For an industry based around promoting good looks and attractive images, Instagram modeling sure can lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. The hours are usually long. The pressure to stay attractive, positive, and fresh is high. The competition is enormous.

Instagram isn’t the only place where this is happening. Many content creation success strategies put a premium on regular and frequent content creation, spreading the pressure to people who create for other platforms, too.

As an Instagram model who also has a presence on a couple of other platforms and social networks, Katiana Kay has firsthand experience with the business’s pressures. However, being a self-care promoter and a person with a deep appreciation for all things natural and healthy, she’s good at finding ways to counter the lifestyle’s downsides.

Managing the Work Days

One of the things people often get wrong about online modeling is that it’s just snapping pictures of oneself in funny or sexy poses. Sure, models do that, but a lot more work goes into creating that one photo people will see on Instagram or a video clip that goes up on TikTok.

This isn’t too different from what people in other industries that reward being self-driven experience. The possibility of falling into a vicious circle is high, ending with an inevitable burnout.

Katiana’s approach to taking care of herself and preventing these things from happening starts right at ground zero; the shoot. She makes sure to start her workdays well, to have her energy levels high enough to endure whatever the day has to throw at her. That means nutrition, some exercise, and stretching. Modeling is physical work, after all.

Katiana is passionate about what she’s doing and confident enough to be able to endure a regular schedule. However, if she starts growing tired, she will retreat for some self-care. She’s also very particular about the products she uses and consumes. Smokable hemp, for example, can help her start each new day feeling rested and focus, which is just one of the reasons she launched her own line of hemp products called Bay Smokes.

Finding Beauty in Everyone

Self-image and online modeling are two topics that come up together a lot. Some people see Instagram models as standards of beauty that are almost impossible to measure up to. Even people in the industry know how it starts when we start comparing ourselves to other Instagram models.

Noticing that this is a question of mental health and well-being, Katiana acknowledges that this is one of the industry’s perils attacking both inward and outward. For her, understanding that everyone is beautiful in their way is a good place to start dealing with this corrosive effect of the industry.

It’s also important to recognize that models maybe have it even worse; they are judged by viewers and themselves. But when a person understands that everyone has a unique brand of beauty, all comparisons should stop. As Katiana would say, “You are perfect just the way you are, no matter who you are or what you look like.”

The Ultimate Well-Being Advice

In a fashion that might be atypical of someone who makes a living online, Katiana would also point out how being connected online doesn’t necessarily lead to being connected with one’s surroundings. She sees people disconnected from nature and themselves, which might have something to do with finding the right balance between the undeniably useful tech and everything else that deserves our attention. 

Katiana’s advice would be blunt: she’d tell people to put their phones down. Next, they should go and search for whatever, or whomever, they’ve lost connection to. If it’s themselves, meditate for a while. If It’s a friend or a loved one, find them and hug them. If it’s nature, take a walk outside. Katiana Kay wants people to reconnect, as possibly the ultimate act of healing and remedy to many of the troubles that plague the world.