Life can get busy, whether with work or school or taking care of your kids or family. With so much happening, finding time to care for yourself can be difficult.
When you don’t take care of yourself, you may start to get a build-up of stress or anxiety. You may even notice your physical health being affected. You’re not a machine, you need rest and nourishment to feel your best. Practicing renewal is vital for supporting your overall health and well-being.
Renewal is the idea of starting again or feeling refreshed, as you do after taking a shower or bath – which are great forms of self-care. You can find renewal by doing things that help you feel better physically and mentally. Self-care is another term for renewal. Learn about some of the many benefits of self-care and tips on how to practice it.
Holistic self-care
You may feel like you don’t have time to practice self-care. But you do know that you don’t currently feel your best.
Self-care involves a holistic approach, meaning caring for every part of yourself. It helps to look at self-care through three main pillars – mind, body, and spirit. Caring for one of these areas ripples over into other areas of your life. For example, caring for your body helps to support your mind and vice versa.
Practicing self-care is crucial to supporting your long-term health, physically and mentally. The most common chronic diseases in the U.S. can be prevented through lifestyle changes.
An estimated 40% of cancer diagnoses may be prevented through physical activity, eating healthy, and avoiding tobacco products. The same is true for at least 80% of cases of stroke, type 2 diabetes, and premature heart disease. If you have one of these conditions, that doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. Let this be a reminder of how important it is to practice self-care. You have to start somewhere!
Practicing self-care involves taking time to focus on yourself. You need time to rest, reflect, replenish, and renew to feel your best mentally and physically. This looks different for everyone, but here’s a checklist to get you started:
- What do you need to feel your best? Time with friends? Alone time? Walks outside?
- What goals are you working towards and what do you need to achieve them?
- What areas of your health would you like to change and how will you do that?
- What have you already accomplished that you can be proud of?
To feel your best, you need to reflect on how to nourish and nurture every part of yourself!
Reach your goals
It’s important to have goals in life. Whether about your career, personal, or anything else you’d like to achieve. But it can be difficult to achieve those goals if you’re not feeling your best or you’re stressed and overwhelmed.
When you feel better in your mind and body, you can more easily achieve the things you’ve been working towards. Think about a goal you have, any type of goal. Now what’s holding you back from achieving it? Do you not have enough energy to work on it? Do you feel overwhelmed by other things in your life? Maybe you have a difficult time concentrating on it.
It may feel like practicing self-care is a distraction from what you’d like to accomplish, but it’s the opposite. Taking care of yourself gives you the energy, clarity, and confidence to work on the things that are most important to you.
Practicing self-care can not only give you more energy but also help you have more focus and creativity. You can think of self-care like charging your battery. If your battery is low, you don’t have any energy to achieve your goals. When you recharge your battery, then you can finally achieve all the goals on your mind.
Enjoy your life more
While goals are important, there is more to life than achieving things. Your life is meant to be enjoyed. It’s important to have fun, connect with your loved ones, and experience pleasure and joy in the little moments.
It’s easier to enjoy your life when you feel better in your mind and body. Think about a time when you weren’t feeling well physically or mentally, that may be now. Were you able to enjoy yourself? Probably not as much as you would if you felt better.
You deserve to experience joy, it’s a beautiful part of being human. When you practice self-care, you give yourself the energy and space to experience more joy. Self-care in itself is also enjoyable. Even when times are hard, you can still find ways to experience small amounts of joy by taking care of yourself.
Ways to practice self-care
Self-care doesn’t need to be complicated. All you need is a few things that make you feel good, that you can commit to doing regularly. There are a lot of different forms of self-care, all of which are important.
Here’s a simple guide to help get you started:
Move your body
Physical activity is one of the best ways to practice self-care and prevent chronic health issues. It also helps you feel more comfortable and energized every day.
Moving your body helps support your sleep, improve your immune system, reduce stress levels, and many other benefits. It doesn’t need to be complicated either!
Start by meeting yourself where you’re at. What is your body comfortable with now? Can you start by taking a twenty-minute walk after dinner? Is there an exercise class you can take in person or online? Do you enjoy activities like yoga, team sports, or dancing? These are all great ways to practice self-care by moving your body.
Process your emotions
What sort of emotions do you feel now? Your emotions constantly tell you ways you can help support yourself or things you need to deal with. But to do that, you need space to process them.
Sometimes emotions will resolve on their own, but often you need to process them to feel better. This is a form of self-care. Processing emotions can feel like a lot if you’re used to hiding from them. But you can start small with ways that feel comfortable for you.
Here are some ways you can start to process your emotions:
- Journal and write down whatever is on your mind, or ask yourself questions like “How am I feeling today?”
- Talk to a loved one about how you’re feeling, or find a mental health practitioner like a therapist.
- Try a creative outlet like drawing or painting – you’d be surprised how therapeutic this can be!
The more you start to process your emotions, the easier it becomes. Remember that self-care involves taking care of your body and your mind.
Get rest
Self-care isn’t just about doing more and more. A big part of self-care is giving yourself time to rest. Your mind and body need time to recalibrate after being busy.
Sleep is an important part of rest, but it’s not the only one. You need quality sleep to feel your best, but you also need other types of rest. Rest is anything that helps you wind down and feel your body and mind relax.
Think about what’s restful for you. Many people rest by taking a bath, reading at the end of the day, or gently stretching your body. What’s restful for you may be different than it is for others, so explore and find something that helps you relax and unwind.
Make it your own
What’s great about self-care is that it’s different for everyone. You get to decide what makes you feel good and create habits accordingly. Your self-care plan can change depending on your needs, the time available, and other things happening in your life. This is your body and mind, so you decide what it needs to feel renewed.
