Have you ever had a week that has just been dragging on? You’ve been told multiple pieces of bad news? Or maybe you just feel “meh” in general? Well I’m here to firstly tell you that it’s okay if you feel that way, and that most other people have similar experiences. Then I wanted to remind you to try showing up for yourself on those days where you’re just not feeling it. Here’s some top tips which will help you to go back to basics for your self-care routine.
Take Care of Your Basic Needs
First things first is to remember your basic needs. Humans need food, water, sleep and some exercise to function properly.
Drinking water is a necessity, but drinking enough water can sometimes be difficult especially when you’re busy or… spending all day on the sofa. It’s not just about making your skin glow, but your internal organs will thank you for not being dehydrated too. Grab yourself a bottle to keep within reach, or if you’re not a fan of the taste switch your water up for infused water or squash.
Next up is to get your sleep health down. Remove tech from your bedroom if possible, don’t have caffeine too late in the day, and wind down at a decent time esepcially if you have to get up in the morning and take steps to try and get those 7-8 hours in. You can try tracking your sleep with a fitbit or phone app to help you improve too.
Next up is something I find hard myself, but you need to check that you’re eating. As someone who dislikes cooking most of the time, I always make sure I have easy meals which I can just shove in the oven or microwave on days where I just can’t be bothered. I also recommend picking up food you like to snack on which has some nutritional value too, and trying to plan meals or planning meals which will leave leftovers so you don’t have to cook everyday.
Last but not least, a basic need is to keep moving. Without exercise your body will adjust to less and less exercise which will make it harder for you in the future too. Taking a brief walk, getting up from your desk to stretch, and trying to fit in some workouts now and then can help both your physical health and mental health.
Listen to your Needs
Learning and practising how to listen to what your body needs is important, and finding different ways of meeting those needs. This doesn’t just mean your basic needs, but more complex needs like talking to family or friends, needing a creative outlet, or working around your emotions.
Depening on what kind of person you are, you may need to socialie more (or less!) and you should learn to know which of these you need. Introverts will more likely need time alone to refresh themselves and get ready for more socialising at a later time – and extroverts usually find energy from the socialising itself. Understanding your self means figuring out what your needs are on a daily, weekly and even monthly basis and trying to cater to them.
If you’re bottling up feelings and emotions, one of your needs may be that you need to let go or talk to someone, or use an outlet to better understand those emotions. Listening to your own needs is the first step of a process where you can improve your mental clarity in this case, and you may need to take time to learn how to answer “what does my mind and body need me to do today?”.
Allow Yourself to Rest
Resting isn’t just about sleeping, but about taking time to just not do things which can stress or burn you out. Whilst we’re surrounded by stories of other people working all day everyday, with side hustles on side hustles and productivity being on every hour of their waking lives… it’s not healthy!
If you need to sleep in past 6am to feel better in yourself, sleep in. If you need to take your lunch break to read a book or scroll mindlessly through twitter or just to be alone then that’s okay. Your weekends and evenings don’t have to be full of “trying to be productive” if that’s not what you want. And even if these are what you want, sometimes you do just need a break and that’s okay.
Take time to just do tasks which allow you to feel relaxed and rested, and carve time out of your weeks to try and future proof burn out from work and being overly stressed.
Create Smart Habits, Routines, and Rituals
Speaking of carving out time, it helps to set aside time for your habits, routines and rituals which help elevate your personal health. Committing tasks to become part of your everyday routine, daily habits and weekly rituals that are good for your well-being are vital for self-care. This can be as simple as having a skincare routine of cleanser and moisturiser, or it can be a 12 step program to glowing skin but it all depends on your own needs and your time capacity too.
Your habits don’t have to all assist with those big ambitious goals of yours either, you should take the time to do things you love that are just hobbies too. Take breaks, give yourself down time, and remember not all your hours need to be filled with productivity.
Feeling Isn’t Bad
Going back to listening to your needs a bit here, in that you should pay attention to your emotions too. Feeling isn’t a bad thing, it’s one of the key things that makes humans human. However, how you act on your emotions is what can hinder you when other people react to emotions. You can help improve your emotional intelligence and therefore reduce risks of feelings becoming a negative in your life.
Allowing yourself to feel emotions are important, and not labelling emotions as wrong, bad, or negative is key to allowing yourself to feel. Feeling angry is okay, but how you act on that anger is vital to the perception of the emotion. There’s also not always a need to end the emotion immediately or finding a fix, but just having the understanding can help you respond better. Having a way to connect with emotions can help this, and the next time you’re feeling a lot of emotion write down in more descriptive terms what you’re feeling and why.
Self-Forgiveness is Needed
Nobody is perfect, and so you need to be able to forgive yourself for not doing something perfectly. Whether you’re feeling negatively about forgetting something, messing something up in your past, what you don’t know, or even just getting “off-track” – you should reframe that as a learning tool. “This time I did X, but next time I would like to improve that by doing Y”.
Something not going right? You can always start again! After self-forgiveness if you can start something again do it. Think of it as practice, where practice can help you be nearly perfect.
See Yourself For You and Spend Quality Time With Yourself
Helping yourself be happier often means needing to understand yourself a bit more. Take time to look at yourself curiously and compassionately and figure out what is important to you. If you’re consistently trying to be something you’re not then you’re going to have a hard time mentally because it’s a lot of extra work. So just figure out what parts of your live you currently love (or don’t love) and take steps to lean into what you prefer.
Finding out about yourself means spending quality time with yourself. Do things which help you learn more. Read, write, create and get to know who you are by yourself through these activities. Take time to go to restaurants, the cinema, etc on your own (once we’re allowed!) and you can learn more about yourself.
Remind Yourself You Are Worthy
Last but not least, you should take time to remind yourself that you are worthy. You’re as worthy as anyone else in your life, and deserve to show up for yourself. Make yourself a priority in your life.