Want
to learn which self-care methods help you recover from setbacks to land on your
feet? Maybe you're looking for ideas that help sustain your stamina, health, and optimism during those rough spots in
life. Even if you’re dealing with minor irritations and ordinary stress,
there’s help for you here too.
Learn tips that enable you to cope more effectively with sticky situations and people. Self-care practices give you the energy and determination to move forward, even when things don’t go the way you imagined or wanted them to.
Research
suggests those who care for themselves well are able to work and relate better with others. Self-care activities also help you heal more
fully from divorce or a break-up, death of a loved one, being downsized, an illness, or stepping forward into a new location or career.
The
term self-care describes
attitudes and behaviors you adopt to improve or sustain physical and mental
health. Self-care practices include eating healthful food, showering and
brushing your teeth, wearing clean clothes, and getting adequate sleep and exercise.
It includes recreational, communal, and individual activities that maintain
emotional well-being, and help you feel contentment and peace.
Self-care routines provide comfort and reduce stress. When you're mindful to take good
care of your own needs, you can be there for others, operate at a peak level on the job, and have bountiful energy to enjoy your personal life.
Improve
Your Health-Take These Self-care Actions
HALT. The
acronym stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. When you feel one or more
of these, your body and spirit are trying to get your attention. It’s a signal that
self-care is needed. Here’s what you can do to help yourself:
- Journal
to get a better Handle on your Thoughts, Perceptions, and Feelings. It can help you identify and accept troubling emotions and thoughts and gradually convert them into positive ones. Spilling anger, hurt, sadness, worry, amazement, shock, grief, or confusion out on to the page, will make its intensity lessen. Once you unload your angst onto the page, it reduces the need to “rethink” a particular issue. Journal writing is a great place to record successes and triumphs as well. Read 4 Powerful Reasons Journal Writing is Good for the Soul.
Learn to focus on what is actually taking
place from moment to moment.
Stop dwelling on hurts or mistakes of the past.
Curb your impulse to worry about what will happen in the future.
You can retrain your mind through self-care
practices like meditation and behavior modification to let go of unhealthy habits
that no longer serve you well.
When you use your senses to focus on yourself, your needs, your
surroundings, and events as they are taking place, you'll feel more grounded
and have a greater sense of well-being.
Be kind, self-caring, and
non-judgmental with yourself and others as you go through your daily activities. Notice whether full consciousness tends to reduce negativity, fear, and confusion. In addition, see whether you feel less anxious, uncertain, and less emotional and/or
physical pain. When you're a witness rather than a judge of you and what goes on in your brain from moment to moment, you can be more present for yourself today.
Affirm, I am joyful now, and I appreciate being
alive in each moment!
- For colorful adventures in self-empowerment, pick up
a copy of Colors of Joy: A Woman's Guide
for Self-Discovery, Balance, and Bliss. This guided journal program helps you combine color themed activities, affirmations, journal writing and
reflection, with tips for self-care. It’s perfect for women who are
introspective as well as those who want to be more self-aware and happy. Colors of Joy is affordable, provides hours of
entertainment and discovery, and is a healthful way to be good to yourself. In fact, it makes an eye-catching holiday or birthday gift for all the women you care about.
Please comment below in the space provided. Some food for thought questions are...
What self-care activities do you think help you the most and why?
Do you notice how often colors
can be self-care helpers?
Are you consistent with your pre or post work self-care routines? Please explain why or why not.
How do you re-set your motivation, after you've had a self-care slip?
I find the most effective way to start fresh with self-care is positive self-talk. I speak loving to myself, as I gently pick myself up and begin again.
Further reading at these links:
