Do you have a self-care routine? If not, get excited: self-care gives you energy, improves your productivity, and adds depth to the relationship you have with yourself. If you know how to take care of yourself and preventatively self-soothe, or self-soothe in healthy ways, that’s a really powerful thing. Self-care can be little things you do every day to maintain your physical and mental health, or it can be an activity that charges your batteries and makes you feel taken care of.
Self-care will look different for everyone.
Self-care can be an indulgence or it can be doing activities that aren’t necessarily pleasurable but yield great dividends. For some people, self-care is brushing their teeth, eating healthy, and making time for 8 hours of sleep. For some people, it’s going to SoulCycle. For others, it’s avoiding the gym at all costs and starfishing on their bed. It can be a walk around your favorite park, to be in nature and recharge. It can be getting extra dressed up for work or it can be having a favorite outfit you wear for lounging around at home. It can be buying—and regularly enjoying—an extra-soft blanket. Self-care is often manifested in the divine feeling of sliding into crisp, fresh sheets on “change the sheets day.”
When you have awareness of the activities you do (or could do) to make yourself feel really taken care of, you can create new and improved self-care rituals that are a match for your preferences and values. Explore and experiment, to figure out how to charge your batteries most effectively in the time allotted.
Self-Care is Powerful
If we think of ourselves as having imaginary iPhone batteries next to our heads, self-care keeps the percentage as close to 100% as possible. Self-care is also powerful in that it reinforces that we can take care of ourselves, that we can self-soothe when we need to, that we can self-soothe in healthy ways, and that we can implement systems in our lives to be happier, healthier, and high-functioning. Self-care can be a slowed down activity (like watching Netflix or reading magazines), but it also requires action: a commitment to make the time and follow through.
Integrate Self-Care Into Your Daily Life
Set your alarm for five minutes earlier so you don’t have to rush in the morning. Make your bed every morning. Buy perfume or cologne that you like, to wear every day. Identify something fun you can listen to, like a podcast or standup comedians’ albums, to make your commute more pleasant. Take your lunch break. Create a ritual for relaxing during your commute home from work. Tidy up your apartment. Nap whenever possible. Take a shower or baths, and take deep breaths in the steam. Curl up with a nice blanket. Meditate. Whatever you do, when you do it, make a mental note: “This is self care.”
Test Out “Big Ticket” Self-Care Strategies
Try these on a weekly basis or when you need a life boost: Carve out an afternoon at work to devote to getting to inbox zero. Take an Uber home if it’s late and you’re super tired, instead of taking public transportation home. Deep clean your apartment (including your bathtub). Plan a lazy Sunday (and plan out your lazy activities so you don’t go insane without structure). Get a haircut. Change your sheets. Buy new sheets. Get a massage. Turn your phone off for thirty minutes. Go away for the weekend.
Do you currently have routines that make you feel healthy and vital? Can you make yourself accountable to a self-care routine, so you know that your batteries will stay consistently charged? What’s one thing you can do to take great care of yourself today?