People Who Grew Up Without Trigger Warnings But Learned To Self-Regulate Anyway Have These 15 Habits
Yasen Iliev | Unsplash How you treat yourself is how you feel about yourself. A study of mental health professionals found that engaging in self-care practices predicted significant increases in post-traumatic growth over time. The research also showed that self-care led to less anxiety and depression. Neglecting yourself and your self-esteem will imply that you aren’t worthy of being taken care of.
For those who can recall, there was a time when nobody paused a movie or classroom discussion to warn you that your feelings might get stirred up — you just felt them and figured out what to do next. People who grew up without trigger warnings learned how to ride out discomfort, calm their own nervous systems, and self-regulate when things got messy. Today, some of these skills feel almost rare — which is exactly why these 16 habits stand out.
People who grew up without trigger warnings but learned to self-regulate anyway have these 15 habits:
1. They opt out of ads
It’s self-loving to be intentional about the kinds of messages that we allow into our minds. And the sad (current) state of most media is that a lot of it is very fear-based and toxic to our hearts. Follow the news (which gets ratings by telling you about things that captivate you through fear) too closely, and you’re bound to think that the world is a dangerous and cruel place.
If you watch the news, stop. If you’re tired of being marketed to constantly when you’re online, with things that make you feel insecure instead of empowered, download an ad-blocker that replaces ads with inspiration.
Obviously, you won’t be able to get away from seeing 100 percent of ads because, even if you live in a small town, advertising is everywhere, but doing your part to clean out 90 percent of the news and advertising that you’re inundated with daily will do wonders for your mental and emotional health.
2. They invest in their hobbies
Does your life feel overly serious? Do you track productivity more than fulfillment? Are you trying to monetize, optimize, and improve every second of your life? Then it’s fairly likely that your hobbies have fallen to the wayside.
Take inventory of the things that you do that bring you joy. Maybe you like coloring in coloring books. Or dancing. Or writing poetry. Whatever feeds your soul, make time for it on a regular basis.
Research from 2025 found that people who regularly engage in hobbies have significantly lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. The research also showed that having hobbies works like little mental health breaks to help you feel refreshed and better equipped to handle whatever life throws at you.
3. They learn to cook a few simple, healthy meals
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I’m the first to admit that I didn’t enjoy cooking (at all) until a few months ago. Only recently have I begun to dig into the practice, and I find it surprisingly meditative and enjoyable. There’s something so satisfying about spending an entire afternoon gathering ingredients, preparing them, and making a big, healthy meal that lasts you for days.
Research in Frontiers in Nutrition found that people who went through a 7-week cooking program showed improvement in their mental health scores, and the best part is that those benefits stuck around for at least six months after the program ended, proving that learning to cook has lasting positive effects.
4. They go for a walk before any tech in the morning
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Most people wake up in the morning, immediately roll over, and check their phones. What do they check most frequently? Their email and social media. Let’s call a spade a spade. Your email inbox is other people’s to-do lists for your time. And your social media feed is likely littered with advertisements and people showing the highlight reel of their lives. Both of these things have a high probability of putting you into an anxious, reactive state, and you start your day off on the wrong foot.
Instead of turning to tech upon waking, might I suggest something more conducive to starting your day off on a more productive footing? Instead of screen time upon waking, experiment for a few days with getting up, putting on some clothes and shoes, and going for a walk — ideally in or near nature.
I’ve been going on 30- to 60-minute walks in the mornings before I look at any screens, and the results have been phenomenal. I feel less stressed, I feel more grounded throughout the rest of the day, and I often have my most creative thoughts and experience mini-breakthroughs as I’m walking. Try it out, if only for a few days. You might love it so much that you’ll never go back to compulsively staring into your smartphone upon waking up.
5. They cut out noise from their life
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There’s a lot of noise happening around you in the world. The radio commercial subtly tells you that you aren’t good enough. The person in your extended family is telling you to be more realistic in your approach to life.
The person who tries to goad you into gossiping and talking against someone you both know. The overly negative conversation that you overhear on the bus/at a restaurant/before the movie starts.
Be intentional about which thoughts you allow to enter your mind. You’re allowed to opt out of conversations that feel bad (“I don’t feel like talking about that person in this manner. Is there something else that we can talk about instead?”). You’re allowed to leave environments that don’t serve you. There’s a lot of noise out there. Be careful as to which parts you let in.
How exactly can you cut out some of this noise from a place of self-care? First off, if the situation allows for it, set proactive boundaries with people when they try to pull you into conversations that don’t feel good for you. Next, switch off or mute your TV/radio as often as possible, especially during commercials.
