The Unwind is the Yahoo Life wellness series in which experts, influencers and celebrities share their approaches to wellness and mental health, from self-care rituals to establishing healthy boundaries and mantras that keep them afloat.
Few mothers can have “vampire hunters” on their resume, but Sarah Michelle Gellar is losing her life as an ordinary father: playing board games, fighting the dilemmas of screen time and shooing off her two children, 8 and 11 years old , out. The actress – who married the 90s heartthrob and frequent co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. in 2002 – is also finding a purpose in helping to fight hunger caused by the pandemic, an initiative she says “feeds my soul”.
Here, the star talks about her latest charity project, friendship and the lessons she is passing on to her children.
What is your choice in terms of giving yourself a break from mental health or relieving stress? Do you like to work out, write a journal or meditate?
Meditating would be great, but I have two kids in my house, so besides the bathroom, I don’t have time alone now. My meditation is my sleep. I have been exercising; I think this is very important to me. It is also to go out and get some fresh air. It’s so easy to stay at Zoom all day and stay in your room or read a book or whatever, and I make a point of staying outside. Even though I’m doing my zooms [outdoors] – I am lucky to have a backyard and live in an area that has a beautiful climate so I can stay outside. I think it is very important; you can be very depressed being indoors all the time.
AND [it’s about] in fact, just trying to find appreciation and gratitude. As difficult as this situation may be, understanding that I am in a fortunate place where I have no food insecurity and certainly focusing on the things I can do to help people who are struggling worse than I am. I am one of those people who need to be busy and feel that they are helping other people.
You partnered with Subaru donates 100 million meals to Feeding America to help those without food security during the pandemic. How does giving back help you maintain perspective during these difficult times?
Well, I think that perspective is the keyword in what you’re saying. You cannot for your own health and well-being, you cannot deny that what each person is going through is difficult. This is the most difficult thing I have ever faced in my life, and I am not facing the situations that other people are facing. And perspective has always been very important to me, especially on days when I feel frustrated and think, I am not able to handle it.
And I think about what’s going on right now, and when you hear a statistic like 1 in 4 kids is food insecure now and possibly couldn’t possibly know where the next meal is coming from, it breaks my heart at all levels. What can we do as a community, as a country, to help in this situation, because no child should worry about where their next meal will come from. And being able to connect with a company like Subaru that really means what they say and is making a difference, it raises my spirits … It feeds my soul.
How is your family overcoming the pandemic? Was there a bright spot?
You have to find your own bright spots in this situation, and it happens in waves. I live in Los Angeles now, which I think, in terms of blockade, was probably the most austere in the country. It goes on waves where you can see people in the distance. I am a sociable person, so it is difficult for me not to be social and not see my friends. But we have become so creative in other ways. The other day, one of my friends, it was her birthday and we played a Zoom game and sent a Google document with questions and made these little shovels to our friends who had to guess whose answer it was. It’s funny how things go in a complete circle. I was the person at a baby shower or a bachelorette party years ago who would be like, “I don’t want to play a game”. And now I’m very happy to do that, at any level that connects me with the people in my life.
There have been many good points. And it is best to spend time with my family. We usually live in a very busy society, and my husband and I work and my children have an active social life, have classes and are always on the go. And now we really slow down and like to have dinner together every night and play board games. Just connecting on a deeper level.
I think it also strengthened friendships – the people who were here for you, who checked on you when they didn’t hear from you for a few days and asked, “Are you feeling down?” … Whether something is falling in someone’s front yard to cheer them up, or the fact that we have that ability [to connect], I feel very blessed.
Do you have any well-being routine that you practice with your family or are there ways to introduce your children to concepts such as self-care and self-esteem?
Self-esteem is complicated, being a young person nowadays. We are very bombarded by these cultivated and perfect images on social media, and it’s a constant conversation I have with my daughter. She is at that age when she is starting to explore different social media and I want her to understand that it’s just a little bit of someone’s life, and it’s filtered. You can edit everything, and that’s not what the reality is.
I have always been fortunate to be able to block out so much negativity, because if I give credit to negativity, I will have to give the same amount of credit to positivity, and I have to take that away from the people around me. I have explained to my daughter several times that this is the most important [lesson]. It is difficult because she is wasting that valuable time with groups of friends where you learn to navigate these situations.
My other wellness trick is: you need to balance screen time. This is for everyone – this is for me, this is for my children. And it is difficult because the screen is what connects us now, but in the end it tends to disconnect us, because we are not together. We lose our social skills and eye contact. Even if it is taking a walk with a friend with double masks and being outdoors, or taking a car where I wave out the window, making sure I make the effort to have some connection that is not just digital.
Is it difficult to do this with your children?
I try not to be too hard on myself, because it is a big leap for us. Our kids didn’t have a lot of time on the screen before that, but I also have to understand that there’s very little they can do and that’s how they connect. The word is balance, and making sure we have large parts of the day, where all the devices are stored and we are outside on the trampoline, or we are talking about a walk, or walking the dogs, or playing a board games . Just balancing it. But also not being so hard on myself, you know, if one of your friends wants to zoom in on them, [accepting] what is it for them now [in terms of social contact] and understand that everything is fine.
Are there any wellness trends that you think are overrated?
I still drink my celery juice that I make or buy myself at the farmer’s market, so I don’t think that’s overrated. I didn’t put gorilla glue on my hair [laughs].
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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