How to Look After Your Mental Health As a Blogger

Last updated on 27 December 2024

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

Sometimes it can be hard to look after your mental health as a blogger.

Blogging can be really fun and rewarding but take heed.  Like anything online (or offline!), it can have negative effects on your mental health, especially if you’re not keeping yourself in check. Over the years I’ve learnt a thing or two about looking after my mental health as a blogger. And it’s been touch and go sometimes!

Whether you’re super new to blogging, or you’ve been around the blogosphere for a while now, learning a few tips for looking after your mental health as a blogger is going to help you move forward. And if those steps in the right direction a tiny steps, then that’s okay. Small steps in the right direction are better than not moving at all.

Looking after our mental health as bloggers is critical, like looking after our mental health in all areas of our lives. The internet is a vast place, full of wonderful opportunities and brilliant people. But it can also be a tricky place to navigate and find your way in. And that’s where these tips come in. They’re some of the things that I’ve learnt from my own experiences in blogging over the years I’ve been blogging.

“Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.” – James Clear, Atomic Habits

5 things that have helped my mental health as a blogger

1. Realise you can try again

Don’t take things too seriously. Work hard and be committed to your blog, yes, but don’t let it become a big thing that starts to take over your life. It’s okay if a post didn’t do as well as you hoped; even seasoned bloggers have days like that. Take a deep breath, try again. Look at what is working for you and where you’re at with your blog, and what needs to be adjusted, tweak, or tried out again.

With every post you create, the better you’ll become at creating (practice will never make ‘perfect’ – does the perfect blog post exist? – but it will definitely improve your skills). Keep going. Keep learning.

2. Create more than you read

Comparison is the thief of joy … and productivity. And it can have super negative effects on our mental health. The more we spend scrolling through other people’s blogs the more those thoughts of comparison can come creeping in.

The solution? Write more, create more for your own blog, and spend less time looking at what other people are doing. Check out their blogs for inspiration, for interest’s sake, but don’t get too caught up in all the things they’re doing. They’re not in your shoes, you’re not in theirs. Create more than you read.

3. Similarly, put a cap on your social media intake

In a similar vein, put limits on your social media time. By putting boundaries around your social media and how much time you spend on it, the risk of comparing yourself to others decreases a lot.

People share mostly the good parts of their lives online, including bloggers and influencers. Remember that they’re going through things that you can’t see, behind social media, and you’re seeing the whole story.

To check out how long you’ve spent on Instagram, head to your Settings > Account > Your Activity > Time.

This will show you your daily average on Instagram and the amount of time you spent in the app each day for the past 7 days. You can set daily reminders which will be sent to you when you’ve reached a certain time (set yourself), and you can control which notifications come through so you’re not always opening the app.

4. Remember you are not your blog

Or your business or your website. You are a beautiful human being who happens to be sharing your story, skills, passions and dreams in an online space. It’s part of who you are, but it’s not solely who you are.

Keep that in mind when you go about your planning, and when you set aside time for your blog. Make sure it’s not taking over your life, and you’re not saying ‘no’ to too many things that you might otherwise go to. Don’t become addicted to your blog. Don’t prioritise your blog over your friends and family.

5. Take a break

Like social media, it’s important to take a break from your blog. It can be easy to get so involved with our blogs (see above point) that we forget to take a break. Not taking a break can really affect our mental health as a blogger. Whether you’ve planned your content in advance or not, step back from your screen, refresh, take stock.

Plan a break every so often. If you’re concerned about ‘staying active’ use a blogger’s content planner to plan and schedule your posts in advance, so even if you’re taking a break and not looking at your blog, it’s still publishing content behind the scenes.

Sometimes taking a break is the best thing you can do for your mental health.

BONUS: Kōrero with others

Kōrero (talk) with other bloggers! Engaging with other bloggers online (keeping in mind point 2) and commenting on their posts really helps build that sense of community. Connecting with others who are doing similar things to you helps lift you up and surrounds you with people who ‘get it’ and are supporting you in your blogging endeavours.

There are some incredible bloggers out there who have gathered other bloggers around themselves and are always super welcoming to other bloggers (especially newbies!). There are platforms that are dedicated just to bloggers to connect with each other, support one another and share posts.

---

So there are just some of the things that can affect our mental health as bloggers. Like anything, it’s important to recognise these things before they start taking hold.

What else would you add to this list on how to look after your mental health when you’re a blogger?