How to Deal With Body Image Anxiety Whilst Heading into Summer

Summer is on our doorstep and I can't be the only one who couldn't be happier!

But with summer, comes bikinis and shorts and sometimes even body image anxiety. The good news is this is really common! 

But it is something we shouldn't have to experience or allow it to ruin our precious summer memories. 

In this week's episode, we are discussing why we face body image anxiety when summer comes around, how we can stop this feeling, 6 practical tips to get in a better mindset, and how we can help others do the same. 

Enjoy!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:17

Welcome back to another episode of the 20 survival guide. This is your host, emily Astley. Guys, we are heading into summer. We have survived the winter months, we have made it. I would class June as summer. I'm so here for it.

Speaker 1 0:30

But there is one thing that comes with summer that is not fun and I think not everyone may experience this, but I definitely do and it's very common to feel and that is body image anxiety when it comes to summer, because summer is warmer weather, which obviously means lighter clothes and pool parties. If you go to those, but just a lot more time where your body is on show and if you're not as confident about it, then that can bring real anxiety, which is really sad, because we don't want to have to feel that whilst enjoying our summer. It only comes around like three months of the year tops in the UK, and we should be living our best lives during those three months. So in today's episode we're going to talk about body image anxiety heading into summer and how we can deal with this, to make sure that this summer is the summer that you don't have to worry about your body image and you can have as much fun as possible without stressing. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode.

Speaker 1 1:41

So firstly, I'm going to talk about why this topic matters. This isn't just a girl's thing, this isn't just females, because it is common that guys also feel anxiety when it comes to body image, and especially those who go to the gym a lot gym rats, etc. Who feel like their body is almost like a project, you know know, like something you work on all the time. It can feel like summer is a deadline and I feel like if you are someone where you see people doing bulks and cuts, that's a perfect example of why people see their body as a project and that's why it can get quite toxic, because summer is, in a way, a deadline for that bulk and cut. You're supposed to bulk through the winter, eat loads of food, bulk, work out and then cut when it comes to the months coming up towards summer so that you can look the best you've ever looked in summer, and that then puts so much pressure on there being a deadline for you to look a certain way and honestly, I'm the first person to say that I love summer, but sometimes I might not be feeling my best when it's time to put on a swimsuit and there is just so much anxiety around putting on a swimsuit. Sometimes I can feel really good in a pair of jeans and a crop top, but I might not feel good in a swimsuit because it's a whole nother ball game.

Speaker 1 2:55

So I feel like when it comes to May and June, you get this nervous energy about how you're going to look when it comes to those summer months and you feel like, oh, I need to cut more, I need to go on a diet or I need to fix my appetite or I need to start working out more. Like there's a deadline for you to be doing this by, and I just don't think that's true at all. And if you obviously go on social media, you will know that there's just a spike in content about your summer body, getting ready for your summer body when it comes to the spring months of the year. And it's such a big industry like people will be making so much money off of you because they're trying to sell you the summer body. They're trying to make you go on these diets, and it just needs to stop, because I feel like our natural bodies, the way we are now, the way we are in our winter months, that that's perfectly fine for summer. The whole message is that you don't need to shrink yourself in order to enjoy your summer. You don't need to earn your summer. You don't need to feel stressed in a bikini or feel anxious going on a picnic where you don't feel like you can eat as much because it's summer. You should be able to enjoy your summer, no matter what you look like.

Reclaiming Your Summer Mindset

Speaker 1 3:58

If you feel this certain way and you're listening to this and you're like that is me. I do feel like that and I feel shameful, to admit it. There's no shame around it, because you have kind of been programmed just in the society that we live in today, that there's a specific type of body type which is the most desired and what you should be looking to when it comes to summer. And that's not your fault. You're not vain necessarily. That is just the way that you've been brought up, the way that you consume things, and no wonder why you'd feel that way. So I completely understand and I am here with you and it's just an experience. It is not vanity and, honestly, if no one has told you this, your feelings are absolutely valid and the anxiety that you feel makes complete sense. But the good news is that we don't have to stay stuck in this anxiety and we can move on from it, and sometimes it can feel like you'll never, ever have a summer without feeling anxiety about it, but I do think that we can change that absolutely.

Speaker 1 4:55

So now we're going to talk about reclaiming summer. Okay, this is our summer to reclaim absolutely everything and we don't have to deal with this. It's all a mindset shift, I think, and it does take time, don't get me wrong. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not easy. It does take time to get comfortable with your body and there will always be moments at least small moments, of anxiety sometimes. But it is a mindset shift with using specific phrases that we tell ourselves and how we should think differently.

