3 Tips to Boost Self-Care
Defining Self-Care
When you read the words “self-care,” what comes to your mind first? Is it the daily routines of bathing, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, fixing meals, or doing the laundry? Or maybe it’s getting regular exercise or dental and medical checkups. Or perhaps you have a medical condition that requires daily management. While all these things are essential to self-care, what else does it include?
Self-care also includes the various ways you’ve learned to nurture yourself since childhood, when you were dependent upon a caring, responsive adult to get your needs met. If as an infant, your needs were responded to in a loving, caring way, then you probably found it easier to nurture yourself later, as an adult.
An Act of Self-Love
Adequate nurturing in childhood increased your chances of living a happy, healthy life. Later, as you developed into an adult, the habit of nurturing yourself became an ongoing act of self-love. Now, when you take the time to regularly slow down and check in with yourself, it becomes easier to assess your emotional, mental, and spiritual needs and then take the appropriate action. However, if this wasn’t your early experience, then perhaps you had to learn in adulthood how to become your own good parent. Although more challenging, it is doable and a worthwhile goal.
Nurturing yourself also involves self-talk. Please take a moment to reflect on how you talk to yourself by considering these questions:
Are there things that you say to yourself on a regular basis?
Are these words kind or are they harsh or demeaning?
What beliefs about yourself do you hold onto that may not even be your own?
How do these beliefs affect your behavior, your mood, or even your decisions?
When was the last time you thoughtfully reviewed your self-talk?
Do you find these self-messages nurturing or do they tear you down?
Can you show more self-compassion?
Nurturing and taking in nourishment are closely related. Nourishing yourself can be experienced in a literal or a figurative way. Literal nourishment with food is one of your very first experiences, after your birth. Food and the act eating can be emotionally charged, often reflecting earlier experiences that were not experienced as nourishing or nurturing.
In addition to taking in literal food, you might also reflect on what you feed you mind, food for thought, as it were. With so many distractions and information overload, it has become necessary to become more selective about what you take in intellectually, either through the written word, the media, entertainment, or music. Guard your thinking. Set healthy boundaries in your relationship with food, the news, social media, or entertainment.
Three Tips to Boost Your Self-Care
Make a commitment to carve out time for yourself.
Schedule time for yourself.
Become comfortable with prioritizing, postponing, or pivoting your activities and commitments.
Create a plan and stick to it.
Do nice things for yourself.
When under stress, self-care becomes even more important.Improve your basic routines that revolve around eating, exercise/activity, and sleep.
Ditch processed foods and take out.
Learn new recipes, choosing fresh food to create nourishing meals for yourself.
Get enough sleep.
Move your body.
Find a movement practice or exercise routine that fits in with your life and that you find enjoyable.Commune with nature. Look for inspiration in the natural world. Are there trails, parks, the seashore, lakes, or forests in your vicinity? When you spend time in natural surroundings, you have an opportunity to recalibrate your nervous system. You may also discover something that inspires you, bringing gratitude to the fore. Pondering the beauty of nature and the creatures that inhabit it may fill you with a sense of awe, helping you feel more connected to something greater than yourself, infusing you with a sense of wonder and purpose. Deeply grounding experiences help you reconnect with yourself and by extension, with others. As you nurture yourself, it will become easier to nurture others. A side benefit is that you may also find yourself spending more time with nurturing people.
Do something kind for yourself today!
