You’ve now heard about the idea of practicing self care which simply means doing things to nurture or take care of yourself. In light of how busy everyone is these days, the last person who gets soothed or helped is usually you.
You’re so busy providing for other people that you don’t often think about how it’s best to take care of you. Even though you might not be thinking about it, your body probably is wishing you would.
If you find yourself battling insomnia, experiencing pressure at work, suffering stress from your relationships, and handling long days of obligations, then you feel that in your body.
You might have shoulders that ache or feel strained. Maybe you’ve been having headaches lately or you just feel tired all the time and can hardly wait to fall into bed. Your zest is gone and you long for time for you to unwind, but you don’t ever do anything about it.
That could be because you imagine that in order to revitalize yourself, you don’t have enough time, money or energy to see it through. Self care doesn’t have to be something that’s complicated.
It can be sweet and easy. All you have to do is think about what appeals to you – what you love, what gives you the feeling of having your batteries recharged. What you come up with isn’t going to necessarily be what other people have in mind for their own self care.
Every person will have a unique idea of what self care means to them. Some people might picture self care as having an hour where they can go for a run or hit the gym for an uninterrupted workout.
They might picture it as going for a walk in the neighborhood with the family pet or spending time at the dog park. For others, self care might be taking a luxuriously hot bath where they light candles and put on some relaxing music.
They might imagine themselves submerged in bubbles, head back against a neck pillow, glass of wine in hand with an audiobook or music playing softly in the background.
You might be someone who thinks of self care in terms of intangible things. Your idea of self care might be to have time with your family. You might imagine spending a night playing a family game with the kids, going out with your significant other, or visiting your parents, siblings or grandparents.
You might see self care for you as wanting that emotional connection. Self care can be something like desiring more sleep, so it could be taking a nap or sleeping in on the weekend. Other people want self care in the form of laughter.
You can do whatever you want. There’s no right or wrong way and there’s no right or wrong amount of time, either. It could be something you do for just a couple of minutes or something you do for an hour. Maybe you want to take the day. Whatever it is, just practice self care in a way that nourishes you.
