How to Practice Efficient Self-Care and Keep Your Health in Check

Self-care is an integral part of life. It’s vital, but it’s also challenging. As the world gets busier and our responsibilities pile up, stress begins to creep in. Many of us find that self-care slips down the priority list as a result. It’s not easy to practice good habits when life is so hectic. Self-care doesn’t just mean popping a bubble bath and drinking wine; it means doing things that help maintain a balance in your life. Self-care is not selfish; it’s simply taking time to look after yourself so you have the energy to live up to your other expectations – including looking after others!

What if you could bring more self-care into your life without feeling like it was another thing to add to your endless list? The good news is that you can sneak it into your routine without much effort. There are many ways to do this daily with little time or effort.

Physical Self-Care

The saying goes, “The best way to be healthy is to start with being healthy.” A big part of this is taking care of your body by eating well and getting enough exercise. If you’re living a healthy lifestyle, you’re less likely to get sick and more likely to have the energy you need to get through your day. Your physical health also plays a part in your mental wellbeing. If you have an unbalanced diet and don’t get enough sleep, you’re more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.

It might be a good idea to prioritise a few things to help make sure you’re staying fit and eating well. It doesn’t have to be anything onerous.

Start with small changes like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or walking to work when possible. Choose to skip the chocolate after dinner or have just a single glass of wine rather than two. Add extra veggies to your stir-fry dinner and serve with brown rice rather than white. Bring a home-packed lunch to work one or two days a week rather than eat out daily. You may be surprised at the effects these small changes have on your overall feeling of wellbeing.

In addition, sometimes, the impact of these small changes may motivate you to take the next step. This may look like starting an exercise program or changing up your diet.

If you move to these next steps, you must ensure the changes you make are sustainable. For most people, crash dieting (including fad diets) and intensive physical training plans don’t work in the medium to long term if the new behaviours are vastly different from their usual routines. This can lead to adverse physical and mental effects when you see your short-term successes vanish into mid- to long-term disappointments. Making small changes and taking the time to embed them into your daily routines and form positive habits is more likely to make a positive difference in your life beyond the first weeks of the change.

Another thing to consider is ensuring you get enough sleep. Setting a regular bedtime and practising good sleep habits (also known as sleep hygiene) can go a long way to maintaining overall health. Developing a bedtime routine can help you fall asleep faster and improve your sleep quality.

In summary, the essential aspects of physical self-care are (and no surprises here):

• Eat healthily – prioritise veggies, fruits, whole grains and lean proteins
• Exercise when you can
• Get enough good quality sleep
• Start small and build good habits rather than relying on extreme diets or programs

Emotional Self-Care

Strong emotions are a normal part of life, but they can become overwhelming and even debilitating if you don’t have a way to deal with them effectively. If you’re not sure how to deal with your feelings, it can cause you to feel overstressed and overwhelmed. This can lead to mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and insomnia. This, in turn, leads to adverse effects on your physical wellbeing, capacity to focus and work, and your relationships.

To deal with strong emotions, you need to develop a method of processing them. This means finding a healthy way to acknowledge and release feelings so you can move on. It doesn’t mean wallowing in them, though! Methods can look vastly different for each individual. 

One of the popular methods for working through emotions is journaling. Some people find that writing down their feelings and putting a name to them (e.g. anger, frustration, fear, jealousy etc.) helps them understand what they are feeling and move past them. Even just writing down what happened to make you feel this way can be beneficial. There are many sites with journaling prompts and ideas to get you started if you think this may be a good strategy.

Another thing to consider when thinking about emotional self-care is your capacity for self-talk. Even if you don’t notice it most of the time, each of us has a constantly running narrator in our heads. Sometimes this is running through what is happening, thinking back on memories, trying to remember the name of the person you just met or criticising you for something you just said in a conversation that made you sound a bit silly. Noticing and changing the dialogue in your mind can be a powerful tool in emotional self-care.

