A Practical Guide to Low-Cost Mental Wellness
Simple ways to support your mental health—no pricey apps, subscriptions, or supplements required.
Welcome back to this month’s Wellness Guide series: Feel Good for Less.
This is the fourth guide in our multi-part series designed to help you feel your best, without breaking the bank.
This week, we’re diving into mental health resources for less, because supporting your mind is just as important as caring for your body.
If you missed the previous guides in the series, here’s a quick recap:
🛒 Your Guide to Eating Well for Less - 120+ LFG-approved, budget-friendly health picks from our go-to grocery stores.
💪 Your Guide to Low-Cost Ways to Move Your Body - Boost your energy and stay active—no pricey gyms, boutique studios, or fancy gear required.
🧴 Your Guide to Clean Beauty & Personal Care for Less - 45+ of our favorite LFG-approved skincare, makeup, haircare, and body care products—all under $30.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss our weekly Wellness guides landing in your inbox every Wednesday!
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Caring for your mind is just as important as caring for your body—and the two are deeply connected.
Chronic stress, emotional suppression, and unresolved trauma can weaken the immune system, disrupt hormones, and contribute to inflammation and disease.
In fact, neuroscientist Candace Pert discovered that the same neuropeptides that carry emotion in the brain are also found throughout the body - in our organs, muscles, and even skin.
As she put it, “Your body is your subconscious mind.”
Unexpressed emotions like anger, fear, grief, or shame don’t just disappear.
They often get stored in the body and can resurface as physical symptoms—chronic pain, autoimmune conditions, gut issues, even heart disease.
The body, quite literally, keeps the score. Emotions are energy in motion. We must feel them to free them.
So let’s explore how to support your mental wellness, process your emotions, sit with your feelings and care for your whole self, without breaking the bank.
Feel better, think clearer, and support your nervous system, without spending your whole paycheck on pricey therapy, $200 life coaches, or luxury wellness retreats.
Some of the most powerful tools are free, simple, and already within reach.
This guide is packed with practical, budget-friendly ways to help you process emotions, reset your nervous system, and create routines that support your mind and body.
Let’s dive in!
✨ How to Slow Down & Feel Your Feelings
Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to pause—to soften, listen inward, and give your emotions the space to be seen.
Try these simple practices to reconnect with yourself:
🧘 Sit in stillness - Close your eyes and check in. What are you feeling? Where do you feel it in your body? What does it physically feel like?
📝 Journal Speak - Write stream-of-consciousness style—no editing, no filtering. Just let it pour out.
📞 Call someone you trust - Ask a friend or family member to simply listen. Let yourself share without needing to fix or figure anything out.
🚶 Walk outside—no phone, no podcast - Tune into your senses. What do you see, hear, and smell? Let nature help you process.
🌬️ Practice breath work - Sit quietly. Inhale slowly and deeply, feel your lungs expand, then exhale with intention. Repeat.
🚿 Take a long, hot shower - Let your thoughts flow with the water. Notice what’s coming up and how it feels in your body.
🕯️ Light a candle, play soft music & breathe - Set the mood. Take 10 deep breaths and feel your body soften.
🌿 Go barefoot outside - Stand on grass, dirt, or sand. Let the earth support and ground you.
🤍 Hand on heart check-in - Sit quietly and ask, “How am I, really?”—then listen.
🛏️ Lay on the floor, eyes closed, no sound - Let your body rest and reset.
🧺 Do one slow, intentional task - Fold laundry, wash dishes, clean up a space—fully present in the moment.
🖊️ The Power of Journaling
Journaling is one of the most effective—and completely free—tools for mental wellness. It helps you clear mental clutter, process stored or suppressed emotions, and release what’s weighing you down so you can move forward with greater clarity and ease.
Sometimes we don’t even realize what’s bothering us until we give ourselves the space to pause, feel, and let that information rise to the surface.
There’s no wrong way to journal. Don’t judge what comes up. Let it flow without editing or overthinking. Whatever surfaces—thoughts, emotions, even resistance—is valid.
Accept it and give it room to unfold, free from judgment.
✍️ Start with These Prompts
Pick one that speaks to you—or move through several if you’re feeling it:
What’s one thing weighing on my mind right now, and how is it making me feel?
What feels uncomfortable right now - physically or emotionally?
What is most important to me right now?
What are the things that make me feel safe?
What am I most afraid of?
What helps me feel grounded?
What are 5 things I’m grateful for?
What am I excited for right now?
What does an ideal day look like? What would I do? How would I feel? Who would I spend it with?
What’s one thing I want to release from my mind or body today?
What do I need more of this week—mentally, emotionally, or physically?
When was the last time I felt truly calm? What contributed to that?
What’s one small thing I can do today that would make me feel better?
📚 Books We’re Loving
A good book can feel like a big, cozy hug, and sometimes that’s exactly what we need. Here are a few of our all-time favorites 💛📚
When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal
🧘♀️ Tactical Tools to Calm Anxiety
When anxiety or overwhelm hits, your nervous system needs a signal that it’s safe. These simple, low-cost techniques help regulate your body and bring you back into the present moment.