Finally, invest in some custom-fitted earplugs (for all of the situations in which you don’t have access to turning off the noise). I always have a pair of -60-decibel earplugs on me so that I can pop them in whenever I’m near a conversation that I don’t want to overhear, or if I’m in a public setting and an annoyingly negative TV show/radio show/advertisement is ringing out auditorily.
They’re your ears. It’s your mind. You’re allowed to be just as intentional about what goes into it as you are with the food that goes into your mouth. They both have the power to nourish you or harm you.
6. They regularly talk to someone they trust
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Similar to the journaling habit, verbalizing your thoughts to someone out loud helps you to clear those thoughts out of your mind. Find a trusted, non-shaming, supportive person in your life who can hold space and listen to you — your fears, frustrations, and dreams. And if you want them to give you occasional feedback or advice, they can give you that as well.
I find that it can feel extra self-loving to hire a coach or therapist to listen to you because it’s that much easier to fully allow yourself the selfishness of letting yourself say whatever is on your mind, without being expected to reciprocate afterward.
Research in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry found that talking through your problems in therapy actually rewires your brain by strengthening the connections between neurons. The study shows that verbalizing what's bothering you helps you work through stuff that's been stuck in your subconscious and builds your ability to handle your emotions better over time.
7. They move their bodies
In my experience, the two most effective and efficient ways for removing stress hormones from your body are either through sweating or crying (speaking of which, crying could totally have its own section in this list because it’s awesome and deeply relaxing).
Regularly engage in whatever your favorite way to sweat is. Dance around your living room to your favorite song. Go to a yoga class or spin class. Go to the gym and pound out a few minutes on the treadmill.
Whatever gets your heart pounding, do it from a place of self-love. Massive health benefits aside, your heart will be glowing afterward from all of the endorphins coursing through your veins.
8. They say no more often
One of the best self-care practices available to us is boundary setting, aka saying no to things we want to say no to. You don’t want to meet up with that friend that you said you’d meet up with, and it’s still a few hours/days away? Tell them you’ve changed your mind. You’re allowed to.
You don’t want to go home for Christmas/Thanksgiving/the holidays, even though your family is expecting you to? You can say no. You don’t have to go. You’ve realized that a relationship that you’re in is draining/toxic/going nowhere? You’re allowed to say no to that, too.
Whatever the thing, person, or situation is that has your heart feeling heavy, you’re allowed to say no to it. You fully, 100 percent have permission to honor yourself.
9. They keep track of the good stuff
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I’m heavily biased because I love writing so much, but I believe that everyone can benefit from regularly journaling out their thoughts on paper. Sometimes the swirling thoughts in our heads are just looking for a home, and when we write them down, we often feel that much freer of them. They don’t have to take up real estate in our heads if we physically transpose them onto the page.
I essentially always have a mini-Moleskine notebook on me so that I can jot down thoughts throughout my daily life. Maybe I partake in a really cool philosophical conversation, and I get an idea for an article that I want to write later on. Or maybe I wake up from an amazing dream, and I want to make a note of a certain element of it. Whatever your reasons for writing, observing yourself through regular journaling is a practice that is worthwhile for everybody.
Practicing regular gratitude has been scientifically validated as one of the single best things that we can do to maintain our levels of personal happiness. Whether it’s as simple as saying “Thank you” (out loud or in our minds) and then letting ourselves fill in the rest of the sentence a few times per day, or picking up a five-minute journal and making it a simple and effective daily habit, proactively being aware of what we’re grateful for has a huge spill-over effect into our happiness and emotional well-being.
I’m grateful for the privilege to speak to you, wherever you are in the world, by writing my thoughts out with this keyboard. I’m grateful for the strong, reliable wifi that I have that will allow me to upload these words for you to read, and I’m grateful that you’ve made it this far down the page. Go you! Now, it’s your turn! What are you grateful for? Think of three to five things in your mind, and then keep going through the rest of the article.
10. They have a feel-good file they revisit
There’s this thing called the negativity bias. It’s a cognitive bias (aka "thinking error") that all humans engage in. The negativity bias essentially states that things of a negative nature are more likely to affect us, to a greater degree, than a similar situation of a neutral or positive process. Put simply, bad things affect us a lot more than any other things.
What this all means is that if twenty people say nice things to you this week, and one person insults or criticizes you, that one negative comment is going to take up a lot of space in your thought processes, and will negatively impact your mood for a disproportionate amount of time.
