To be happy and healthy, it’s important that you actively adopt the habit of self-care.
Self-care simply means putting in the time and effort to do things that help you live better and improve both your physical and mental wellbeings.
Taking care of yourself is important because it encourages you to maintain a good and healthy relationship with yourself. This means that you’re being mindful of your needs so that you are able to better support others, and live a more fulfilling life.
According to studies, engaging in self-care has been clinically proven to reduce or eliminate anxiety and depression, reduce stress, improve concentration, minimize frustration and anger, increase happiness, improve energy, and more.
But, how do you practice self-care? Here are a couple of suggestions…
1. Adopt self-compassion and self-love approaches
Self-care begins with having self-compassion and self-love.
Just like you would be compassionate and loving towards your friends, family, and partner when they are feeling down or negative, you should actively be compassionate and loving toward yourself.
When you’re kind and considerate towards yourself, you can generally feel more positive and motivated and also be more resilient when adversity comes your way.
And when you adopt self-compassion and self-love, you can recover more quickly when troubling and traumatic events happen in your life, such as breaking up with a partner.
You can also better manage failures and moments of feeling embarrassed when you adopt a self-loving approach.
To adopt self-compassion, kindness, and love, be warm and understanding toward yourself whenever you feel negative or inadequate, and be understanding and forgiving toward yourself at all times.
The more you actively treat yourself like you’re one of the loved ones in your life, the easier it will be to adopt self-compassion and self-love.
2. Look after your physical health
We all know that eating healthily and exercising regularly helps both our physical health and mental health, but it can be easy to forget that unless you make the effort.
So, introduce a healthy eating routine and get some form of exercise each day.
Even a twenty-minute walk in the fresh air can help to release endorphins and make you feel happier and more positive.
Also, make sure you always get enough sleep and look after your personal hygiene.
The more you stay on top of your physical health, the better you will feel in general, and the more you’ll be able to handle negativity when it arises.
3. Improve your mental health
Eating healthily, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep will help your mental health as well as your physical health. But you should also look at other ways to keep your mental health in check.
For instance, you could sign up for yoga or meditation classes to help you feel more relaxed and positive. It could even be helpful to talk to a therapist regularly so that you can get out any feelings you have bottled up inside.
Building the habit of self-care is predominantly about looking after both your physical and mental health, so embrace things that will enable you to actively manage your stress levels and maintain good mental health.
4. Maintain a healthy work-life balance
Building the habit of self-care is also about maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
If you’re a workaholic, you’re more likely to experience stress and eventually become exhausted. So, make sure you have a good balance between the days you work and the time you have off from work.
Also, when working, ensure you always take breaks throughout the day and remember to eat lunch. Avoid working long hours, too.
When you set professional boundaries and make sure you have enough time off to relax and enjoy yourself, you can stay sharp, healthy, and motivated.
5. Start a journal
It can be a good idea to begin a journal where you write down your feelings on a regular basis.
By doing so, you can get out of your frustrations and look at your triumphs and problems more objectively. In turn, that will help you to build the habit of self-care.
6. Celebrate substantial achievements
To get into the habit of good self-care, make sure you celebrate your achievements in life.
Whether that’s something major like gaining a degree or a promotion at work or a smaller achievement like sticking to a new diet plan for a year, it’s important to take time to recognize and celebrate your achievement.
You could celebrate by going out with friends, taking a trip to a health spa, or buying something that you really want.
The latter is a good idea because it will be a constant reminder of your specific achievement, and your general new-found ability to care for yourself.
For instance, to celebrate your win, you could buy yourself a piece of jewelry that’s made with premium lab-grown Diamonds as a reward.
7. Laugh on a regular basis
It’s important that you smile and laugh as much as possible. Ideally, you should laugh heartily at least once a day.
Laughing out loud can make you feel so much better. So, spend time with friends who you know will make you laugh, watch a comedy movie, or attend a stand-up comedy show, to ensure you make use of your laughter muscles.
8. Live and appreciate life more
Do things every now and then that enables you to feel more alive. For example, go on that hot air balloon trip that you’ve been dreaming about, see more live music, take trips to see friends who live far away, take more vacations, or do anything else that helps you to feel alive.
You should also take stock of all those little moments that make life worth living. For instance, take a moment to appreciate the sound of the rain on your roof while you drink a hot cup of tea, enjoy a long bubble bath, or dance to music at home.
Appreciate the little things and do more things that help to make you feel really alive, in combination with the other tips mentioned above, and you’ll soon be happier and have a more positive outlook on life.
Takeaway
Now you know the different ways of building the habit of self-care, make sure you actually adopt the above suggestions.
To recap, you should:
- Adopt self-compassion and self-love approaches.
- Look after your physical health.
- Look after your mental health.
- Maintain a healthy work-life balance.
- Start a journal.
- Celebrate substantial achievements.
- Laugh on a regular basis.
- Live and appreciate life more.