🫁 Box Breathing
Inhale for 4 → Hold for 4 → Exhale for 4 → Hold for 4
Repeat for 4–6 rounds.
This structured breathing technique helps lower cortisol, calm the mind, and stabilizes your heart rate.
🧊 Cold Exposure
Take a cold shower
Submerge your face in a bowl of ice water
Hold an ice pack on the back of your neck or chest
Cold exposure activates the vagus nerve, helping slow your heart rate, signal safety to your body, and interrupt anxious thought spirals.
🏃♀️ Move Your Body—Fast
Do 1–2 minutes of high-intensity movement:
Jumping jacks
Jogging in place
Brisk walking
Dancing it out
A short burst of high-intensity movement can break anxious thought loops and negative patterns.
It redirects your focus, boosts energy, clears your mind, and gives you a quick hit of confidence from completing something hard, helping you return with a fresh perspective and a more grounded mindset.
🤲 Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique)
Tapping, also known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), is a simple, effective method for reducing stress and calming the nervous system.
It involves gently tapping on specific acupressure points on the face and upper body while focusing on a challenging emotion or thought, like anxiety, pain, or overwhelm.
By combining elements of acupressure and mindfulness, tapping helps lower cortisol, improve mood, and promote emotional release. It’s free, easy to learn, and can be done anytime, anywhere, making it a powerful tool to support your mental and physical well-being.
🧘♀️ Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose
Lie on your back with your legs up a wall. Stay for 5–10 minutes.
This simple posture helps shift your body into “rest and digest” mode, promoting deep relaxation. It can ease stress and anxiety, support circulation, and leave you feeling calm and refreshed.
😮💨 Sigh It Out
Take a deep breath in, then let out a long, audible exhale. Repeat 2–3 times.
This simple action is a powerful way to release physical tension and calm the nervous system.
🎨 Color or Doodle
Grab markers, crayons, or pens and draw freely—no rules, no judgment.
Coloring helps redirect your focus and shift your brain into a calmer, more meditative state. We love coloring books too!
Keep These Tools Handy
Save or screenshot this list and use it whenever stress, anxiety, or panic creeps in. Over time, these practices can train your body to respond to stress with more ease and less overwhelm.
You don’t have to control every anxious thought, but you can learn how to support your body through it.
🎧 Free + Low-Cost Tools That Actually Help
Skip the overwhelm. These are LFG-approved, budget-conscious favorites:
📺 YouTube
Calm - Guided meditations
Great Meditation - Guided meditations
Peaceful Sound Meditation - Relaxing music for meditation, yoga and sleep
Yoga with Adriene - Yoga & meditation for stress, anxiety, or sleep
🎙 Podcasts
🎵 Spotify Playlists
Tara Brach - Guided Meditations
☺️ Budget-Friendly Apps That Are Worth It
You don’t need a $30/month subscription to get support. These are low-cost and high-impact:
Insight Timer (Free) – 100K+ meditations, music, breath work
Healthy Minds Program (Free) - Meditation courses and practices
Smiling Mind (Free) -Mindfulness programs and guided meditations—perfect for beginners and kids
Finch (Free/$) – Self-care journaling, mood tracking & habit building
MindDoc (Free/$) – Mood tracking, 70+ courses and exercises, custom journaling prompts
Mindfulness.com (Free/$) – A library of over 2,000 premium mindfulness resources, including meditations, courses, and tools to support your mental well-being
🌞 Build a Feel-Good Daily Reset Routine
Micro-routines can bring macro calm. Try building these into your day:
🌅 Morning Reset
Get sunlight first thing. Step outside with a glass of lemon water.
5 minutes of breathwork
One journal prompt
🌙 Evening Wind-Down
Legs-up-the-wall pose with your favorite face mask on
“Mental dump” journal list before bed
Sip on an herbal tea as you read
🌿 Weekend Reset
Take a solo walk in nature (no phone) and gently tune into your senses. What do you see, hear, and feel around you? Let your senses anchor you.
Write a gratitude list, big or small, name everything you're thankful for. Let it shift your perspective.
Spend an afternoon creating: color, bake, knit, garden—anything that engages your hands, calms your mind, and brings you into the present.
❤️ Final Thoughts
Mental wellness is a necessity, not a luxury.
You don’t need to spend hundreds to feel grounded, supported, or at peace.
Our emotions are powerful messengers. They’re how our intuition speaks, showing us what feels good, what’s out of alignment, and what truly resonates with who we are and what we want.
We have to listen. To hold space. To honor what our emotions are trying to say, and then allow them to move through us.
You don’t need a complicated routine. Just a few supportive tools that help you feel safe, seen, and empowered.
💌 Forward this guide to a friend who could use a little mental reset—and let’s make feeling good more accessible, one step at a time.
This guide is for educational purposes only. Product names and images are used under fair use for commentary and comparison. “LFG-approved” reflects personal standards, not medical advice. Always consult a healthcare professional before making dietary changes.
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