When you become aware that this voice is being mean to you, make a point to stop and remind yourself to be kind. We all make mistakes, you are doing your best, and negative self-talk isn’t making any situation better for yourself. Try using conscious positive self-talk instead, such as “This may not be my strong suit, but I am doing my best”, “I am learning”, or “Mistakes won’t hold me back”. This process is a challenge at first for many people, but the more you can catch and reverse your negative thoughts, the easier it becomes, and the more positive your mindset will become.

Mental Self-Care

Your mental health has a huge and direct effect on your ability to function in daily life. With that in mind, it’s logical that we need to take care of our mental health to perform at all in life, let alone to a high level. Mental self-care is very individual, and each person will have something that works for them and things that do not. You need to keep trying different things until you find the ones that work best for you!

One standard method for maintaining mental health is meditation. Mediation practice is scientifically proven to reduce stress and anxiety, especially if done regularly. If you’re not sure where to start or aren’t sure if you’re doing it right, there are tons of online resources where you can learn. My favourite app for this is Headspace, which provides educational materials, guided meditations, and an extensive range of sleep casts (this is not promoted content! I’ve used Headspace for years and genuinely love it).

Practising gratitude has also been shown to be a highly effective method for reframing your mindset and improving mental health. It involves taking a couple of minutes (honestly, that’s all it takes!) to write down some things for which you feel grateful. This strategy is most effective if done regularly (weekly or daily) and consistently; to be most effective, it MUST be written down. You don’t need a dedicated notebook for them, although you can if you like. The process of thinking and writing is key. Soon you will find yourself noticing small positive things in your life that went under the radar before, and these small boosts to mood make a massive difference in your overall mental health!

Another way to take care of your mental health is to make time to do activities you enjoy. Hobbies are great for relieving stress and increasing creativity. If you don’t have any hobbies, it might be worth thinking about developing one. Think about activities you enjoy, maybe something physical like walking or sport, perhaps in the creative field like painting or sculpture, or maybe something cerebral like puzzles or writing. Whatever it is, carve out some time in your week to do what you enjoy and feel the benefits.

Social Self-Care

It’s important to have time for yourself, but it’s equally important to make time for others. Humans are social beings, after all! This can range from spending time with friends and family, giving back to your community, or taking time to make a phone call or chat. Having a healthy social life can reduce stress and increase your feelings of self-worth and belonging.

If you already have an established group of family and friends around you, great! Make sure you reach out to them and maintain those connections. If not, there are other ways to get involved in your community.

Volunteering your time or skills is a great way to give back while making new connections. If you are passionate about a specific field, such as animal care, elderly citizens, food security or homelessness, you can find charities looking for help. How you can help can be as simple as following a cause you care about and sharing its posts. You can even take it further by sharing your posts or stories to inspire others.

Otherwise, sporting clubs, gaming groups and hobby clubs often look for new members and are usually super welcoming to newcomers. Think about what you enjoy doing, then search your local area online and check local message boards to find a group for you. If you are in a remote location, you can try to find an online discussion forum or group to which you can contribute.

Spiritual Self-Care

A spiritual practice is a great way to care for your mental and emotional wellbeing. It can help you feel more connected to the world around you and give you a sense of purpose and calm. This activity doesn’t have to be a part of a structured religion or pre-established group (although it could be). Spiritual practice is any activity that helps you think beyond yourself to the world around you.

Everyday spiritual self-care activities can include

• Attending a service for your religious denomination
• Practising yoga or meditation
• Being in nature
• Being mindful whilst doing any activity (walking, cleaning, cooking, colouring)
• Being self-reflective or contemplative
• Considering philosophy
• Performing random acts of kindness or compassion

If you’re new to conscious spiritual practice, an excellent way to start is to set aside a few minutes a day to meditate or do something that brings you peace. Try for variation and mix it up rather than sticking with one technique.

Conclusion

Self-care can be challenging amid busy schedules, high expectations, and non-stop pressures from work, family, and friends. Fortunately, there are lots of easy ways to sneak in a bit of self-care each day. Which will you try next?