5 Ways to Make Everyday Self-Care Part of Your Day

Self-care shouldn’t be an escape from your life.

Many people think that self-care needs to be a scheduled event like a massage or a pedicure. That is one way to give self-care, another way is just to reframe how you do certain things throughout your day.

If you set your life up in a way that honors, protects, and preserves yourself so that you can show up every day as your best self.

When you commit to yourself first, it will actually help you take better care of your family, your community, your environment, and the world.

When you love yourself first, you will be better able to love others. This is true self-care.

Self-care reconnects you to your authentic self, and you stop seeing yourself through fear of the judgment of others. Being authentic brings clarity to who you are, what you want, what you need, and where you are going.

Myths about Self Care

Myth: “It is selfish.”

Truth: No one will take care of you if you don’t do it yourself. As the primary caretaker of your family, they need you to take care of yourself.

Myth: “There is no time for that.”

Truth: Organizing and caring for yourself will, in reality, give you more time because you have more energy and clarity to accomplish your other responsibilities.

Myth: “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it.”

Truth: Any amount of self-care is right. The more you do it, the more you’ll enjoy it and see the benefits of it.

Myth: “I already tried it, and it didn’t work for me.”

Truth: Try it again; this is a process. Try something different. Do something that focuses on your mind, your body, your emotions, your spirit, etc.

Today I want to share five things that you can do to make everyday self-care part of your regular routine.

Start your Day Focused on You

What you do the first part of your day will help you set yourself up for a successful and productive day.

Your morning routine starts you off in the right direction each new day. You decide how much time you want to plan for this each morning.

I schedule for one hour each morning. I break my routine into two separate categories.

The first is all related to the emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of my life.

During this time, I Express gratitude through writing or prayer. I do some inspirational reading, meditation, and affirmations. Finally, I make a list and prioritize it to help me complete the essential items during the day.

After that, I do something to get physically grounded. For me, this includes 15-30 minutes of some movement. I enjoy things like yoga, stretching, walking, high-intensity interval bodyweight exercises.

Morning Routine Ideas:

Prayer

Meditation

Affirmations

Inspirational Reading

Journaling

Priority list for the day

Exercise

Stretching

 

Create Screen-Free Zones

This suggestion is just for you, not new rules for any other members of your family. Decide on specific times and places in your life where you’ll be free of your screen.

I do this the first hour of my day; this helps me focus on getting my morning routine, which I outlined above, completed.

By eliminating screen-time in the morning, I am not bombarded with a huge to-do- list from others, in the form of emails, news that may set my day off in a direction that I don’t want to go.

By doing this, I have a better perspective on your day because I start by setting my priorities; I am ultimately in control of my outcomes.

 

Take Positive Breaks

Often when we get stressed, overwhelmed, or get derailed on the plans we laid out to accomplish.

It’s during these times that the idea of positive breaks comes in. When we allow for a positive break, we allow for an opportunity to reframe our current stressful situation, and this is super beneficial for our minds.

These positive breaks don’t need to take a lot of time. A short, 10-15 minute break, as often as you need to, helps us get out of the cycle of stress, overwhelm, frustration, and negativity. They will recharge you and give you the momentum to tackle your day again.

I suggest that these positive breaks are screen-free zones. Often social media can increase the stress and overwhelm that we are feeling.

Positive Break Ideas:

Listen to or play music

Dance

Take a power nap

Meditate

Create Something

Sit and breath

Go for a short walk

Sit outside in the sunshine

Connect with the earth- dirt, grass, water

Do something on your Feel Awesome List

 

Make Positive Real Life Connections

I feel like this is something a lot of people are missing in their lives, and they’re not even aware of it. When we feel lonely many times, we look to social media or food or some other sort of distraction to make us feel connected, but those things don’t really help.

By making real-life connections with people that we actually can see and touch and hear, we eliminate those feelings of loneliness. Human beings are “social animals” and, therefore, naturally seek the companionship of others as part of their well-being.

Figure out how to make some real connections every day.

Connection Ideas:

Call someone

Visit someone

Snuggle with a family member

Smile at a stranger

Do a random act of kindness

 

Make Sleep a Priority

We’ve talked about sleep before, sleep is one of our Simple 7 Strategies for creating a healthy lifestyle. It is vital to our health as it allows our body time to repair, rebuild, and reset. If we skimp on this vital habit, we will begin to feel the effects in our mood, in our ability to perform and complete tasks, and in the way our body and mind work.

Remember how I suggested that you start the day focused on yourself? I recommend that you also end the day focused on yourself.

These routines should be the bookends of your day. The morning routine helps you get things started off right, and you can move through your day with purpose even if all the stuff that happens in the middle feels out of your control. Then at the end of your day, you can bring everything back into order, and this allows you to rest well through the night.

Ideas for Your Evening Routine:

Express gratitude in writing or prayer.

Read an inspirational book

Listen to a meditation soundtrack

Dim the lights and listen to calming music

Take a relaxing bath

Journal

Take time for intimacy

 

Self-Care Assessment

I have created a worksheet to help you assess how you are doing on making self-care a regular part of your daily life.

We have physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, personal, and even professional aspects of our lives.

This assessment will help you recognize you may need to include some self-care practices in a specific area of your life.

I hope that you can see that self-care shouldn’t be an escape from your life; it should be a way of life!