Speaker 1 5:26

When we hear ourselves talking to ourselves like that, instead of saying, I'll wear this when I look different, which I have said so many times, we should stop ourselves and try and say I deserve to feel good in my body now, so wear the clothes that you feel like you're. You're holding off because you want to look a certain way before and it's kind of sad because you're telling yourself that you're not good enough to fit in those clothes or wear them when you definitely are. I deserve to feel good in my body now. Instead of I'll wear this when I look different. Instead of saying everyone will be judging the way I look, you should say most people are too busy worrying about themselves to focus on me, and you know what that's. The truth.

Speaker 1 6:05

The reality is is that no one really cares as much as you think they do when you're in a swimsuit on the beach. No one actually cares about how you look as much as you do. You might think that the world or the whole beach has their eyes on you and they're thinking that you don't look good enough to be wearing that bikini. But you know what they're not. They're thinking oh my gosh, I can't believe I've got my bikini on and I don't like how I look in it. No one is really going to care that much. So really try and shift that one, because that is so important. The minute you hear those negative thoughts enter your brain, really try and shift it to no one actually cares as much as you think, because then you're rerouting that mindset shift and it's gonna help.

Speaker 1 6:47

Instead of saying I hate how I look in this, think about it like this and say this isn't about how I look, but it's about how I feel. How do you feel in the outfit? Take away the body image anxiety. If you like the top, wear it. But don't get me wrong. As I mentioned before this isn't you pretending that you love yourself every second of the day? Because that's just not true. And I'm not going to preach that because it's just, it's just not true. It's a lie. But it doesn't mean that we can't practice being kinder to ourselves and being nicer to ourselves when we speak internally, and there is always a beauty in being able to choose to be present in the moment and not in your mind focusing on how you look rather than perfection. You don't need to be perfect, you just need to be able to enjoy these memories. The summer memories are the best ones and you'll be out having fun with your friends, and you don't want to tarnish those memories by looking back at those pictures and thinking I was just anxiety ridden about the way I looked that day, when really no one really cared as much. So if you're thinking I completely agree, but I actually don't know how I can change this for me, then do not stress, do not fear, because I have created six tools that you can use to help you, and they're really easy to do and will apply to everyone who feels a certain way about this.

Speaker 1 8:00

So let's go and dive into number one. Number one is change your digital space, so everything that you're consuming online social media. Wherever you get your media like it could be Instagram, tiktok, whatever, probably those are the main two your algorithm is literally dictating what you consume, obviously. So if your algorithm tends to be a lot of gym content, a lot of fitness content, a lot of lifestyle content, then you're going to see a lot of people who curate their perfect body image, right, so they're going to be looking great all the time. Because we know that Instagram tends to be a place which is not how people's real lives actually are and they just post, like highlight reels, the best parts of their life online to make you feel like you're not living your best life. But if your feed is full of bodies and people's abs and the best figures you've ever seen, bodies that just are unattainable. They're just perfection, but to a point where you're probably never going to be able to get there because it's just not real.

Speaker 1 9:11

The best thing you could do which I know might sound extreme, but it's actually not is to mute these content creators who are actually harming you. Like you don't need to mute all of them, but the ones that keep popping up on your feed and you notice that you feel slightly badly after looking at their content and their bodies. You should mute them, you should unfollow them, you should delete them from your social media. It's not that big a deal. You're not going to miss out on that much. You're probably going help yourself.

Speaker 1 9:35

I have done that so many times where someone I understand if they're looking great and they're doing great for themselves, absolutely nothing against that. More power to you. But if it's going to bother me and make me feel badly, then I don't need to see that. And it doesn't mean that there's a weakness involved, like oh, I'm so weak and not in a good place that I actually have to unfollow them. Like that's really sad. There is nothing wrong with doing that, because that doesn't mean that you don't respect yourself or you're weak at all. It just means that you are consuming a lot of this stuff which is not realistic and it's not made to be realistic and it's actually making you feel badly and you should never have to go through that. So if you notice those people block them or literally just mute their accounts, because if you don't have them on your feed popping up, you're going to feel better guaranteed. What you can do instead is you can follow and I actually also do this is follow a lot of body positivity creators the ones who actually do have pretty normal bodies and they talk about it and they show their lives within a quite liberating way about how you can live and enjoy life without having to have the perfect body or go on a diet. And also, if you have dealt with body image trauma, if you've dealt with eating disorders, then following recovery pages. So people who have gone through this as well and who talk about their experience and their healing and what they do is also really good and that will definitely help you. That's just really positive stuff you see on your feed and it's not gonna trigger you.

Speaker 1 11:07

The whole message of this first point is to control what you see. You are able to control what you get exposed to and, in a way, that's completely power. That is power that you have in order to change how you feel. Number two practice mirror kindness. So I'm sure you guys can guess what this is about because it's super normal.

