Many think following a regular skincare routine, exercising, and eating vegan is what self-care is all about. However there‘s a lot more to reconsider.

What does self-care mean 

Self-care involves adopting practices for your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Most people in their daily life get busy in their routines, performing duties, and carrying out responsibilities. The care of themselves gets pushed on the back burner.

Caring for yourself is of one of the most important things if you want to live a balanced and stress-free life. 

Benefits of self-care 

Self-care is essential for living a positive life and feeling good about yourself. You need time for yourself to gain mental balance and feel grounded. Here are the key benefits of caring for yourself.

• Improves your energy and physical health

• Reduces anxiety

• Helps manage stress

• Keeps you happy

• Boosts your self-esteem

• You are better able to take care of others

• Increases your personal satisfaction

How to practice self-care

Self-care is central to living a happy and productive life. It improves your mood, enables you to focus better, and work stress-free. 

Contrary to what people think, taking care of yourself doesn’t take much time and money to practice basic self-care daily. You only need a few minutes to switch off the outside world and tune in.

1. Be mindful of your needs

You are the main theme of your life, but often people ignore this fact and get busy taking care of others. Taking care of yourself and catering to your own needs is not selfish or self-centered. 

To understand yourself and your needs, practice self-awareness and consciously become aware of your needs, wants, and desires. 

Be present in the moment and live intentionally. Teach your mind to focus on yourself. Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, things that you yearn to do, and how you visualize your best life, admit your own emotions and be true to your feelings.

The practice of mindfulness will acquaint you with your inner self and help you understand what changes you, make to take care of yourself and improve your life.

2. Spend time alone 

Most people are overworked and have little time for themselves. This can lead to exhaustion and even depression.

Spending quality me-time away from the hustle and bustle, noise and chaos will give you the space to connect with your inner self and attend to your needs.

The time spent in solitude is restorative and is essential for resetting and aligning your mind and body, which is necessary for your mental, physical and emotional well-being.

Set some time every day to spend it the way you want it. Enjoy reflecting on yourself, think about things or devote it to pursue some hobby, read books, do ballet, step out in nature and choose the activity that gives you joy. 

3. Set your self-care goals 

The various components of self-care include good quality sleep, physical health and nutrition, exercise and fitness, and satisfying relationships. You must set your goals for each aspect of life to fully benefit from your self-care routine and allow yourself to get by each day with energy and enthusiasm.

4. Identity and deal with life stressors 

There are things and people in everyone’s life that act as triggers and evoke a negative response from you. Therefore, when focusing on self-care, you must identify these stressors and red flag them. 

Until and unless you deal with what stresses you up, you won’t be able to live a happy life.

List out the stressors in your life and work on eliminating them. Many of the stressors in daily life are associated with your faulty daily routine — or absence thereof— and lack of indiscipline. 

It’s easy to change things that are under your control. So make a few tweaks in your day-to-day life to organize and streamline things and these stressors will be taken care of.

Another common form of stressor is work-related burden as well as common rush. If you’re working in an office set-up where you don’t have much choice to regulate the amount of work you need to get done, focus on managing your time and energy, prioritizing things, taking measures to boost your productivity and learning to slow down whenever possible.

Negative and toxic people are another important cause of stress in your life. It’s not always possible to stay away from such people as they could be your family members, colleagues, boss, or friends. In such a case, you must learn to identify if you feel run down after communicating with them and minimize your interactions.

5. Foster healthy relationships 

We are social and emotional beings and therefore need to interact and bond with people. Irrespective of the type of relationship, there are specific universal rules that you must observe to have meaningful and lasting relationships. 

Share your thoughts and ideas, express emotions, enjoy the togetherness but without being intrusive. Respect other people’s boundaries and value their feelings and emotions. Give them time to speak and talk their heart out. To have a good conversation, it’s important to practice patience and listen intently to others.

Avoid judging, criticizing or speaking negative about people. Avoid giving unsolicited advice and curb the urge of sharing feedback unless asked for. Express yourself though positive patterns and watch out for doubts or negative words.

Understand other people’s needs and expectations from the relationship and find common ground where you can strike a balance between giving and taking. 

Give time and your full attention to others when you are with them and make them feel special. 

These seemingly small things are often ignored and therefore become the cause of strained relationships.

In Conclusion 

Living healthy and taking good care of yourself will contribute tremendously to your happiness and make living life a pleasant experience.

Even small acts of taking care of yourself will drastically improve your life, with a little attention you are better able to tackle the difficulties and challenges that you face. So no matter how busy you are, make time for self-care daily.

Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.

Stay healthy! We look forward to seeing you at our classes! Xoxo

Source: drroopleen.com