Top Five Self-Care Tips
You can’t always control the circumstances that life throws your way, but you can control how well you take care of yourself. Taking proper care of your body, soul and mind can keep you in optimum shape for handling stress. The following are some important basic self-care strategies that can keep you functioning well and ready for life’s challenges.
1. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is very important for your emotional and physical wellbeing. Lack of sleep can make it harder to handle stress. Unfortunately, responsibility, worry and stress can make sleep more difficult. CBT can assist with sleep, by helping you to take control of worry, and get through relaxation techniques.
2. Eat Well
Are you too busy to sit down and enjoy a meal? Eating nourishing food regularly can make a big impact on our ability to cope with stress. Eating is important – things like too much caffeine and sugar can contribute to feeling agitated, on edge and nervous. Making time to think about what you would like to eat and taking time to sit down and focus on the experience of eating can do the opposite, helping us to calm our thoughts and remember to live in the present.
3. Exercise Regularly
Exercise can be great for you physically and mentally. It provides a stress release and keeps your body healthy. It also helps your body release endorphins, which increase your feelings of overall wellbeing.
4. Maintain Your Social Support
Social support is one of the most important buffers against stress. Friends can provide practical help, give you ides and perspectives and listen to you when you really just need to talk. When we are under stress it’s easy to let our social networks dwindle, all we have to do is stop making calls and stop accepting invitations. Building them up again and developing new networks takes more energy but it’s worth it.
5. Find Time For Your Hobbies
With heavy responsibilities hobbies may get moved to the end of the long list of things we need to do. Finding even short periods of time to spend on the activities you have enjoyed in the past is important. You may not be able to find time to attack the whole garden at once, but giving yourself 10 minutes every few days to get a little bit done can improve your mood, so that it feels like you have more time available rather than less.
Make some time that is just for you, doing something that you really enjoy. Take 10 minutes to sit in the sun with the newspaper or make time for a haircut. Remember, improving your mood and coping by looking after yourself is not ‘selfish’, it’s good for you and for those around you.
