What is Self Care? And Its Importance for Happy Life

 

Self Care

What is Self care?

All actions which you take for your own happiness, well being and satisfaction.
Self care is being aware about your own requirement (physical, mental emotional) and fulfilling those requirement which leads to your happiness.
In short loving yourself; that’s why self care can also be termed as “self love”

Self care can be done at 3 levels:- mind, body and soul.    

Self Care and Happy Life

OUR MIND

We can care our mind by acknowledging our feeling.
One more way of caring your mind is doing “What you want to do”.

OUR BODY

Our body (Inner house) is our first house, but we always tend to focus on our second house (outer house)
There are mainly 3 things to focus upon:-

1. Physical fitness
2. Eating well
3. Being Hygienic

OUR SOUL

The most effective way of soul nourishment is:-

1. Sleeping well
2. Our soul is in love with Nature so give yourself Sun bathing, take fresh air and you will feel your love with nature.

I'm going to be sharing some of the healthy habits that changed my life.

These healthy habits are simple self care routines that I have executed into my life and that allowed me to feel my best.

They helped me with my mental health, my physical health and my emotional well-being. And so I hope these will inspire you as well.

The first healthy habit that changed my life is something I call “INTUITIVE EXERCISE”

And you'll have heard about Intuitive eating, where you're just really connecting to your body's cues and make food choices supported what feels right at any given time. And that is how I now approach exercise.

I have done so many different sports in my life, from tennis to full-contact karate, to yoga, to tai chi, to running and weight lifting and so many more and while I have always enjoyed it.

I was also quite strict with myself and I always had some sort of plan or schedule that I forced myself into. And I don't know if you're also like this but for me when I make it into something that I have to do a certain way or certain days of the week , it takes a lot of the fun out of it and it becomes a chore, something I dread.

And when you do this, you’re kind of setting yourself up for failure. And it's easy to become disheartened when life gets in the way of your schedule which it tends to do. And so for the last three years approximately, I even have changed it around into exercising however and whenever it feels best on behalf of me . So there are weeks that go by where I'm just doing daily yoga. And sometimes I take it easy and I just do a little stretchy meditative kind of yoga, and some days I feel like heating it up and I do a power yoga session. And then there are weeks when I'm doing high-intensity interval training right in my living room.

But there also are weeks that I'm just that specialize in going for a daily walk or quite a brisk stroll outside and that is it.

So I do whatever I need to do to feel my best, and like with everything in life, that Changes from week to week or even day to day and that's okay.

So instead of forcing myself into a very strict exercise regimen, I exercise intuitively now. And I have to honestly say at first I was kind of scared that, I wouldn't exercise enough, if I let go of that need to control it.

But really, I exercise tons more now on the average because I actually enjoy it and it feels great.

It helps me to feel fit and I'm not afraid to ditch my heavy workout session for a stretching session if that feels like something my body needs.                                                

Next healthy habit that changed my life is “SELF CARE- SUNDAY”

And this is often something that I even have actually quite re-introduced into my life only a few months ago ; because I wont to do that once I was still studying in college, except for the last few years. I haven't really done a self care Sunday. And lately with getting my business started, and dealing from home, it’s with great care tempting to figure all day a day .

And I found that I really wanted my self-care Sunday's back. Honestly, this doesn't always happen because I don't have a free Sunday every week.

So I try to do it at least once or twice a month, Or maybe just part of a Sunday if I only have to do something else in the morning, for example; during a self-care Sunday I can do whatever whenever. And that is what I try to do for myself.

Because I can be a little bit of a control freak sometimes. And I tend to be my own worst critic.

And so I always tend to work hard and not allow myself breaks or time off until my entire to-do list is completed.

That is just my natural way of doing things. And I know that's not healthy; and that I know that my feelings matter even as much or maybe more because the tasks that i would like to finish .

So self-care Sunday for me is a way to practice being kind and sweet with myself.

Being attentive to my needs and just taking care of my physical and emotional well-being.

I am an introvert and so to decompress I need a long time. And I communicate this with the people around me and that they respect it. So sometimes on self-care Sunday, I will go out and visit a friend or do something fun together with my friends; but only on days when I feel like being outgoing and I feel like being around people.

