Problem: Article: Mentally beating yourself up for your perceived shortcomings doesn’t change anything and only makes you feel worse. Instead, identifying and focusing on your best features can help reduce stress.  To help focus on your best features, practice self-affirmation -- the process of transforming your thoughts to de-emphasize the negative and instead focus on the positive. Remind yourself at least once a day that you love yourself no matter what, that you have made the conscious decision to accept your body, and that you have made an active decision to reach your goal of becoming comfortable naked. Acknowledge the vulnerability inherent in nudity. Exposing yourself -- literally and figuratively -- inherently makes you more vulnerable. But psychologists argue that you must be willing to be vulnerable in order to open yourself up to new opportunities and experiences. Recognizing that vulnerability requires great courage can help boost your overall self-esteem and make it easier for you to allow yourself to be vulnerable in the future. If you are uncomfortable or fearful of a situation such as being naked, you will tend to avoid it. This sets up a vicious cycle in which fear leads to avoidance which leads to more fear. Psychologists use exposure therapy -- gradual and systematic exposure to the situation or object you fear -- to treat people with phobias.  Research shows that acceptance-based exposure therapy can even help treat body dysmorphic disorder, a serious mental illness that causes you to obsess about the flaws in your appearance.  Exposure therapy can involve imagining the feared situation, being exposed to the situation through virtual reality, and eventually in real life.  Exposure therapy is a psychological treatment that should be supervised by a trained therapist. However, you can apply the basic principle -- that the more often you do something you fear without negative consequences, the less fearful you will become -- on your own. You will find it easier to see the good points of someone else's body than it is to see your own good points. So will your friends. Instead of trying to identify your own best features, ask a friend what she thinks.  Because this is such a sensitive topic, it may be best to wait for your friend to ask you to evaluate her before you reciprocate. Just because a friend is willing to help you feel more comfortable naked doesn’t mean that she is ready to do the same. Instead of focusing on your appearance, decide that you are going to strive for a higher level of health and fitness. This will make it easier to motivate yourself to exercise because you will be focusing on a positive goal (better health) rather than a negative goal (less weight). One way to shift your focus from appearance to health and fitness is to exercise with the goal of developing tangible physical skills. If you can do 10 inverted yoga push ups, you will feel pride in your body regardless of what it looks like.
Summary: Be kind to yourself. Be naked more often. Ask a friend to help you identify your best features. Emphasize health and fitness over appearance.

Problem: Article: The quickest way to get rid of a raspy voice is to talk. Although your voice will sound gritty and unpleasant at first, it will soon even out and you’ll soon find yourself speaking in a normal voice.  If you don’t want others to hear you talking in a raspy voice, try talking to yourself, talking to your pets, or even talking or singing in the shower. Alternately, even if you wait a few hours to begin speaking in the morning, most of the raspy sound will have left your voice. Your voice will sound the hoarsest during the first hour or two after waking up. If your vocal chords have dried out overnight, you’ll likely wake up with a raspy, dry voice in the morning. To get rid of the raspy quality as soon as possible, have a large drink of water, coffee, or even orange juice as soon as possible. The liquid will clear any phlegm or liquids that have built up in your throat.   Vocalists are often advised to squeeze a lemon slice into a glass of water to help “wake up” their vocal cords. Avoid drinking milk in the morning, as it is a relatively thick liquid and will not clear your throat well. If your throat and vocal cords are coated with mucus (which often produces a raspy voice), try clearing your throat to remove the thick, phlegmy coating. This will help your voice to quickly return to its normal quality. Humming will “wake up” your voice by causing your vocal cords to vibrate and shake off any mucus coating them. When you hum correctly, you should feel you lips and nose gently vibrating. Try humming for 30 seconds, and then saying a few words. See if your voice has improved. If not, hum some more.
Summary: Start talking shortly after you wake up. Drink water or coffee when you get up. Clear your throat gently. Hum softly to help clear your throat.

Problem: Article: Meditation helps you learn to be mindful and aware of the moment as you’re in it. Beginning a regular meditation practice can help you tune in to your heart and help you open up to the world around you. Try this 5-minute meditation: Sit comfortably in a place with no distractions. Take deep, cleansing breaths, in and out. Place a hand on your heart and the other on your belly. As you breathe in, imagine that you are pulling in all the good that the universe has to offer. As you breathe out, release any pain or worries you have been holding on to. A common mark of a closed-hearted person is their tendency to push away painful emotions. Practice open-heartedness by giving yourself permission to cry. Crying is cathartic and can actually be good for you. If you don’t have anything immediate to cry about, purposely watch a movie or read an emotional story. As you cry, don’t judge or criticize yourself. Simply be present in the moment as the tears fall. Then, offer yourself comfort with something like “I’m with you” and gently caress your back and shoulders. If your heart has been closed for a while, your relationships may be primarily surface-level. Practice letting others in by disclosing intimate details about yourself. Start light before revealing your deeper secrets to allow both you and the other person to acclimate to your newfound openness. For instance, you might choose to tell a friend “It really hurt my feelings when you canceled our plans at the last minute. I was really looking forward to hanging out.” If this mini-disclosure is met with acceptance and empathy, later, you might choose to share something more emotional like how you felt after a major loss in your life. As you get accustomed to opening up to others, you should challenge yourself to exchange physical touch. Hugs, caresses, and kisses are all ways humans show their love and affection. However, if you have previously closed your heart, these gestures may be foreign to you. When you and a friend are laughing, lightly touch their arm. If a coworker is crying, rub their upper back to offer comfort. Greet a relative with a hug instead of a handshake (if you’ve never done this, it may be appropriate to ask first). Touch is a major form of communication; start using it in your relationships.
Summary:
Start a meditation practice. Let yourself cry. Deepen your connections with disclosure. Show affection.