To help undo/counteract the negativity bias, keep a running list (or gather a physical or digital folder) of all of the nice things that people have said about you, and make a point to revisit it regularly. You can treat it like it’s your rainy day folder and only look at it when you need a pick-me-up, or you can look at it more regularly, regardless of how you’re feeling.
11. They don't put off chores
When we’re surrounded by clutter and filth, it’s that much easier to feel down on ourselves. Spend a day cleaning your house, taking out the trash, vacuuming, doing your laundry, and making a healthy meal. Treat your environment as if it were a physical extension of you (because it is) and give it the loving tenderness that it deserves.
You’ll likely work up a sweat while doing it, and you’ll feel so much better once it’s all done. Heck, put on your favorite music while you’re cleaning and you’ll even feel that much better while you’re doing it.
13. They practice being kind to themselves
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Whether we inherited our low self-image from our parents, peers, or media and advertising, a lot of us struggle with self-acceptance and self-care when it comes to our physical bodies. Try this exercise for size:
- Stand in front of your mirror while naked.
- Now, verbalize ten things that you love about yourself (focusing on your physical traits for now).
- Then, notice five things that you usually criticize about your appearance and ask those things for forgiveness (i.e., “Hair/arms/legs/stomach, I know that I often criticize you for being too X or not Y enough, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”).
- Then, one by one, shower those five things with love, acceptance, and compliments (i.e., “In truth, you are actually beautiful/capable/strong/gorgeous/perfect, and I completely love and accept you as you are. Thank you.”).
Do this exercise once per day for 5 to 7 days in a row, and you will notice your relationship with your body shifting in a more positive direction.
14. They take care of themselves by taking care of others
If you carry out all of the above steps verbatim, then you will inevitably have such a full emotional fuel tank that you’ll likely want to start giving back to others. Not only does helping others help others, but it also helps you in the process, no matter how altruistically you go into the process.
Volunteer somewhere with a place that has a mission that you believe in. Buy a bag of gourmet dog treats and hand them out at a dog park (making sure to check with the dog’s owners in case of allergies). Walk around with coins in your pocket and help people plug their parking meters as they dig around in their pockets for change.
And remember, this isn’t just for other people. Volunteering has proven health benefits (such as, but not limited to, more self-confidence, greater self-esteem, and a boost in general well-being).
15. They honor their inner child
What could you do for hours on end as a child? What activities would you engage in that would make the time fly by? Me, I loved skateboarding, making video skits with friends, taking photos, dancing, and doing improv. After an almost ten-year hiatus (from 18 to 28), I realized that I hadn’t really done any of those things. Upon realizing it, I broke out my calendar, and I prioritized all of them again.
I started filming skits. I bought a skateboard and went skating with a friend. I signed up for some adult improv classes. And taking these actions immediately lifted my mood and made me feel better about myself.
What things did you love to do that you haven’t done in a long time? Maybe it’s time to re-prioritize your happiness again. As far as we know, we only get one chance at life. Might as well make the most of it.
15. They prioritize self-care
All of these self-care practices are great, and when you start to prioritize even one or two of your favorite ones regularly, you’ll notice an immediate shift in your happiness, lowered stress levels, and day-to-day feelings of self-love and fulfillment.
One of the highest-leverage ways to make sure that these new intentions turn into habits is to set up your environment for success and build reminders into your life to keep engaging in these self-care practices. Put simply, pick your one/two/three favorite self-care practices and put them in your calendar – right now. If your self-care practices are staring you in the face on a regular/ongoing basis, it’ll be that much harder to ignore them from this point forward.
I mean, really, which would you rather have: A twitching eye, erratic sleep patterns, and relationship stress? Or would you prefer a deep sense of calm, a healthy body and mind, and a childlike, playful, self-loving approach to life that permeates everything that you do? That’s what I thought.
So put those reminders in your calendar, pronto. This isn’t a one-and-done kind of situation. Self-care is not a situation where you can just set it and forget it.
Self-care practices are practices for a reason. Just like you can’t eat enough in one sitting to sustain you energetically for years, self-care is something that’s best done regularly. That’s why putting it in your calendar and setting up your environmental reminders is so important when it comes to regularly incorporating self-care practices into your life.
Just like in a relationship with a significant other, small, regular gestures tend to beat out infrequent grand sweeping gestures. Consistency is key. It’s the accumulated meaning behind all of the little things that you do for yourself that will translate into more self-love, less stress, greater creativity, and more emotional fulfillment daily.
Jordan Gray is a five-time Amazon best-selling author, public speaker, and relationship coach with more than a decade of practice. His work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Women's Health, and The Good Men Project, among countless others.
