Self-care truly looks different for everyone. It’s not all fancy face masks, yoga classes, and bubble baths. Sometimes self-care is as simple as making yourself a cup of tea, going to bed early, or tidying up your workspace. Many people confuse self-care with acts of luxury or are turned off at the idea of spending too much time on themselves. In actuality, self-care consists of small acts of kindness you complete for yourself; it consists of anything that helps to promote and improve your physical and mental health.
Here are a couple of ways you can incorporate small acts of self-care into your life without it interfering too much with your day.
Make sure you’re getting enough sleep.
It’s tough to begin the day feeling confident and capable if you’re run down and exhausted. A cup of coffee will only get you so far before you hit a wall so make sure you’re getting your full 7-8 hours in. Getting adequate sleep will set you up to feel more energized for the next day and will improve your mental clarity too.
Make sure your alarm is set early enough so you aren’t rushing in the morning and stressing yourself out. Plan on waking up with enough time to enjoy your morning and take your time getting ready.
Eat breakfast
They say it’s the most important meal of the day after all! You can’t pour from an empty cup and you’ll want to make sure you fuel yourself accordingly so you can focus on being productive with whatever you have on your agenda.
Drink water and make sure you’re getting enough of it.
You should aim to drink roughly 8 cups of water per day. More if you are exercising. Drinking plenty of water helps increase mental alertness, improves mood, keeps your skin bright, and aids in hydration. All good things!
Try keeping a large water bottle at your work station or download an app that reminds you to track your water intake so you stay on top of it.
Get moving!
Find an exercise you enjoy. This will give you something to look forward to rather than forcing yourself to do a grueling workout you dread. If you love lifting weights in the gym, awesome! If you would rather go for a hike, get after it! Run outside, do some yoga, swim, do yoga, or go for a long walk. If you are enjoying the exercise you’ll look forward to taking the time to fit this into your day and it won’t feel like such a chore. Exercising regularly can also help improve your mental health and mood.
Meditate
Meditation can help you focus and calm your mind and racing thoughts. All it takes is as little as ten minutes and you can fit it into your day whenever it works best for you. Meditating regularly can help you manage stress, increase self-awareness, reduce negative emotions, improve patience, and help you gain a new perspective in stressful situations.
If you haven’t already, we have a few guided meditation videos you can check out and there are many other apps and videos online that may work well for you too.
Hopefully, this helps get you started so you can begin incorporating some self care into your day to day. It doesn’t have cost you a penny and it can just be times throughout the day that you take the time you need to take care of you.
If you’d like more self care ideas please feel free to download our self-care checklist at the link below.