Now before I start, I've never been the most confident person, and I'm not going to pretend now that I'm some kind of Beyonce, flipping my hair and looking fabulous all the time. But that's the thing. I'm sure Beyonce doesn't look 10/10 every second of the day, just like everybody else on the planet.

There's so much pressure put on us to look good all the time that we're actually making our bodies feel worse. I've had acne on my face since I was about 11, and the entire time growing up and moving through school, I was bullied for it, made to feel self conscious about it, and made to feel that I should be wearing foundation an inch thick just so you couldn't see it. But the thing I didn't see is that wearing that inch thick foundation and stressing myself out to high heavens about my face only made things worse.

Your skin is incredibly complex, and even after years of researching my skin to try and find some magic solution to my acne troubles I still don't know everything there is about it. There's so many aspects that can effect your skin that I don't want to just release a skincare routine saying you should wash your face more and moisturise. It's so much more incredibly complex than that. Your mood can effect your skin, if you're stressed out or self conscious, yes it is probably going to give you a breakout.

The most helpful tip I've ever learnt about keeping my spots at bay is to stop caring about them so damn much! Now I'm not saying if you ignore your skin it will magically get clear, but I found that my skin got much clearer (not clear, but better!) once I stopped worrying about how I looked, and started thinking about how I felt. I stopped giving a sh*t about wearing so much foundation, tuned it down a little and switched to a BB creme, even through I could still see all my spots, because I honestly just couldn't be bothered with going through tube after tube of foundation and feeling like my face was in a mask because of it. The same thing that I thought all those years was helping, was actually hindering my skin. When I decided to just accept I am who I am, well that's when I felt like I'd finally found a cure. And no- my skin isn't perfectly clear now, I still get plenty of spots, but I feel so much better now that I'm not hiding them.

I think there's too much suffocating pressure on us to look right no matter what. I used to be so self conscious that I would do a full face of makeup just to run to the corner shop, I'd never be seen dead in anything but a perfectly planned flawless outfit. But what I've realised is that it's okay to be whatever you feel like. If I want to get dressed to the nines at half 9 on a Thursday night because I want to feel good about myself even though I'm not actually going anywhere, then why not? If I want to go to uni in some joggers and my hair scraped back in a bun then I can, I'm still me. The important thing for me is that I feel comfortable in my own skin, because at the end of the day no one else is going to wear it for me. My body was made for me, destined to be for me. So why should I decline that and say it's not good enough? I am absolutely good enough, whether I'm wearing makeup or not, whether I shave my legs or not, whether I have a spot showing in that selfie or not.

I think the main takeaway from this post is that we need to stop bringing each other down, because at the end of the day it's only making it worse on all of us. If you are stood bitching about another girl's outfit as if it's the end of the world, then you are just feeding into the culture that makes us all feel more self conscious. It's funny really because we all try and pretend for social media that we are these perfect photoshopped humans, but really we're all the same imperfect but equally beautiful messes. We all bring ourselves down thinking we're inferior but the standards we're comparing ourselves to aren't even real most of the time, they're just someone else pretending because they're worried they're not good enough.

So lets end it now. You are good enough. You can wear, say, do, whatever you want to. Just be you. How can anybody tell you you're doing it wrong when there's only one you?

I feel like whenever I see a trending topic or a national mental health related day, it's my sign that it's something that needs to be talked about. Or maybe just a sign I need to get brainstorming some more original ideas, but anyway...

The other day I saw that it was Stress Awareness Day, and thought that it would be a great topic to introduce into my mental health series.

So firstly I want to talk about the things that cause me stress, and how I deal with them and take time for myself so I don't get too overwhelmed. Growing up I've slowly come to realise that I actually am quite a sensitive person, and I do take a lot of things to heart easily, and I feel like I'm constantly trying to consider how other people will feel about things as well as my self. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing by any means, but it has made me the kind of person where sometimes I will just find myself so burnt out by looking after myself, and then trying to keep everyone else happy too.

I'm also a massive over thinker, as I'm sure a lot of people are, I get worried about scenarios sometimes that haven't even happened yet. To be honest I don't think it's a completely terrible trait to have, sure sometimes it can lead you into ruminating over the same thoughts, which can cause a bit of a head tangle, but I also feel like overthinking is something that makes me feel very prepared. You see because I am always expecting or at least considering, the worst case scenario. So in the very unlikely situation that the worst case scenario (dun dun dun) does happen, I've prepared myself for it!

For example, if there's something I'm super nervous about like a job interview, I'll overthink to the point where I might google maps check the street name fourteen times before I leave the house. But in the worst case scenario that my phone might die and I might be left stranded having to navigate purely off the basis of street names, trust me I've got it covered.

I think the main thing that I want to emphasise throughout my mental health posts is that yeah some people are different to others, but what some people may see as something 'wrong', there's always something positive to find out of that situation. It's just life, things may not always go to plan or work on the first try, but at the end of the day a lesson can be took from everything, good or bad. Just in the same way that stress can make me feel more organised.


So now onto ways that I handle stress when it gets a bit too much.

I'm not going to start talking about yoga as everyone may have predicted, although I'd love to try it. I've got pretty mundane ways of dealing with stress. My favourite thing to do is to go on a long walk, whether it be grabbing Jack and heading out into the peaks for a massive hike, or just taking ten minutes by myself to follow the dog walking path behind my flat. I think walking lets you get everything out and clear your head, as well as taking a bit of time away from whatever it is that is stressing you out.