So most of the time I spend it by myself and the only rule of Self care “Sunday is there are no rules” So if I want to sleep in a little bit later I do, if I want to exercise I do, but I don't make myself do it.

And I usually get groceries the day before so I usually spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking a lovely breakfast or lunch or both .I watch movies. I read books. I do yoga, whatever feels right.

Sometimes I noticed when I take that time off some feelings surface that has been building up through the week.

And so I noticed sometimes I get cranky or sad or whatever and I just allow that to come up and go and I work through it. And some days I'm just having the best day ever.

So it really depends on the week.

Next healthy habit changed my life because it improved my sleep, tenfold. And this helps me to be happy and energized throughout the day and this is, “No screens before bed”

When I'm not sleeping well it affects me very strongly. And my mood shifts easily and I find it hard to be positive and optimistic , If I'm really tired So for me, a large part of feeling good and happy in life, is making sure that I'm getting proper sleep.

Now the matter with screens before bed is twofold. First they emit a really strong blue light that our body thinks is daylight then when that happens it produces less melatonin which may be a hormone that regulates our sleep cycle.

So less melatonin means that our sleep quality is going down. And second, the things we see on our screens are very mentally engaging.

So if you're on your phone on social media for example before going to bed, your mind is going to be very active about everything you just saw. And it's going to be hard to calm the mind and fall asleep.

So at least one or preferably even two hours before going to bed I try not to use any of my devices and instead. I am just drinking some herbal tea. Tulsi herbal tea is one of my favorites.

This next healthy habit that changed my life is additionally a comparatively new one which is “journaling Monday”          

                                                           

So I always start my work weeks on Mondays and What I used to do is, just turn on my laptop and start working. If I hadn't made a schedule yet for the week in my bullet journal, I did that first. And then just started working on my tasks.

What I do now is, before I even turn on my laptop I spend about 15 minutes journaling. And I kind of reflect on the previous week and I think ahead on the week to come and I just identify things that I want to take into consideration.

I've also been doing a journaling exercise where I kind of write like a diary entry from the future as if it has already happened; So in the present tense.

And I describe quite like my dream day where I've already accomplished things that I would like to accomplish in my life.

And I describe what I did that day, how I felt, in detail, in the present tense. And this is often a journaling exercise that's quite a manifesting exercise that I actually enjoy.                                                                                                                                                    

The last healthy habit that i would like to share with you today is “Taking scheduled breaks”. 

As I mentioned before I'm the type of person when it comes to working that my natural default mode is just to make sure that the tasks get done and they get done well which is my top priority and it's always been that way. And that is also something that partly contributed to me getting burned out two years ago, Because I wasn't mindful of taking enough breaks and making sure that yes, the tasks get done, but that also I am NOT working myself into the ground.

So what I do is I take my phone and I set an alarm in my phone. After one hour of working I need to take a ten minute break. And this break has to be away from my laptop and I also make sure that I'm drinking a glass of water, because this is also something that I can easily forget to do.

So that's kind of just two birds with one stone. And after that short break, I feel refreshed and energized again and I can continue working. And this also works the opposite way around because if you've got trouble with procrastinating, then this tip also works really great because you recognize that there'll be time for a break soon. So you'll just continue working until your alarm pops . And then during your break, you can do something fun Maybe watch a you tube video, and then continue working. So this will also make sure that you're being more productive. If I'm working, I can concentrate really easily and I just forget about the entire world around me basically.

So I forget to eat or drink or pee; and that i forget that it's maybe sunny out that day; therefore the alarm really helps me to be mindful of that and take a moment to stand with my feet in the sunshine and enjoy the warm sensation, while drinking a cup of tea. It is really amazing and it helps me tons.

                                                                                                    

Before ending the article..........Lets summarize once:-

1. INTUITIVE EXECISE
2. SELF CARE SUNDAY
3. NO SCREEN BEFORE BED
4. JOURNAL MONDAY
5. SCHEDULED BREAKS

Alright, these are my Self care habits; I would love to hear some more self care habits...............

So what are your self care habits, do share with me.

 

THANK YOU