Avoid Unhealthy Habits After Losing Your Job

It can be unsettling to lose your job, and you may immediately turn to certain behaviors as a way to cope. While thee things may help you feel better temporarily, turning to unhealthy habits can negatively affect your life and not help you in the long-run. Instead of developing bad habits, focus on maintaining your health and wellness while you are unemployed.

Steps

Getting Into a Structured Routine

1. Recognize the benefits of routine. Having a job provides a fair amount of structure and routine. You know when you’ll wake up, go to work, take a lunch break, and go home. While it may be tempting to binge watch television shows all day while unemployed, this can quickly turn into a bad habit. Having a routine can help you accomplish your goals, complete chores, and get things done.
   • Your routine doesn’t have to mimic your job hours but find a routine that can help you get things done throughout the day.
2. Write down your ideal schedule. Think about what tasks you’d like to do daily and weekly. For example, you may want to shower and work on job applications daily and do your laundry and vacuum weekly. Estimate how long each task will take and put your different tasks on your schedule.
   • It may take some trial and error to figure out a realistic schedule. You may want to accomplish fifteen things in one day but realize you can more likely accomplish six.
   • A sample schedule might look like:
     • 8am – 9am: Shower and eat breakfast
     • 9am – 11am: Work on job applications
     • 11:30am: Lunch meeting with recruiter
     • 2pm – 3:30pm: Attend job fair
     • 4pm – 5pm: Gym
     • 6pm: Dinner
     • 10pm: Get ready for bed
3. Have regular activities. Do certain things every day. For example, wake up each morning, shower, and change into new clothes. While you may be tempted to lounge around in the same clothes every day or minimize your hygiene habits, keep certain habits consistent, even if you’re staying in all day.
   • Don’t “let yourself go.” Take care of yourself and attend to your care everyday.
4. Schedule in free time and social time. Take some time to relax and socialize with friends and put this in your schedule. While you want to create a schedule to keep yourself motivated and on task, your life doesn’t have to be boring or all about getting another job.
   • After you complete a big task (say, applying for new jobs), take a 30-minute break and do something you enjoy. Watch television, call a friend, play with your dog, or go for a walk.

Taking Care of Yourself

1. Eat healthy meals. Even if it’s tempting to eat pasta for every meal, spend time preparing your meals. Take the opportunity to try recipes you haven’t gotten around to and to eat new cuisines. Eating healthy foods can help power your body with energy, prevent mood swings, and fight against depression. If you already struggle with depression, making healthy choices in food can help you manage your symptoms.
   • Spend time preparing your own meals and not eating out much. Add fruits and vegetables to your diet and balance your meals with protein and grains. Consume minimal amounts of sugar.
   • For some more tips, check out How to Eat Healthy.
2. Exercise regularly. Physical activity has many benefits for you. It helps to strengthen your bones and muscles, lower your risk of certain diseases, and improve your mental health and mood. If you don’t enjoy exercise, it’s likely there’s an active activity that you may enjoy. For example, try swing dancing or salsa dancing, or give indoor rock climbing a go. Instead of going on a walk, go for a hike. You can even volunteer at an animal shelter and take the dogs on a walk.
   • Aim to exercise 150 minutes per week with moderate exercise.
3. Avoid turning to alcohol or drugs if you feel depressed. If you’re feeling depressed about losing your job, don’t turn to alcohol. Alcohol and depression can create a vicious cycle where one perpetuates the other. If you feel depressed, consider seeing a therapist. You can learn skills and begin to change your negative thought patterns to better cope with feelings of depression.
   • You may want to turn to drinking out of boredom or to have something to do, but focus on healthy habits instead.
4. Practice relaxation. Manage stress by engaging in relaxation. Keep your stress levels low by practicing relaxation for 30 minutes each day. Relaxation has physical and emotional health benefits such as helping you cope with depression and helping you stabilize your moods.
   • Do exercises that relax and calm you. Try daily yoga, qigong, tai chi, and meditation. If one doesn’t work, try a different method.
5. Get adequate sleep. While you may be tempted to oversleep, make sure you get enough sleep to function well throughout the day. Likewise, don’t stay up all night partying or drinking and not rest much. To stay healthy, aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. You should wake up feeling rested.
   • If you’re experiencing changes with your sleep (such as sleeping too much or too little), this may be a symptom of depression. Check out How to Know if You Have Depression for more information.