Speaker 1 11:26

You get up most people have mirrors in their room and you get up and you look at yourself in the mirror and it's so easy to just start to overanalyze every single little part of your body and self-criticize and say, oh, there's too much fat here, there's too much skin there, like the list goes on. But sometimes when you check your body it can get really obsessive and this also might sound extreme, but honestly, whatever helps you get into a better place is never extreme. So if this is you and you find yourself constantly obsessing in the mirror, you should take mirror breaks. Try your best to not look at the mirror when you wake up and get dressed without looking at the mirror, and you know. If you need to cover it, please do. And honestly, when you're feeling better, when you're feeling more positive and you are happy to look in the mirror, you should have positive body affirmation.

Speaker 1 12:19

So talk to yourself positively when you're looking in the mirror, because that is also part of the mindset shift and it will help you so much when you realize that if you speak nicely to yourself, it doesn't even have to be speaking out loud. You could be speaking in your head and saying things. Like you know, this body keeps me alive. This, this body keeps me going. It's and it's kept me going and protected me through so much of my life and my worth is not what my waistline looks like, it's not what my abs look like and it's not how much fat I have. It is so much more than that, and those positive talks like I love myself and I love the way I look and I'm happy is so, so, so important and so pure, and you might not feel it yet, but the way you talk to yourself is literally going to metastasize into how you feel. So positive talk is going to help you, and it also might feel really awkward to just talk to yourself when you look in the mirror, but you know what, when you're really struggling, it helps a a lot and I've done that myself.

Changing Your Digital Space

Speaker 1 13:19

Number three wear what honors your body today. So wear what you feel good in today. Don't save clothes for a smaller version of yourself, because I surely can't be the only one who has clothes that you know maybe were a bit tight when you bought them, but you're saving them for when you lose weight and when you shrink yourself into becoming someone smaller and when you think about it like that. It's really. It makes me really sad, actually, because it's like I'm not worthy again to wear these clothes today.

Speaker 1 13:51

Also, just because something you think should be flattering on you and you buy it because it's a trend, let's say, but it's not comfortable and it's and it doesn't make you feel good doesn't mean that you have to wear it. You don't have to wear every trend in order to feel good. You can wear what makes you feel comfortable and that is all that matters. So you shouldn't have to wear the swimsuit that makes you feel uncomfortable and digs into your sides or just hurts. You should wear the swimsuit that makes you feel uncomfortable and digs into your sides or just hurts. You should wear the swimsuit that allows you to swim. You're going to enjoy that way more. You should also choose outfits that make you feel free, that make you feel bright and happy and colourful, or black that makes you feel secure and good about yourself, and you shouldn't just have to feel put together, not outfits that just make you feel put together, outfits that make you feel happy when you put them on. You owe yourself this comfort and it doesn't mean that you're unattractive by wearing something that is comfortable, that can also look really nice at the same time. Just because it's a trend doesn't mean that you have to hop on it and wear it too.

Speaker 1 14:53

Number four see exercise and moving your body as objects a good thing, as a thing that you want to do because you can and it makes you happy, not as a punishment. So a lot of the mindset when it comes to body image anxiety is that exercise is a punishment and it is for eating preparation. So it's before you feel like you're going to eat a big meal or you're exercising because you want to look good in a bikini. Exercising should be a constant and it should be something that you're doing for your overall fitness and mental health, not just with the goal that you want to wear this bikini. Because when you think about it like that, exercise feels like a punishment and it feels like something that you might not want to do. But you have to do and you don't need to be doing like hours of intense cardio in order to feel exercised. If that doesn doesn't give you pleasure, if that doesn't make you feel good, then you can do other things, like going for a nice walk with music, dancing, swimming. If you enjoy swimming, you can go swimming. That's really good for you. You need to think what movement and what exercise makes me feel good, makes me feel happy, makes me want to move my body. Not that you resent.

Mirror Kindness & Wardrobe Freedom

Speaker 1 16:03

Number five surround yourself with safe people. It's all good and well if we can control our body image and how we feel about it internally one-on-one, but you're going to be spending a lot of your summer around other people and that can be troublesome. That can cause problems when other people don't actually help you feel good about yourself. They can actually impose their views and thoughts and they can make you start feeling awful again or trigger anything. So a lot of our body image anxiety can be shaped by who we spend time with, and I very much experienced that myself.

Speaker 1 16:38

And some ways that you can tell if your friends or the people around you are shaping the way you feel about your body is if your friends always talk about dieting. Do you always hear them talk about food and how they feel after they've eaten and how they feel badly because they've eaten too much one day? Or does your family comment on your body which I mean that's a whole nother thing, but it's common your family might be commenting on your body and your looks and unintentionally be impacting you without realizing it, and that can be massive and those things are really difficult to get away from. But what you can do is you can set boundaries with yourself and you can talk to these friends if they are triggering you and you can say look, I love you and I understand you might have your own thing, but I really can't hear you talk about food all the time around me because it triggers me. And that doesn't mean that I don't wanna hang out with you. That just means when we're together, like, please can you reduce the talk about food Because it makes me feel a certain way. Or the same with your family, you can say I'm going through this relationship with my body right now and I don't want to have any comments about it.

