episode, but there will definitely be a bit of both moving forward. I enjoy both formats and according to listener feedback, you do as well! On this episode, I’m starting a new segment on hygge and ADHD, which I am learning go together like peanut butter and chocolate.
Highlights:
- What is hygge and why am I doing this?
- Wellness benefits of hygge
- My top hygge picks for this winter, including this candle, decaf green tea, plush blankets, and Brain.fm
To stay connected, find me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook! Until next time, Happy Adulting!
[TRANSCRIPT]
This is the Adulting With ADHD Podcast, self-empowerment for women with ADHD. Hi everyone, I hope you all enjoyed last week’s guest. Today will be a solo episode but there will definitely be a bit of both moving forward. We’ll have some solo episodes, we’ll have some guests. I enjoy both formats and according to your feedback, you do as well. In this episode, I’m starting a new segment called the hygge episode, which will happen on a quarterly basis. This will be the winter edition.
Hygge and ADHD
What is hygge and why am I doing this? Hygge is a Danish concept and it focuses on living with a sense of comfort, coziness and peace. Why am I doing this? Well, if you noticed last year, I focused a lot on plans and processes and systems, and that’s all really good stuff. It’s definitely kept me on the up and up. But something I’m realizing is I left out something really important that I think hygge is going to help me get back into my life. Or should I say get it into my life, period. I don’t know that I ever have been intentional about this. Basically I’m going to focus this year on slowing the hell down a bit, enjoying life more, finding pleasure in things. And I have my three-year-old to thank for that because I’m spending more time with her now, but I’m also still working, I’m self-employed. And so having to balance those two has really challenged all assumptions I made about how I need to operate and I’m having to become more flexible. It’s as simple as that.
I’ve been learning a little more about hygge, I am by no means an expert. But I also found that hygge has been tied with a lot of wellness benefits, including sleep and weight regulation and improving your self-care and removing your need for unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol. So, it looks like there’s a lot of good stuff to be had in the hygge world, which I believe translates to hug. It’s like you’re giving yourself hug and I think everyone could use more hugs. Here’s a few ways I’ve been incorporating this way of life.
1 – Decaf Green Tea
The first is tea and for me it’s in the evenings and it’s decaf green tea. The reason I do decaf green tea is because I’m still intermittent fasting, or should I say I’ve restarted. I did an episode last year about this and I took a break from it and I’m starting it up again this year. In the evenings when I need something during my fast, decaf green tea has really hit the spot for me. I used to enjoy warm chocolate chip cookies in the evenings, which are also great and feel like a hug. So, definitely don’t feel like you have to limit it to tea. But for me, I had to switch to tea out of necessity because the cookies were getting out of control and it was turning into an unhealthy situation. But if you can stop at one or two, by all means, I found some at my neighborhood grocery store that you could zap in a microwave for 20 seconds and they tasted like freshly baked homemade cookies. So, definitely really good stuff. But just some something in the evening, a piece of chocolate, a hot herbal tea, whatever floats your boat. It’s a nice way to just close out the day and just give yourself that hug.
2 – Candlelight Salt+Bubble Baths
Something else I’ve really been into is candlelight and I just never really understood the whole candlelight thing. I mean, I grew up on Boyz II Men and there was always candles in the videos, and I just didn’t get it. And now I get it. There’s just something about natural light, either sunlight or candlelight in the dark, that is just so soothing and so relaxing. I mainly use candlelight in the bath and I turn the lights off and this is something everyone does that I just now started doing and it is fantastic. And the type of bubble… Not bubbles. I actually do use bubbles but the type of candles I use are Love by Bath and Body Works. Now my mom helped me realize that there’s actually two different kinds of the love scent at Bath and Body Works. There’s one that’s vanilla and rose and then there’s one that’s jasmine and sandalwood. I love both. The candle I use is the rose vanilla candle. If they had a jasmine sandalwood candle, I would totally try it. I love both of those combinations but my mom preferred rose vanilla over the sandalwood jasmine.
And so I just give you that disclaimer because I didn’t realize they came in different versions of love. I thought love is love is love, right? But apparently not. Also, I use Epsom salt and I have soaked in Epsom salt before. It does make me feel replenished, it does make me feel refreshed, so I do it. And that’s kind of my approach with everything. What I do is I take a little bit of bubble bath, usually Bath and Body Works aroma therapy, I buy stuff that’s like a shower gel and a bubble bath and one because I’m efficient like that. So, what I’ll do is I’ll put a little bit of that and then I’ll put in some salt and I’ll mix it up. So, it’s like a bubble salt bath and then I’ll light my candle and turn out the lights.
And here is the extra layer you put on top of it. I’ll link it in the show notes. You find something like white noise or nature sounds. I use Brain FM. You can use anything you want, just something really relaxing and soothing on top of this candlelight in the dark with your bubble salt bath. I’m telling you, it is the most amazing thing in the whole world. I’m going to have to do it tonight just talking about it. And so definitely major hygge going on there. Again, nothing mind blowing, but to me it was.
