I’m sure you’ve heard of self-care before. I’m sure you even know that you should be practising self-care, but do you actually know how too? I’ve been there! I know it can be overwhelming with all of the information out there so I’m going to show you exactly how you can start so you can walk away knowing how to practise self-care from today onwards.
♡ Take care of your physical self
Taking care of your body can seem like such a simple aspect of self-care but funny enough, it’s forgotten just as often as the other ways.
When we think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the first section of the pyramid is Physiological Needs. Before we can even consider moving onto the next layers, we need to ensure we are ticking that layer off properly.
There are multiple things to consider here when taking care of your body. Maslow specifically mentions the following:
· Breathing
· Drinking water
· Eating food (specifically, nourishing food)
· Having safe, warm shelter
· Getting enough sleep
· Reproduction/ sex
Whilst these are obviously required to live as a human being, there are a few other points I feel are important to mention here:
· Exercising regularly
· Seeing a professional when required (for example, doctors or dentists)
· Physically taking care of your body (for example, brushing your teeth, washing your hair or taking medication)
Maslow’s specific categories are usually things we do on auto-pilot. We all breathe, drink water, eat food and so on, sometimes we don’t do them in the healthiest way, such as eating junk food or pulling all-nighters, but we do them. We often forget about those other important factors to make sure we're taking care of ourselves and that’s where we let ourselves down. That’s where we start to struggle.
♡ Take care of your mind
This is the part where things can get tricky because how do you take care of your mind? Do you stuff it full of knowledge? Do you keep it running non-stop? Taking care of your mind will look different for each person and that’s okay. After all, we all have different minds, right?
Here are my favourite ways of taking care of my mind:
· Meditating regularly
· Journaling daily
· Exercising (also mentioned in taking care of your body so you can earn double points here!)
· Seeing a counsellor
· Practising yoga
When you’re looking for ways to take care of your mind, think of the times where you’re calm, relaxed and careless. What are you doing in those moments? It’s most likely that’s where you’ll find what’s going to work for you.
Again, everybody is going to do this differently and that’s okay. Find what works for you and don’t worry too much about what everybody else is doing.
♡ Do things that make you feel good
Sounds simple, right?
I wish I could say it was that simple but how much of your day do you spend actually doing things that make you feel good? Think about this…
You have 24 hours in a day. The same amount as me, Michelle Obama, Tony Robbins. The same as everybody else. We all have 24 hours. Now, consider what you do in those 24 hours. I’m hoping you spend at least 8 hours sleep, which leaves you with 16 hours. I’m going to take away a few more hours for cooking and eating and exercising. Now, you have 14 hours.