A couple of years ago I was a functional mess. And looking back, I had been that way for a while. I had just been masking it pretty well. My “mess” didn’t necessarily look chaotic or disorganized on the outside. In fact, anyone who didn’t know me well probably thought I really had my shit together and was living the dream. But on the inside, my anxiety was building and my ability to cope with it in a healthy way was being overwhelmed.
Thankfully it didn’t take a devastating rock bottom to provide me with the A-Ha moment I needed to make some changes. My A-ha moment came while attending therapy to learn how to better manage my anxiety. It’s there I learned what self-care really is and how implementing it can transform my entire life.
I used to think self-care was about hair appointments, skin care routines, and bubble baths. A way to treat myself after a hard day or maintain my appearance so I’d maintain my self-esteem. I had no idea there were actually 5 different forms of self-care, and physical self-care (the hair appointments, skin care and bubble baths) was just scratching the surface of what I needed to be doing.
Why is self-care important
Self-care is meant to be done on a daily basis, whether we’re feeling stressed or not, because doing so helps us protect our mental and physical energy from future stressors (as well as reset from recent ones). It’s meant to be proactive, not reactive. And this makes sense because if you think about how much rest it requires to bounce back from burnout, wouldn’t it make more sense to build rest in each day so that you can avoid getting to the burnout stage altogether?
Since transitioning from single to married and motherhood, I’ve constantly been seeking balance in my life. And one of the things that helps me feel a sense of balance is self-care, mainly because it helps me to keep my emotions balanced. You see, if my emotions are balanced, it makes the unbalanced parts of my life that I have little control over feel that much more manageable.
What is Self-Care
There are 5 different categories of self-care that I feel it important to break down in detail.
- Emotional
Emotional self-care helps you to better cope and manage your feelings when faced with stress. Here’s some imagery to illustrate…
Imagine your body as a glass and stress as water. Each day we are faced with stress (water) that we absorb into our mind and body (that gets poured into our glass). This stress (water), if not released (poured out into the sink), builds and builds until we are at our capacity and our emotions spill over in a stress response (the water starts to spill out from over the top of the glass and makes a huge mess on the floor). The acts of emotional self care that we perform serve as a way to release our stress, preventing it from building to the point of spill over (i.e., no mess on the floor to clean up).
Here are some examples of emotional self-care:
- Journaling: Writing down your thoughts and feelings can help you process emotions, gain clarity, and release pent-up stress.
- Talking to a Trusted Person: Sharing your feelings with a friend, family member, or therapist provides emotional support and validation, lessening the power of our emotions.
- Setting Boundaries: Learning to say “no” and setting limits with others can protect your emotional well-being and prevent burnout.
- Engaging in Creative Activities: Painting, writing, crafting, or playing music can be a therapeutic way to express emotions and relieve stress.
- Mindfulness and Meditation: Practicing mindfulness techniques can help you stay present and grounded, reducing emotional overwhelm and increasing self-awareness.
- Seeking Therapy or Counseling: Regularly talking to a mental health professional helps you understand and address deeper emotional issues and provides guidance on coping strategies.
- Self-Compassion: Practicing kindness towards yourself during difficult times, avoiding self-criticism, and accepting your imperfections can promote emotional resilience.
- Spending Time with Loved Ones: Connecting with people who care about you can provide emotional support, affection, and joy.
- Engaging in Activities You Enjoy: Doing things that bring you happiness—whether it’s reading, watching a favorite show, or participating in a hobby—can uplift your mood.
- Emotional Release: Allowing yourself to cry, laugh, or express frustration in a safe environment helps release built-up emotions.
- Positive Affirmations: Repeating encouraging and loving statements to yourself can boost your self-esteem and emotional strength.
- Practicing Gratitude: Focusing on the positive aspects of your life through gratitude practices can enhance emotional well-being and shift your perspective.
- Physical
Physical self-care refers to the things you do to help you take care of your body and boost energy levels. If we, again, want to turn to imagery to better understand, just like cars cannot run on an empty gas tank, humans cannot continue to function at their best when they don’t get their basic physical needs met.
Here are some examples of physical self-care:
- Exercise: Regular physical activity such as walking, jogging, swimming, yoga, or strength training helps maintain fitness, boost energy levels, and improve mental health.
- Adequate Sleep: Ensuring you get enough restful sleep each night (typically 7-9 hours for adults) is crucial for physical and mental recovery.
- Healthy Eating: Consuming a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, while limiting processed foods and excess sugar, nourishes the body.
- Hydration: Drinking enough water throughout the day helps keep your body functioning optimally.
- Personal Hygiene: Maintaining cleanliness through activities like showering, brushing teeth, and grooming supports both physical health and emotional well-being.
- Relaxation and Stress Management: Practices like deep breathing, meditation, or taking warm baths can help reduce tension and prevent stress from negatively affecting your body.
