Let’s face it, we’ve all felt overwhelmed with stress at one point or another. It’s not uncommon for stress to get the best of us sometimes. In fact, almost 80% of Americans claim to experience daily stress. The question becomes, what can we do to combat this? How can we live a more stress-free lifestyle? The answer is self-care.
If you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or even depressed, self-care is what you need more of. What are the things that bring you joy? What can you do at this moment that would make you feel better, even just a little bit? These questions are at the heart of self-care. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but self-care is all about you and catering to your needs.
What Does Self-Care Look Like in Practice?
We’ve established what self-care is and touched on why it’s so important. However, for some, actually creating self-care routines in their life can be rather difficult. Where do you begin? How many acts of self-care are needed? Ultimately, it all comes down to you and how you live your life. If you’re someone who is experiencing stress daily, then self-care is something you should also be doing daily. If you’re someone who experiences stress less frequently, it may be because you do self-care more frequently or that you don’t need as many acts of self-care to feel okay. It all depends on you!
Staying Active
For many, staying active is not something they necessarily consider an act of self-care. Staying active or working out can sound like a chore or a punishment even. But the truth of the matter is, staying active doesn’t mean you need to go to the gym and feel bad about yourself for not lifting weights more. It just means you need to move your body! Do you like to dance? Play music in the kitchen while you’re cooking dinner. Maybe while you’re doing laundry you’re dancing along to the music as well. This movement is good for your body and your mental health, too. Only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week, so it’s important that you’re looking for ways to incorporate movement into your life.
Treat Yourself
Probably the easiest way to accomplish an act of self-care is by treating yourself. This, however, can get tricky when it comes to balance. You can’t treat yourself all the time for no reason, or else treating yourself after accomplishing something difficult won’t mean as much. You need to be able to have restraint here, but also allow yourself to splurge when you deserve it. We do hard things every day, so there are plenty of opportunities to be deserving of a treat. Maybe you pushed yourself and went to the gym today despite disliking working out. In that case, you definitely deserve to treat yourself. Be sure to match the reward to the action. If working out is a big step for you, buy those flowers on the way home. 83% say they like to receive flowers unexpectedly, so treat yourself! Maybe it means buying yourself a new set of workout clothes so you feel better the next time you go to the gym. Make it work for you!
Hopefully, this has given you some ideas on how to incorporate more self-care into your lifestyle. The key to self-care is listening to yourself! Allow yourself to cater to your own needs first so that you can better cater to the needs of those around you.
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