Creating Good Habits

1. Apply for jobs each day. Encourage yourself to make an effort each day to apply for jobs. Have a set number of applications you want to send out each day. Reach out to people in your network — former co-workers, friends, family, and acquaintances — for leads. Scour the internet or your local job listing to find places that appeal to you. Create “work hours” for you to find available jobs and send your resume out. For example, set time aside between 11am – 3pm to work on job applications. If you receive unemployment, you are likely required to spend a certain number of hours looking for jobs each week.
   • Work hard on improving and updating your resume so that you feel confident sending it out.
2. Create a budget and stick to it. If you tend to spend money without giving much thought, you may need to adjust your spending while you are unemployed. Find ways to cut down on expenses. For example, lots of people spend more money than they realize on eating out and alcohol. Cut back on your weekly dinners or “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” drinks. Choose to walk or ride your bike places you used to drive. Renegotiate your cell phone bill and sort through your bills.
   • Find your money leaks and patch them. Consider using a cash-only system.
3. Set a limit on screen time. While it may be tempting to sit in front of the television all day, watch movies on your computer, or play video games all day, set some limits. Too much screen time can have a negative impact on your physical and emotional health. Set limits on your screen time by watching one TV show at a time, limiting your internet browsing and cell phone usage. Set an actual timer to notify you when you've reached your limit so you don't lose track of time.
   • Choose to reward yourself with screen time after accomplishing a goal, such as sending out job applications.
   • Decide to visit social media sites one to three times per day, for a set amount of time, instead of checking in repeatedly over the course of the day.
4. Make time for self-exploration. You will have much more free time when you are unemployed, and a productive way to use some of this time is by thinking about what you want for your life and from your next job. Work on identifying your values, setting goals, and exploring interests you may not have had time for while you were working. You may find that you actually want to make a career change, or that you want a position in the same field but with less stress. This is a good time to get to know what makes you happy and what truly interests you.
5. Avoid isolating yourself. If you’re feeling sad about losing your job, don’t isolate yourself and stay away from people. You may feel embarrassed or even ashamed, but it’s no reason to be on your own. Isolation can contribute to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. Instead, surround yourself with people who care about you. Spend time with family, meet up with friends, and maintain an active social life. Having good friends in your life can help buffer stress and increase feelings of support.
   • Avoid getting together in environments that may cause you to slip back into bad habits. Get together for tea or to watch a movie together.

Avoiding Your Bad Habits

1. Know what habits you tend to have. Think about what habits you may have and be aware that they may creep up on you during this period. Stress often brings habits and addictions to the fore. If you used to smoke but quit, know that it may be possible to revert back to smoking once you are unemployed. Bring your awareness to the habits you tend to gravitate toward. Write them down or ask other people who are close to you.
   • For example, you may not take care of yourself or your home (for example, not showering or not doing your dishes), revert to unhealthy meals (like only eating cereal all day), binge watch television shows, or start drinking alcohol more frequently. Know what you’re prone to do so that you can plan a defense.
2. Explore what causes your bad habits. In the past, when have you reverted to bad habits? What situations put you at risk to go back? Think about when you feel vulnerable in your habits.
   • For example, you may watch television when you are bored or trying to escape life. Or you may stop taking care of yourself because you can’t face yourself or the outside world.
   • When you feel yourself tempted to engage in the bad habit, stop. Make note of it, and note how you are feeling at the time.
   • Many people are so used to their bad habits they don't even realize they are doing them. Becoming mindful of these behaviors may help to stop them.
3. Know how to break bad habits. Once you notice what causes your bad habits, or you have identified any bad habits you currently have, you can break or prevent them. Pausing to question the behavior might help. For instance, if you are about to finish a pint of ice cream, pause and ask yourself, "Why am I doing this? What am I feeling? Am I just bored? Depressed? What could I do instead that would actually solve the problem?" Other methods include:
   • Positive visualization. Imagine multiple scenarios in which you overcome your bad habit. If you tend to sit on the couch for hours and watch television, picture yourself setting a timer, then getting up and doing something active when the timer goes off.
   • Create obstacles to prevent the habit. Make engaging in the bad habit more difficult for yourself. If you're trying to spend less time online, unplug your router or use software that blocks specific websites during certain hours. Even these minor obstacles might stop you from engaging in a bad habit.
   • Being accountable. Talk to friends or family members and let them know your goals. Ask them to help you stay on track. If you can't seem to get out of bed before 11am, for instance, you may give your spouse permission to pull off the sheets, open the blinds, and turn on loud music to help you get up.
4. Reward yourself. When you avoid unhealthy habits, reward yourself for a job well done. Find something (or an experience) that you enjoy and use it to motivate yourself. For example, “Once I complete my application, I can go to the climbing gym and join my friends” or, “If I avoid smoking today, I can download new music.”
   • Keep incentives readily available to you. Instead of watching a movie right now, use it to motivate you and then reward yourself.

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References

See also

• Help an Unemployed Person
• Live With an Unemployable Person
• Be Dignified in Job Loss
• Take Care of a Jobless Person
• Survive the Jobless Phase
• Retain Your Job in Crisis
• Rejoice at Being Sacked
• Recover From Unemployment
• Take Action to Reduce Unemployment
• Make Money in a Difficult Job Market

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