- Regular Medical Checkups: Visiting the doctor for routine exams and screenings helps catch potential health issues early and ensures overall well-being.
- Stretching: Incorporating stretching into your routine can improve flexibility, reduce muscle tension, and prevent injuries.
- Sun Protection: Using sunscreen, wearing hats, or avoiding prolonged sun exposure helps protect your skin from harmful UV rays.
- Bodywork: Getting massages, chiropractic care, or physical therapy can help relieve pain, improve circulation, and keep muscles relaxed.
- Spiritual
Spiritual self-care helps you to find a deeper purpose and more meaning in your life. I think we all know what it is like to go through periods where we wake up each day and simply go through the motions. How lackluster does your life feel during those periods? Exercising spiritual self-care helps you to feel connected to a greater purpose and find meaning in your day to day, sometimes mundane, activities.These practices can also help to keep you grounded, helping you to better regulate your emotions when faced with stress.
Here are some examples of spiritual self-care:
- Meditation: Practicing meditation helps you connect with your inner peace and presence, fostering a sense of calm and spiritual clarity.
- Prayer: Engaging in prayer, whether for guidance, gratitude, or connection with a higher power, is a common practice in many spiritual traditions.
- Mindfulness: Being fully present in the moment, paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings without judgment, can help you cultivate spiritual awareness.
- Spending Time in Nature: Connecting with nature can foster a deep sense of awe and spiritual connection, helping you feel grounded and part of something greater than yourself.
- Gratitude Practice: Reflecting on and expressing gratitude for the blessings in your life can help you develop a sense of spiritual fulfillment and appreciation.
- Engaging in Rituals or Ceremonies: Participating in religious or spiritual rituals, such as lighting candles, fasting, or attending a place of worship, helps connect with your spiritual community and beliefs.
- Reading Sacred Texts: Exploring spiritual writings—whether religious scriptures or philosophical books—can inspire deeper understanding and spiritual growth.
- Seeking a Spiritual Mentor: Having a trusted spiritual guide or mentor can help you explore your beliefs, ask questions, and receive support on your spiritual journey.
- Acts of Service: Helping others through volunteer work or random acts of kindness can provide a sense of purpose and connect you to something beyond yourself.
- Breathing Exercises: Deep, conscious breathing can help center your mind, body, and spirit, creating space for spiritual reflection.
- Yoga or Tai Chi: These mind-body practices combine physical movement with breathing and meditation, fostering spiritual well-being and balance.
- Silence and Solitude: Taking time for quiet reflection or solitude allows you to listen to your inner voice and reconnect with your spiritual self.
- Contemplative Practices: Spending time in reflection, contemplation, or journaling about your life’s meaning and your spiritual beliefs can deepen your sense of purpose.
- Creating Sacred Space: Setting up a space in your home for reflection, prayer, or meditation can help you feel more connected to your spiritual life.
- Relationship
Relationship self-care encourages you to engage in activities which foster meaningful connections with your friends and loved ones. Human beings are hard-wired to have social connections. Evolution teaches this was ingrained into our being as a survival technique, because those that stick together survive. Psychology backs this concept of humans as social creatures up. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, love and belonging are needed just after our basic physical and safety needs have been met. This makes maintaining our relationships through self-care an important part of our overall well-being.
Here are some examples of relationship self-care:
- Setting Boundaries: Clearly defining and maintaining healthy boundaries helps protect your emotional well-being, ensuring you don’t feel overwhelmed or drained by others’ needs or expectations.
- Quality Time with Loved Ones: Spending intentional, undistracted time with people you care about strengthens your bond and fosters deeper connections.
- Open Communication: Regularly checking in with loved ones, sharing your feelings, and actively listening to others can improve mutual understanding and trust.
- Expressing Gratitude: Showing appreciation for the people in your life through words or gestures can enhance the emotional connection and foster positivity in your relationships.
- Apologizing and Forgiving: Acknowledging when you’ve made a mistake and offering sincere apologies, or forgiving others when they make mistakes, helps maintain harmony and emotional health in relationships.
- Engaging in Shared Activities: Participating in activities you enjoy together—such as hobbies, cooking, or going for walks—creates enjoyable experiences that deepen your connection.
- Respecting Differences: Embracing each person’s individuality, values, and perspectives can create a more accepting and peaceful environment in relationships.
- Seeking Support: Leaning on friends, family, or a support group when you’re going through tough times can help you navigate challenges and feel supported.
- Spending Time Apart: Taking time for yourself, away from relationships, can prevent burnout and promote personal growth, which ultimately benefits your connections with others.
- Celebrating Milestones: Acknowledging and celebrating important events or achievements (birthdays, anniversaries, accomplishments) strengthens relationships and shows you care.