3 – Sueded Leggings
Another thing not mind blowing, but I’m just now discovering are soft leggings. I know everyone’s laughing right now, but I just never jumped on the yoga pants thing or the legging thing. I’ve always been a blue jean girl just through and through. Working from home, I’ve been working from home for a while now, but just in the last couple of months when I started hiking, that’s when it started. I started getting capri leggings, but now I’ve expanded to just full on they’re my pants now. I’ve got full length, sueded leggings and basically I’ve learned something about myself. And this might have something to do with ADHD, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s related to sensory processing, but I love soft fabrics and I didn’t realize this. I’m very picky about the shirts I buy and the clothes I wear. And I realized I like wearing clothes that feel as less like clothes as possible. Nice and soft.
And who doesn’t, right? Everyone loves soft things. And now that I’m aware of that, it’s like everything I buy now, I look at the material, I see what the material’s made of. If I find something I really like, I buy it over and over and over again. I am not kidding you. I just bought some shirts from Target. I’ve been buying the same shirts year after year, and it’s just the fabric. It’s just soft. I don’t like a hundred percent cotton, it just doesn’t work with me. So, speaking of fabrics, the next on my hygge list are plush blankets. Shout out to my toddler for this one. So, she has always slept in plush blankets since she was a baby and now that she’s a toddler, even though she’s getting taller and taller, she’s got this plush blanket that she won’t part with. My mother bought her a larger plush blanket to cover her from head to toe. She won’t wear it because she’s attached to the other one. So, I’ve been using it.
4 – Plush Blankets
It’s a baby shark plush blanket. And I’m telling you, this kid’s on to something. It feels so good. I put it under my comforter at night and I curl up to it and I’m about two steps away from getting a weighted blanket. I haven’t gone there yet, but I am super intrigued with weighted blankets and there’s probably going to be an episode Sunday about it. If this whole hygge thing keeps going, I mean, that’s the next level, right? I mean, a weighted blanket? It sounds amazing. The other thing I do, and this one’s more sentimental, is in my office I set up a bookshelf and it’s one of those mid century Scandinavian bookshelves. That’s kind of the theme of my office. It’s very simple, warm, neutral colors. Very hygge of me. Very minimalistic. And part of this ensemble is bookshelf that has birdhouses. I started collecting birdhouses a few years ago and my grandfather would go to these garage sales and get these miniature little birdhouses. Instead of just having them all everywhere as knick-knacks, I actually have intentionally displayed them on a bookshelf.
5 – Sentimental Items On-Display
There are no books on this bookshelf. They are just birdhouses and it just makes me feel so warm and fuzzy every time I look at them. Because I love my grandpa and I love everything about it and my grandmother loves cardinals and I have a little cardinal on there, and so it feels like my grandparents are just sitting right next to me while I’m working. It’s the best feeling in the world. Next on my hygge list is another shout out to the daughter. Have you noticed how much she has taught me about just intentional living? I mean, this kid’s got it all figured out. Kids know, they just know. So, yeah. We play outside as much as we can and I used to avoid the outside like the plague because I am allergic to everything in the air, everything. Cedar and grass and oak but I finally think I found something to take care of that because my daughter needs sunlight, she needs to run around and I finally have stopped trying to make it a thing other people do with her.
6 – Playing Outside
I finally decided to jump in head first. And so weather permitting, every day I go pick her up after my morning shift. I pick her up from her grandma’s and we go to the park. We started this last week and we’re still doing it. And the exercise, the sunlight, the fresh air, all of it, it’s just amazing. It’s another no-brainer but it’s one of those things I never really got into. Nature, I have decided, is really therapeutic. I talked about the nature walks I was taking in the mornings last year. Due to my new schedule I don’t have those anymore. These park visits have replaced that. So, I’m still getting my sunlight and my exercise and the fresh air and it’s great. That’s what’s going on this winter. That’s how I’m getting my hygge on.
More Hygge and ADHD Stuff To Come In the Spring ….
And I would love for you to write in and give me your weighted blanket recommendations because I’m totally going to probably get myself one for my birthday. And also tell me on the socials what your favorite hygge stuff is. And if you want to find me on Instagram and Twitter my handle is ADHD Adulting and on Facebook you can find me at facebook.com/adultingwithadhd, and my email address is contact@adultingwithadhd.com. I would love to hear from you guys on your favorite hygge things and maybe it’ll be featured in the next season. What’s the next season? That would be spring. We’ll have a spring hygge episode and we’ll talk about… I’m sure by then I will have completely changed as a person because that’s the beauty of being who we are. We can change and evolve. And so with that, I am going to send us off. I’m going to go have a beautiful day and try to embrace as much as possible and try to control as less as possible. Or maybe find something in the middle there, that might be helpful. So, on that note, until next time, happy adulting.
