8 NON-CLICHE WAYS TO PRACTICE SELF-CARE
(for teachers, nurses, stay-at-home moms, students, and others who are drowning in stress)
Many of my clients are convinced that some “me time” is important for their mental health, and sometimes they’re even able to carve out a few minutes for that purpose.
But then, I hear some of them say they’re not really sure what to do with their “me time.”
What’s the best way to practice self-care? If time is limited, what gives you the biggest bang for your buck?
In this week’s article, I’m bringing you 8 proven self-care strategies that don’t include cliche things like getting a facial or a manicure.
If you’re ready to actually start taking care of yourself, let’s dive in.
Why Self-Care Is Important
You’re stressed. Like, really stressed. You’re working on reducing your stress, but in the meantime there’s still a lot on your plate.
The last thing you need is one more thing, like self-care.
But self-care is an investment.
It’s like when you spend a few extra dollars on eye cream so you don’t have to explain to your coworkers that your swollen, puffy eyes are the result of using Dollar Tree eye cream (true story, I’m not proud).
When you spend a few extra minutes each day to take care of yourself, you actually buy yourself more time.
That’s because when you’re healthy, you waste less time scrolling on your phone, eating junk food, or procrastinating in other ways to distract yourself from how overwhelmed you are.
How to Fit Self-Care Into Your Life
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article all about how to get motivated after work.
While most people use those strategies to get chores done, you can use those same strategies to fit self-care into your life.
Dive into that article for some tips about how to carve out space in your life for self-care.
Self-Care Strategies
1. Leave Work at Work
Work is one of the biggest sources of stress, so we need to draw some lines around it and keep it from bleeding into the rest of our lives.
This has become even more difficult since coronavirus had so many of us working from home.
If you are working from home, set up an actual work space.
Avoid working from your bed or the couch or other places that are meant for relaxation.
Instead, find a space that is dedicated to working.
Try to work only when you’re in that space, and then leave it at the end of the day.
Leave the work and leave the stress.
If you are working in an office, do everything you can to not take work home with you.
If you must, find a dedicated space in your home for working.
When it comes to self-care, this tip isn’t about how many hours you’re working.
It’s about protecting your emotional space from being taken over by work.
It’s about allowing yourself to break away from work and have space in your life for other things.
You are more than your job, so a key piece of taking care of yourself is making room in your life for all the other things that you are — a mom, a husband, a friend, a painter, a youth group leader.
2. Get a Hobby
Knowing how to effectively use your leisure time is actually a skill.
It’s not something we’re just born knowing how to do — it’s something we learn how to do over time.
Unfortunately, some of us (me included) find our way to adulthood having zero hobbies and zero idea how to start one.
But hobbies are really important for taking care of yourself.
They give you opportunities to learn new skills, which builds self-confidence.
It’s rewarding to try something new and watch yourself improve over time.
Having a hobby also can serve as a useful distraction to get your mind off of the things that are stressing you while you learn to stop overthinking everything.
So, find something to do that interests you.
Choose something that’s relatively low stress but has some degree of challenge so it’s not boring.
And choose something that plays to your strengths.
If you’re not even sure where to start with choosing a hobby, check out this list of hobbies on Wikipedia for some ideas.
Maybe you could give lockpicking, origami, or ghost hunting a try! Get creative!
3. Take Care of Your Body
While eating healthy doesn’t necessarily feel like your stereotype of “self-care,” it’s one of the ultimate forms of taking care of yourself.
A critical element of self-care is actually taking care of your body.
Things like regular exercise, decent nutrition, and taking a multivitamin can go a long way in your overall wellbeing.
Other unsexy things in this category: Getting an annual physical, quitting smoking, choosing water over wine, going to bed early, and flossing.
Take care of your body and you’ll notice a major difference in your overall mental health.
4. Volunteer
Almost nothing makes as much of a positive impact on our mood as contributing to others.
It’s really hard to walk away from volunteering for an organization or from helping someone in need feeling bad.
So one of the best ways you can take care of yourself is actually by focusing on taking care of others.
And obviously you spend a lot of your time taking care of others, like your parents, spouse, and children.
But that often feels a lot more like a responsibility than a contribution.
So look for ways to contribute to the greater good: visit a nursing home, cut a neighbor’s grass, organize a yard sale for charity, volunteer at a community service organization, get involved at your place of worship, etc.
5. Schedule Extra Time
Squeezing in self-care in the 3 minutes between your last work meeting and picking up your daughter from dance feels rushed, and that rushed feeling makes it hard to really get the most out of your precious “me time.”
But rushing not only interferes with deliberate self-care time, it also compromises your entire wellbeing.
So a meaningful way to take care of yourself is to add extra time in your schedule.
Rather than scheduling activities back-to-back, place a few extra moments in between so you can get from place to place without rushing.
This may mean that ultimately there are fewer things on your schedule, which means you’ll be making some tough choices about what’s most important.
Fewer things, but more important things, can be a gift to yourself in terms of self-care.
6. Set Boundaries
Be transparent with the people in your life about what you’re needing from them.
One of the things that begins to overwhelm us and compromise our wellbeing is carrying resentment about having too many responsibilities to others or too many emotional demands being placed on us.
Being honest with your friends and family sounds like,
- “I’m sorry, I don’t have the money for that right now,”
- “Unfortunately, I can’t help with [this], but I can help with [that],”
- “I’m not available to help on Saturday, but I’d be available Thursday after work to help out,”
- “Thank you for the invitation, but I won’t be able to attend,”
- “I check my messages in the mornings, so I’ll respond then,” or
- “I’ll only be able to stay for an hour, but I’m really looking forward to your party.”
Setting boundaries in your relationships is a way of showing someone how much you care about the relationship and about making it work for both of you.
It’s also a major way you can take care of yourself by managing how much is on your plate.
7. Soothe Yourself
When you’re engaging in self-care, it’s important to soothe your nervous system.
Our nervous systems respond to stress, and soothing our nervous systems can reduce how stressed we feel, even if we’re still dealing with a relatively high number of stressful events.
You can soothe yourself with the stereotypical self-care activities like facials and manicures.
But even better is to collect some data on yourself and see what feels most soothing to you.
Maybe it’s rocking in a rocking chair, curling up with a weighted blanket, petting a dog, watching birds, or watching a fire.
Find the activities that soothe you and engage in them as part of your self-care routine.
Check out my 9 ways to manage anxiety without medication for ideas about specifically soothing anxiety.
8. Get a Therapist
I challenge you to think of any better form of self-care than an hour with a therapist – an hour that is entirely yours to focus on what you need, where you can talk and be thoroughly listened to.
Whether you have a mental health condition or not, therapy can be a tremendous resource for bettering yourself and caring for yourself.
Carry along my worksheets to organize your thoughts before, during, after, and between sessions so you can maximize what you get out of your therapy sessions.
How to Do Self-Care
The important thing about self-care is that, like anything, it takes dedicated attention to be useful.
Doing a facial here and there when you’re drowning in other responsibilities hardly makes a dent in your overall wellbeing.
But adopting these 8 strategies, or at least a few of them, and really making them part of your lifestyle actually can start to make a difference in your wellness.
Make sure you grab the resources I’ve shared throughout this article to really put the strategies into practice — thinking about them doesn’t make them work, doing them is what makes them effective.
Talk to you soon,
Dr. Finch
P.S. Remember, this is education, not treatment. Always consult with a psychologist or therapist about your mental health to determine what information and interventions are best for you. See the disclaimer for more details.
Hayden C. Finch, PhD, is a practicing psychologist based in Des Moines, Iowa, and Little Rock, Arkansas, dedicated to helping you master your mental health.
