Time for Self Care

We all know that self-care should be a priority. However, we become so consumed with life’s busyness and fast pace that we often neglect it.

Self-care is essential in maintaining healthy relationships with yourself and others in your life. It requires you to dedicate time to care for your mind, body, and soul through activities that promote overall well-being and reduce your stress levels. Taking the time to care for yourself enhances your ability to live fully and reminds yourself and others that your needs are a priority.

How self-care Helps

Preventing Burnout

The term burnout describes a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling overwhelmed. It results from excessive and continuous physical, emotional and mental stress. Burnout happens when you’re overstretched, emotionally drained, and unable to keep up with life’s constant demands.

When burnout occurs, your productivity is reduced, your energy is drained, and it can take a toll on your physical body. Implementing self-care allows you to reset, refocus and decompress.

Increasing Overall Efficiency

When you designate time for yourself and take care of your personal needs that you require, your energy levels get a considerable boost. Your heightened energy then fuels your mood, productivity, and relationships. This builds the perfect foundation to feel focused and motivated to tackle anything.

Treating yourself as a priority allows your cognition to improve, which gives you more clarity to stay focused on the tasks at hand. It also increases your excitement levels, which fuels your passions and motivates you to follow them.

Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Implementing self-care practice into your life helps you to create healthy relationships with everyone in your life. It is easier to make more profound and longer-lasting connections with friends, family, coworkers, and romantic partners when you feel good within.

By focusing on your relationships with yourself and others, you open the opportunity for more authenticity, more empathy, and more genuine moments. Having supportive relationships has a significant impact on our health and well-being. We continue to extract positive emotions from close long-term relationships, so it is a good investment in your happiness.

How to Implement self-care

Everyone defines self-care differently. Regardless of what it means to you, self-care is a necessity to live your best life. To ensure you devote time to yourself, you can add self-care practices to your calendar, and here are some easy ways to do it.

Start with 10 Minutes

If you’re unsure where or how to begin your self-care journey, simply start with 10 minutes. Self-care doesn’t have to be a long, exhausting task; it can be small and straightforward. However, it must happen in general because a 10-minute break can do wonders for your mind and body. In addition, scheduling at least 10 minutes into your calendar each day for personal time can improve your mood and reduce your stress.

During those 10 minutes, you can do something as simple as stepping outside to get fresh air, going for a walk, listening to your favorite music, or reading a book. Most importantly, you must remove all distractions and stressors during this time. A true self-care break should give your mind and body a moment to rest, so make sure to keep your environment device free.

Time Blocking

This time management method gives you a designated time to accomplish specific tasks that you assign yourself. Time blocking can be used to schedule self-care into your calendar and help incorporate it into your busy life. Start by choosing a time of day to block out for self-care priorities. This can be anywhere from 30 minutes to multiple hours; it all comes down to whatever works best for you.

Block out this time in your calendar to do tasks that give your mind and body a break. When you use this strategy to allocate your time and attention, you get more out of your day than if you don’t. By utilizing time blocks, you can be more productive and less distracted. Physically scheduling these periods of time in your calendar forces you to treat it like any other commitment because it should be a priority.

Booking Appointments

Scheduling self-care appointments ahead of time limits the opportunity for you to cancel or bail on your personal time. Booking self-care appointments or activities such as facials, massages, yoga, or going to the gym helps you hold yourself accountable. Making sure to prioritize these scheduled commitments enables you to get one step closer to reaching your self-care goals.

Accountability gives you a sense of honest self-reflection that you need to better yourself. And it provides a means to improve the various aspects of your life. If you don’t hold yourself accountable, it is easy to make excuses and run away from your priorities. This often gets in the way of your personal growth, and the progress of your self-care journey could suffer because of it.

Challenge Yourself

Another tactic for scheduling self-care in your calendar is to commit yourself to a challenge. It’s important to continue challenging yourself and your brain to reach new heights. Doing this can enhance your skills and prepare you to handle everything life throws at you.

Planning a new self-care challenge for yourself to complete every day keeps the process exciting and keeps you engaged. Developing a 30-day challenge at the beginning of the month takes away the pressure of generating new activities daily. This way, you can focus more on the benefits of accomplishing your goals and caring for yourself.

Conclusion

self-care is a personal commitment to yourself. Self-care brings the focus back to you and your needs at their basic level. As you incorporate self-care into your busy schedule, it will start to become a habit. The easiest way to stick to a routine and not become overwhelmed is to utilize your calendar.

Your calendar can be your best friend. Taking advantage of your calendar’s organization will help you appreciate your time and priorities more. Self-care shouldn’t be a daunting responsibility; it should be a relief.

Image Credit: Ron Lach; Pexels; Thank you!