If you want to enjoy the mental health benefits of self-care, you’ve got to know where to begin. If you’re not used to giving yourself some attention, you might be embarrassed or even guilty.
Remember that there are many forms of self-care. You can settle on the type of self-care that is right for you by determining what you need and how you want to achieve it and then committing to doing it.
Whatever you want to achieve, however, de-stressing, emotion regulation, and re-connection are all necessary components of self-care, no matter what your goals are.
Method 1: Create a customized self-care program
Although self-care goals and practices may vary between people, these Methods will help you design a plan that works for you.
Assess your needs. Think about any areas of your life you have been putting off recently that you want to work on now. You could devote more time to work or religious practice, for instance. Or you need to be more tolerant of stress or take care of chronic health conditions, like diabetes or high blood pressure.
Set self-care goals. Set up a day, week, or month-by-day goal and sit down with it. It can be a list of activities you are interested in, time, and place. You could say, for instance, that you’re going to prepare one hour of meals every week on a Sunday night, go for 30 minutes of running on a Monday morning, or walk three times a week at lunch.
Get as specific as possible. Maybe you create workouts for each day of the week or even an ingredient list for your dinner menu.
Gather necessary resources—recipes, videos, wellness apps—all the info you need to get started. Use alarms, calendars, or other planners to make sure you stick to your self-care plan as well.
A guideline for self-care with chronic conditions may be your doctor or mental health professional. You can expect them to devise concrete and powerful routines to support your state.
Method 2: Keep yourself accountable
A self-care regimen isn’t inscribed on stone. Try to revisit it and update it every so often using the following Techniques.
Monitor the results. You will, of course, also want to track some health indicators yourself if you suffer from something such as high blood pressure or diabetes. But you can also periodically check in with yourself other than this.
Even if you still experience stress overdrive, for instance, you’ll want to change, modify, or repeat a self-care exercise. Or if you get tired of or bored of an exercise regimen, you might have to compromise or experiment.
Be patient with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t achieve something. Instead, ask yourself, "What made me not accomplish that?" If it was something in your head, such as insufficient motivation, you might have to find ways to reward yourself for sticking it out. If it was external, like a conflict in time, maybe you could work to get that moved to your calendar. Even find that you were a bit ambitious with your original goal or you tried too many things at once.
Adjust when necessary. Your aspirations don’t have to stay fixed. Things change. Maybe you are working new hours and have to change how much you exercise. Or you must change your running path because of construction. Remain adaptive and inventive when something needs to change.
Reschedule yourself. You never know what will come up, for example, a more extended work trip. Don’t make the self-care commitment just yet. Imagine that you’d put off going out on a date with someone. Please put it on a different day but still show up.
Method 3: Adopt relaxation techniques
Stress can impact almost everything in your life, so regulating it is part of the self-care regimen. Make a list of easy relaxation moves that you regularly do to wind down.
A relaxation routine can be as simple as a hike in the forest, soothing music, or a morning meditation for some. So here are some more experiments.
Deep breathing. Deep, cleansing breaths will help your body’s parasympathetic nervous system kick in, a version of the fight-flight reflex. There are many ways to do deep breathing, and you can mix it with other forms of relaxation. You could, for instance, focus on your breath while sitting in the bathtub, lying on grass in a park, or any of the following.
Progressive muscle relaxation. The way it’s done is by gradually tensing and then un-tensing different muscle groups. It is designed to get you to feel the tension, which is the body’s physical expression of stress, and what it is like to relieve tension. Progressive muscle relaxation can be combined with other types of relaxation, just as with deep breathing.
Visualization. During visualization or guided imagery sessions, you use your mind to summon up a calming image. Maybe you’re thinking of sitting in a hammock at your favorite park or sprawling out on a beach towel. Or maybe you settle on a more visual image, like a lump of kitty-doo dissolving. Add distractions such as soothing music or relaxing scents.
Method 4: Be in control of your feelings.
Are you doing everything but yourself? Emotional intelligence (EQ) is one way to find out. EQ is knowing your emotions and why they show up. You can increase your EQ; you can even be taught to link your emotional crashes with a greater self-care regime.
This EQ increase can also help you use your emotions for the good (e.g., to speak more effectively or to understand people). This fact can give you social self-care goals.
Some Ways to Apply EQ in Self-Care.
Self-validate. Even if you can always count on loved ones to listen when you’re down, you should admit to yourself that you’re feeling something and ask what motivates you. So, for instance, if you have no self-check, you can dismiss anger as a passing mood. But if you start curious about the sensation and ask yourself what the cause might be, then you’ll find something useful. Maybe you’re still mourning the loss of a loved one, for instance, or maybe you’re raging that co-workers have crossed your line.
Turn emotion into action. Don’t repress or guilt yourself for having emotions; use them to drive you towards doing things. When you’re sad, don’t wait for something to strike your fancy and put you in a good mood. Think of self-relief, from a call to a friend to a walk to journalling.
Practice self-compassion. Try not to be as self-critical when you screw up and fail. Instead, be patient and nonjudgmental. Talk to yourself like you are talking to a friend. If you had to say something to someone you loved to give them grief, what would you say? And try to be okay with yourself if you are feeling unhappy. You can be angry and sad and disgusted, and that’s okay.
Method 5: Develop your social network
Having social support can also intersect with other objectives of self-care. Friends might push you to practice a workout or make you commit to a healthy eating regime. Engaging with others who care about you is also a stress buster and will help you feel stronger.
Invite people in. Try to make more connections from those you already have. Invite a colleague or random friend to have coffee or lunch with you. You can also align your socializing with other self-care priorities. Make plans with friends or family to join you for a weekly prep meal or bike ride in the park.
Find self-care groups and clubs to join. You can grow your passions and your network. If your goal for self-care is to become more active, join a local swimming club or sports team. You could also join a religious group for spiritual self-love. Yoga and meditation classes will give you mental self-care!
Volunteer. Volunteer work does service, but it’s also a way of feeling including another part of social self-care. You can even sense that you are achieving something by volunteering and being part of something greater than yourself.
Take care of your mental health today!
You need to take care of yourself to be healthy mentally and emotionally. Make yourself happy!
You may not always be able to make time for yourself, though. Begin small, if you must, taking it step by step and setting yourself one thing at a time.
Don’t yell at yourself or feel guilty for taking time for yourself. Instead, pat yourself on the back to try to take better care of yourself mentally and physically.
Some of these may become good habits that you automatically do without thinking and are lifesaving.
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