I also, weirdly, like the take a bath or a shower when I'm feeling stressed. I just like to feel like I'm on top of things and looking after myself, especially if I've been sat all morning frantically trying to finish by uni work before a deadline and my hair looks like a greasy bush on top of my head. A good thing about this too is that I always come out of my bath or shower feeling refreshed and ready to carry on anything I've got to finish.

Finally, my last tip for handling stress might sound a bit silly. I'm sure a lot of people will just think 'as if it's that easy' but something that I've had to force myself to do is to just learn to accept that sometimes things don't go to plan. Not everything works out exactly like you want it to, but it's the same with everyone in life, and that's something that makes it better because other people understand (I know crazy right). You can't be afraid to ask for help sometimes or just to let people in on what's going on in your head.

Like for example, I had to miss a university session on Monday because our water tap in the bathroom decided it was going to start leaking and making horrible noises in the middle of the night and I had to wait in for the technician to come and fix it. Not a big deal, right? But I was stressing out over it naturally because I didn't want to miss the session. But then I talked to my university tutor today and told him why I couldn't make the session, thinking he was going to be annoyed at me, and guess what he said. He just went, 'Oh Becky you should've just emailed and told me, I wouldn't have minded!'

And there it is. The majority of the time people will understand, people will get that it's been a hard week, that you're tired, or didn't have time, or forgot. I think the biggest thing I've had to learn is to just go with the flow and not get too caught up in my own little plans I make prior to a situation, because life doesn't really care about your plans, it's got it's own.


As always feel free to contact me if you have any post suggestions or even just need a little chat!

I like to think that there isn't a person on the planet who doesn't have anxieties, we are all different after all, with different backgrounds, different struggles, different pressures. One person's plans on their worst day may be the same plans as someone on their best, it's all about perspective. Some people are scared of spiders, some love and adore their fuzzy little pet tarantula called Fred, same trigger, different reactions.

I remember when I first moved out to go to university, and I was terrified of making new friends and living in an all new space. I would sit in my tiny student accommodation bedroom and stress myself out for hours before I had to leave for my lectures. I'd have a shower, do my makeup, wipe it off, do my makeup again, take another shower, constantly battling myself to act normal. Wanting to start fresh so that I could get every tiny aspect right about how I looked, and if it didn't go right, if the flick on my eyeliner smudged, I'd just start again.

Anxiety can show itself in lots of ways, sometimes it can be hoovering the same spot of floor 20 times before you leave for work, sometimes it can be stuttering, it's different for different people.

I find it best to deal with my anxieties by trying to prepare myself as much as possible. I get to know what makes me anxious. If I know that I'm going out today to do a presentation in front of a class of people, I feel anxious as f*ck. But I also know that when I'm anxious I get stomach pains, I feel a bit sick, I get sweaty. It's not pretty but it's true. So I make sure I've got some ibuprofen in my bag if I need to take some, make sure I've eaten some breakfast and drank something before I leave, wear something loose fitting..

Spending a few minutes in the morning to prepare myself that little bit extra actually helps my anxiety loads, I just feel calmer knowing that I'm prepared for it.

Anxiety isn't pretty, everyone says confidence makes you beautiful, and honestly confidence doesn't feel like it's the problem. It's not that I'm afraid to go outside, or afraid to meet people, I'm not afraid. It's just like my body has a reaction that I'm not telling it to have. I can be perfectly fine but get sweaty palms, or just wake up in the morning with my stomach churning and a weird feeling that I don't know why I have. It's just something that I've learn't to live with and accepted as part of me. I'm not any lesser for getting anxious, it's just me.

So why is she talking about her sweaty armpits you may ask?

Well today is Mental Health Awareness Day and it felt like the perfect day to start talking about mental health. When I started this blog I really wanted to talk a lot on the topic of mental health, it's something that's important to me and that I'm interested in, and if I can help anyone then great, if I can't then I suppose I feel better anyway in myself just being able to talk about things. It's quite therapeutic blogging about your thoughts and feelings, like keeping a diary, it makes your feelings feel valid, you understand why you do things if you take the time to write them out and really unpack it all.

To end this blog post, and keeping on the theme of mental health, I wanted to share a couple of designs I made recently for a competition at my uni. So Sheffield Hallam are having a couple of evenings of speakers talking about their experiences and giving advice to students regarding mental health in the arts, so how the pressures of being a designer, artist, illustrator, etc, can affect your mental health, and how to deal with that.

If you're interested, of course the details are on the posters, and tickets are available via Eventbrite
However- I actually ended up winning this competition (yippee!) so if you're from Sheffield you may even see my posters around the uni campuses! Let me know if you see any, it would be amazing to see them all out and about!

So above, at the beginning of this post, is my A3/A2 poster design, and below you can see my design to go on screens around the uni.

Have an amazing mental health day my lovelies, and if anyone wants any advice, or just a chat, feel free to get in touch with me I'd be happy to talk with you! I'm always here.

Becky

I think everyone has their own happy place, and mine's out in the countryside. I love to be out in the greenery and the flowers, it just makes me feel calm and clears my head.

The Peaks; taken by me

Living so close to the Peak District definitely has it's benefits, like a late evening peaks drive to watch the sunset, but there's so many other places around Sheffield that are great to visit for a day out.

The Peaks; taken by me

The last few days me and my boyfriend Jack have really loved travelling to Sherwood Forest for some nice walks, and to take some photographs.
(All photos in this article are by Jack (IG: jackstaniforth) unless stated otherwise)

The Peaks; taken by me

I think the best bit about going out for walks in nature is that it really calms my anxiety for a while, like taking a hayfever tablet but the wrong way round.
It just helps me to take my mind off of any worries for a while and forget it all. I think being visually worlds away from my normal life just helps me distance things and take a step back, it helps me to put things into perspective.