Taking Good Care of Yourself

Taking Good Care of Yourself

Taking good care of yourself is precisely what self care is. Self care is critical to maintaining a healthy body and mind. So, why is self care so important? When you practise self care, you can feel happier and therefore have a better relationship with those around you. In other words, self care will allow you to improve both your mental and physical health.

The 8 Areas of Self Care

Taking good care of yourself can be split up into eight areas. These include:

• Physical Self Care
• Psychological Self Care
• Emotional Self Care
• Social Self Care
• Professional Self Care
• Environmental Self Care
• Spiritual Self Care
• Financial Self Care

Physical Self Care

Physical self care is taking good care of yourself physically. Some ways that you can practise self care physically are:

Eat a Balanced Diet

Eating a balanced diet means ensuring that you eat plenty of different foods and correct portion sizes. Therefore, you can maintain a healthy weight and have all the vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy and ensure you are taking good care of yourself. Some ways that you eat well include:

• Eat 5 fruits and vegetables per day
• Have a high fibre diet
• Include some dairy in your diet
• Reduce saturated fats in your diet
• Make sure you eat lots of protein
• Drink water! The more you drink, the better. Aim for around 2 litres per day.

Get Enough Sleep

Taking good care of yourself means having enough sleep each night. Therefore, you should aim to get at least 8 hours of sleep and try to sleep at night as this is in sync with your natural body clock. As a result, you will have more energy and feel less tired during the day. Some things you can try to get a good night's sleep are:

• Sleeping at the same time, for the same duration each day
• Avoid taking naps
• Take time to wind down before bed
• Avoid using the room for anything other than sleeping
• Avoid eating large meals within the few hours before going to bed

Exercise Often

Exercise is an excellent way for you to ensure you are taking good care of yourself physically. Regular exercise allows you to remain in good physical health by, for example:

• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Prevents high blood pressure
• Decreases risk of developing diabetes
• It helps you to achieve a better night's sleep
• Improves mental health and wellbeing

Psychological Self Care

You must practise self care that helps your mind. Taking good care of yourself like this will ensure you can maintain good mental health. Some ways that you can practise psychological self care are:

• Take time away from social media or limit your usage. Social media can damage your mental health as it portrays unrealistic standards for all areas of life and can increase stress, anxiety and depression.
• Practise mindfulness. When you practise self care through mindfulness, you begin to become more aware of your life. Therefore, you will become more aware of what is happening around you at any given time. As a result, you will focus less on what has happened in the past and stress less about the future.
• Practise gratitude. It can often be challenging to appreciate what we have in our lives. However, taking good care of yourself by practising mindfulness allows you to reflect on all the good things in your life. As a result, you will have more positive emotions and feel happier overall.

Emotional Self Care

Emotional self care is when we make ourselves our main priority and put ourselves first to manage stress. Some ways of taking good care of yourself in this way are:

Volunteering

When we help others, without expecting anything in return, we can practise self care. In other words, taking good care of yourself can be done when we do things such as volunteering or charity work. We feel good about ourselves. As a result, we can take pride that our actions have helped others and therefore become happier. In addition to making us feel happy, there are many other benefits to completing voluntary work, such as:

• Giving you a sense of purpose
• Increasing self-confidence
• Combatting depression and anxiety
• It helps to build new contacts, which can act as support when you do feel down.

Learning To Say No

Often, we struggle to say no to things as we are afraid to let others down. However, you should not live your life to please others. Therefore, saying no sometimes is an excellent way of taking good care of yourself. Everyone has busy lives, but our lives mustn't be so busy that we neglect to practise self care. Say yes only to things that are important to you and that you want to say yes to. We should not feel pressured into anything and live our lives for our pleasure. In other words, saying no allows more time for us to catch up with our loved ones, practise our hobbies, and relax. In short, live how you want to live and don't live for anyone else.

Social Self Care

What is a better way of taking good care of yourself there than spending time with others? Socialising is so important for everyone as people need to interact with others to maintain good mental health. In other words, to ensure you are taking good care of yourself, you should spend time socialising with others. Therefore, try to meet new people, and spend time with friends and family. Best of all, when you have good relationships with others, you gain a support circle. In other words, you will develop relationships with others and can rely on help when you need it.

Professional Self Care

Professional self care is about taking good care of yourself regarding your professional life, whatever that is. Some ways to ensure that you take good care of yourself professionally are:

• Eating well at work
• Knowing where you stand about your professional boundaries. In other words, don't commit to something that you are not comfortable doing.
• Enhance your professional development.

Environmental Self Care

Environmental self care is about being in an environment you feel comfortable in and can destress. Therefore, try to keep your space clean and tidy, whether that is at home or work. When you have a clean and tidy environment, you will have a clearer head to reduce stress, promote relaxation, and help focus.

Spiritual Self Care

Spiritual self care is allowing yourself time to focus on the things you value and believe in. Therefore, whether you are religious or not, you can still spend time doing so. Spending time in nature is an excellent way of taking good care of yourself. In other words, you can clear your head and be mindful of the present. Different ways of taking good care of yourself spiritually are meditation and journaling, enabling you to focus on the present and how your day has gone.

Financial Self Care

Financial self care is simply about being financially stable in that you know where your money is coming from and when it is coming. Moreover, taking good care of yourself financially means knowing your expenses to meet payments on time. As a result, you can save and spend wisely.

Do What You Love

The best bit of taking good care of yourself is that there are no rules. Instead, the reason why self care is critical is to make you happy in whatever way you feel works for you. Self care is different for everyone. In other words, what works for you may not work for someone else. Therefore, find out what makes you feel good and make time for it. Although you may not prioritise hobbies, music and a warm bath, they will do you much good. In short, feeling happy means, you are less stressed. As a result, you may become more productive and more pleasant for others to be around.

Written by Amy Bamford