Exercise, Safe People & Gratitude

Speaker 1 17:40

And you know what? If your family doesn't respect that, then that's not fair, because you should be able to work on your body and not have people comment on it in a way that's going to actually put you down. The best way to handle it this summer is to hang around people, the people and the friends that make you feel comfortable with your body, the ones that are going to praise you, hype you up, make you feel really good in whatever bikini or outfit you're wearing. You want to be around those people this summer and the more you surround yourself with those people and the ones who don't make you feel negatively about your body, the happier you're going to feel and the better memories you're going to make this summer. And I guarantee that making an active, conscious effort to find and hang around those people will be so much better for your mental health, because it's just not necessary. We just don't need the added stress from other people when we've already got it ourselves. And also, if you're the kind of person that comments on your food a lot or the way you look or you're dieting a lot, then maybe be conscious about how and when you talk about that in front of other people and it might be bothering them. You might not know, but just be conscious about how other people respond to your comments and see if you can pull back if you feel like it's affecting others.

Speaker 1 18:50

Number six is body gratitude practice. So this is really similar to some of the other points I've made, but this is, at the end of the day, an exercise you can do if you end each day with internally saying something that your body did for you. So this could be like today. My feet carried me through the park on my walk like that's great, this could be. I ate a really delicious meal. My stomach digested a delicious meal.

Final Thoughts: You Are Worthy

Speaker 1 19:15

It sounds stupid, but the whole aim is to understand and realize like that your body is something that is really strong and it takes care of you and it takes you through your whole life. You have your body, and only one body for your whole life, so you should praise it and understand that, as simple as walking somewhere, your body is able to do that, your legs are able to move and you can do that and that's a blessing, because you are so much more than how you appear and it really really might be difficult to feel like that sometimes and I totally get that because I do as well but you really are more than you appear because a lot of the time, people will remember you for what you say and the actions and the smile and the sort of personality that you have that might be so bright that people want to hang out with you again. They're not going to remember you for a bit of fat that you had around your waistline, which might feel like the exact thing that they would remember you by if you're someone who has summer body image anxiety but it's not. They won't remember you for that and also weight and the scales. That is not going to be something that is going to be on your deathbed and it's not going to be on your grave like it is not the end of the world and no one is going to remember that when you go like no one. So people are going to remember the good times, the good memories and just the good person that you are and the fun that you are to be around. That's what is key, and I feel like another thing that people have said a lot recently which resonates with me is that you want to be nice to yourself now, because in 10 years are gonna look back at yourself now and be like gosh. I wish I was kinder to her. I wish I was kinder to her and her body, because she looks great then and I wish she could have seen it. We just don't have that time to waste, guys. So literally, you are way more than just how you look. You are genuinely what you experience and your views and the people around you is how is your makeup. Okay, guys, so those were my six points.

Speaker 1 21:14

I want you to remember and take this away, that summer is not a deadline. Summer is not a test. It's not something that you have to earn in order to enjoy. You don't have to bulk, you don't have to cut, you don't have to go on a diet, you don't have to be a certain weight on the scale in order to enjoy your summer. I'm here to remind you that summer is literally about sunshine, watermelon, late nights, music park nights, great parties, holidays. That is what summer is supposed to be be like, and it's not supposed to be something that is dark, full of anxiety, which is really hard to get away from, I know, but we can try just a little bit to change that. We're alive, we're human, we're here to enjoy it and not criticize ourselves to the point where we can't even enjoy a night out.

Speaker 1 21:59

And if no one has told you this today or in the past week, you are more than enough. You are beautiful in more ways than just what is in the mirror. You're not behind with your fitness journey or the way you look, if you look different to another girl or boy and they have a specific body which you might think is better than yours. You are not behind. You have your own body, and comparison like that it just doesn't even exist, like you're never gonna have the body, they're never gonna have your body. It's just a whole thing.

Speaker 1 22:26

And the last thing I want you to remember is that you are worthy of joy. Now Wear the clothes that make you feel good. Now. Don't delay wearing specific clothes for when you feel like you'll look smaller or you'll be skinnier, because that is just not the right way to live. You deserve to have joy and a great summer, and I hope this has helped some of you guys a little bit. If you do feel that body image anxiety and it is genuinely not a deadline I hope that at least one thing I've said, this episode, has resonated with you or helped you a little bit. Then I'll be happy. If just at least one thing has helped, I'm super happy and it will make me overjoyed. So remember this summer to enjoy it. It will absolutely pass by with a blink of an eye. So enjoy it, go crazy, have those margaritas, do whatever, wear the swimsuit and I shall see you guys next Wednesday. Bye.