What’s the Deal with Self-Care? 15 Ideas for YOUR Self Care Arsenal

Want a realistic goal for starting a conscious self care practice? – schedule one or two caring things for yourself. Every day.

You are so worth it!

Here’s a good reason to start implementing your self care strategy: Acts of self-care are particularly effective at short-circuiting feelings of anxiety, anger or shame and managing negative self talk. If you feel yourself moving into an overwhelming emotional state or you’ve caught yourself with some critical inner dialogue, undertaking a self-care strategy can help to ground you, and help you regain control over difficult or unhelpful emotions.

Finding ways to care for yourself can help you to live in the present; which promotes emotional and psychological health. Great for stress management, too!

Here are a few suggestions for you if you need some inspiration for your personal self-care strategy:

1. Engage with your world: Pay complete attention to something you usually do on autopilot, perhaps it’s eating mindfully, or a drive you make regularly. Notice with all of your senses. There’s a name for this in stress management citrcles – it’s called single-tasking.
2. Schedule a daily meditation: I’m fond of legs up the wall while I do this.
3. Practice being selfish: Do one thing today just because it makes you happy.
4. Completely unplug for an hour: Switch everything to silent and/or airplane mode and free yourself from the constant social media alerts and email.
5. Edit your social media feeds: Remove negative people. I’m talking about the ones who don’t make you feel good about yourself. (You don’t have to ‘unfriend’ them; You can just “mute” them).
6. Implement a daily breathing exercise: Box Breathing,  4-7-8 breath or crocodile breathing are three easy techniques to start with.
7. Change the paradigm: Rather than focusing on all the foods you need to remove on the elimination diet, consider ways to add more nutrients. Set a goal to add a new and previously untried vegetable every week or sign up to Stephanie’s Healing Green Broth challenge.
8. Get outdoors and just be still: Find an outdoor spot that resonates for you; somewhere green or by the water, and be quiet for a few minutes. Bonus points if you’re in the sunshine while you do this.
9. Check in with your emotions: Sit quietly and just name what you’re feeling, without judgment.
10. Write down your thoughts: Set a timer and just write for fifteen minutes on anything bothering you. Then burn or bin the paper and let it go.
11. Be selective about who you spend your time with: Make a choice to spend time with people who make you feel good about yourself. Get a positive support team in place.We all know ‘energy suckers’ – they’re not helping!
12. Cuddle an animal: If you don’t have one of your own, go to the local dog park and find oneand ask their owner if you can have a little love.
13. Seek positive feedback: Ask three of your nearest and dearest to tell you what they love about you. You may be pleasantly surprised.
14. Have a date with yourself: This is a technique Julia Cameron recommends in her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way. Spend an hour alone doing something that nourishes you. It could be a hobby you love, visiting a gallery or museum, or just reading in the middle of the day.
15. Read and commit to the Four Agreements: A slim little volume with just four commitments you make to yourself, The Four Agreementsis a great introduction to true self-care.
16. Go for a walk: I know – I said 15 ideas, but when I reviewed the original list it was missing this very important suggestion. And, it’s actually my favourite. Because making time to take yourself for a walk is a great form of self care and it’s very good for you.

Of course, this list is just a primer. There are many ways you can practice self care.