- Checking in with Yourself: Regularly reflecting on your own emotional needs and how they are being met in relationships allows you to make adjustments and communicate those needs effectively.
- Practicing Empathy: Trying to understand and validate the emotions of others helps build compassion and emotional intimacy in your relationships.
- Mutual Respect: Treating others with respect, valuing their time, emotions, and opinions, helps create a balanced and healthy relationship dynamic.
- Seeking Professional Help: If you’re facing relationship challenges, seeking therapy or counseling (individual or couples) can provide valuable tools for improving communication and resolving conflicts.
- Boundaries
Boundary self-care encourages you to identify rules for yourself and your life which help you to maintain your physical and emotional energy. Boundaries can also ensure adequate time and energy for completing other self-care practices. For example, “I will go to bed by 10pm so that I get enough sleep to wake up and go for a run tomorrow morning.”
Here are some examples of boundary self-care:
- Saying “No” When Needed: Giving yourself permission to say no to requests or invitations that don’t align with your priorities, values, or energy levels.
- Limiting Social Media Time: Setting boundaries around how much time you spend on social media to avoid overwhelm, comparison, or emotional drain.
- Establishing Work-Life Boundaries: Defining clear start and end times for work, taking breaks throughout the day, and disconnecting from work-related tasks or emails after hours to maintain a healthy balance.
- Managing Personal Space: Setting limits on how much time you spend with others and recognizing when you need personal space to recharge, whether at home, work, or social situations.
- Respecting Emotional Boundaries: Being clear about when you need emotional support and when you need to process feelings on your own, without feeling guilty or pressured to share before you’re ready.
- Communicating Needs: Clearly expressing your needs to others—whether it’s for help, time, or emotional support—ensures you’re not left feeling resentful or neglected.
- Avoiding Overcommitment: Saying no to additional responsibilities or activities that might overload your schedule and compromise your well-being.
- Limiting Negative Interactions: Protecting yourself from toxic or draining relationships by limiting contact or setting boundaries around how much time you spend with certain individuals.
- Physical Boundaries: Respecting your personal space and body by communicating when you need physical distance or by setting clear limits around touch, intimacy, or physical closeness.
- Time Boundaries: Allocating specific times for relaxation, hobbies, or activities that recharge you and ensuring that these moments aren’t interrupted by work or social obligations.
- Creating Digital Boundaries: Setting limits around when and how you use your phone or other devices, such as avoiding checking emails or texts during designated downtime.
- Enforcing Emotional Boundaries in Relationships: Knowing when to step back in emotionally intense situations, taking breaks from conflict or heated discussions to avoid feeling overwhelmed or manipulated.
- Limiting How Much You Share: Recognizing when it’s not appropriate to share personal information or when you need to set a boundary around what you discuss with others.
- Standing Up for Yourself: Asserting your rights in situations where you feel your personal boundaries are being crossed, whether it’s in relationships, at work, or in social settings.
How to Implement a Self-Care Routine
Self-Care is meant to be done routinely, daily in fact, to ensure our capacity to effectively cope with our everyday (and unexpected) stressors remains intact. (Again, picture the glass with water spilling over the rim and onto the floor discussed above). There are no rules for implementing a self-care routine but here are a couple of ways I’ve implemented self-care into my everyday life.
The Daily Routine:
This is where I’ve planned out specific activities from each of the self-care categories that I will do during specific times of day. Now, I love routines. They help me to ensure I stay on top of what I need to do and don’t forget anything. This method also allows me to better plan to ensure I’m meeting all five categories of self-care regularly. However, for myself, I find that if I put together too big of a routine, I struggle to stick to it long term. If this describes you but you still want to come up with a daily routine, here is what you do:
Start small by implementing activities into your routine one or two at a time. Once these become habitual, add more. Recognize that implementing a self-care routine is a change you must adapt to, and change can be …tricky. Starting small will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed with the amount of changes you’re having to make and may also prevent you from abandoning your efforts altogether.
A-la Carte:
Sometimes I just need a little something extra. That’s why, in addition to my daily self-care routine, I make it a point to check in with myself at least once a day, usually in the evenings, and ask myself:
- What emotions am I feeling right now?
- Where do I feel these emotions in my body?
- What is my energy level currently?
- What self-care activity would be helpful for me to address my emotions and energy level?
If I’m so tired that I’m feeling too uninspired to come up with a self-care activity on my own, I turn to the self-care menu that I’ve put together for myself, and choose an activity from the menu.
If you’re interested in building your own self-care menu, get my free menu template here:
Included with the menu template is a Self-Care Assessment, which is an assessment tool to help you objectively review your current self-care efforts. I recommend, prior to implementing any change, taking some time in objective reflection, identifying areas of strength and weakness, as well as potential barriers you will have to plan (and set a boundary) for. This assessment can help you do just that.
Additional resources for implementing a self-care routine that helps you thrive:
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