It is undeniable that the “new normal” has affected us in many ways possible, and those changes include people striving harder than ever before. As people work and study hard every day, we often overlook some self-care habits that we should prioritize and include in our free-time schedules to help ourselves find happiness and rest in some habits that will also help us learn how to love and value ourselves more.
Taking care of yourself can always be done by taking care of your health. If you have no idea how to start experiencing self-care even while staying at home, try to start with the following habits that might change not just your lifestyle, but also your views on how important it is to take good care of yourself more.
Here are some self-care habits that you might want to try:
Getting Enough Sleep
To start off, you should consider sleeping a priority in your daily schedule since it helps you be at your best, both physically and mentally. According to studies, no longer than 17 hours is the recommended amount of time for a person to stay awake per day, and the number of hours needed to have a good quality sleep is around 7 to 8 hours. Sleep is actually essential to all forms of life on earth, but it is also something that many take for granted.
A good night’s sleep is somehow one of the self-care habits that shouldn’t be often overlooked because it helps your brain rest from all the things that keep your mind working all day and night. It also restores the energy your body needs to get sick less often and be more active, lowers your risk of having serious health issues, reduces stress, better cognitive ability, a better mood, and being able to interact better with other people.
If you want to practice self-love and self-care more often by getting enough sleep, you can also do other things that you think may help you sleep better such as changing your bed sheets once a week, keeping your room dark and quiet, adjusting your preferred bedroom temperature, doing a relaxing pre-bed routine, having an essential oil diffuser, or simply anything that makes you comfortable and relax until you fall asleep.
Considering Work-out as part of your Daily Routine
Self-love starts with taking care of your body and loving it. But it is also normal to feel unsatisfied about what we look like because it is what makes us humans after all. However, it doesn’t really mean that we should just accept what we are at the moment. Some insecurities can actually benefit us because it is what pushes us to be better than who we are before. You can start working out for whatever reason it may be, as long as you are doing it for yourself. Exercising helps us become healthier by keeping us in good shape and in the right amount of weight, improves heart health, reduces the feelings of anxiety and/or depression, lowers blood pressure, having good muscle strength and balance, possibly reduces the ability to feel pain or getting tired immediately, and many more good health benefits.
Working out also helps you become patient with the progress you make every day as you exercise. Losing those fats that you would like to get rid of is something that would really take time and discipline, so it is important to include good thoughts to help encourage yourself more to not give up. It helps you practice how you would motivate yourself on things that you aren’t sure of, if it would really work or not, but at the same time helps you feel better whenever you exert effort and feel proud when you see improvements from your hard work.
Exercise is a highly recommended habit for self-care to help make one feel more confident and healthier, but it doesn’t mean that you should beat yourself by doing hard-level workouts just so you could reach your ultimate body goal immediately. A process will always be a process, no matter how big or small it is.
Have Yourself a Skin Care Routine
Ever since the pandemic started, people frequently get 2x stressed over many things that affect their daily lives. And as we get stressed and feel more down, our skin ages which can possibly also affect our emotions more. Many people say that “what we feel on the inside at the moment, can be shown through our physical appearance.” Thus, our skin might reflect how we are currently holding up or how tired we are with our endless struggles.
Self-love is not selfish at all. Therefore, making time for skincare shouldn’t be seen as something pretentious, rich, or spoiled people only do. It is highly recommended for everyone, especially adults, to help keep our skin healthy and young, and to help improve our mood since it is very calming and relaxing.
Doing your skincare routine can also be viewed as an “honoring yourself” moment, by simply making time to spoil yourself with products that will help you feel better, more confident, and more ready to face another challenge in life.
When doing your skincare routine, you can also do other stuff that makes you feel happier and light like playing your favorite playlist in the background, watching a movie, vlogging or watching vlogs of your favorite influencers, and many more.
Organize your thoughts
Judgmental words from other people are very inevitable. People always have something to say whether it is a good one or not. But keep in mind that words that pull you down are as powerful as the words that will help lift you back up. If they can’t accept you for who you are, then who will?
People always think that if you’re not accepted or are experiencing criticism from others, the problem is themselves. Therefore, most of the time we beat ourselves through our own thoughts by speaking worse to ourselves than the words being thrown to us by others.
Organizing your thoughts can be a step towards self-love and self-care by either practicing talking good to yourself like complimenting your outfit of the day, or telling yourself to shake off that negative vibe, and do not think about what others will think about you because what matters more is what you think about yourself. Another way to organize your thoughts is by writing in your journal a letter for yourself, either a thank you message, or a letter for my anxious and insecure self-message that you could read when you feel either of those emotions in the future or possibly the next day, or any type of message that you know you would love to go back and read again because you know that it will help you feel better by the time that you need to read it. Organizing your thoughts is a self-care habit that simply helps you overpower the negative thoughts in your head by doing or saying something good about yourself.
This is honestly one of the highly self-care habits that should be prioritized more to everyone because kindness starts within. And you can’t give something you don’t have. If you can’t be kind to yourself, then how can you be kind to others?
Invest some of your time with God
Struggles and challenges in life are indeed things that either make or break us. But oftentimes, we get tired and weak because we couldn’t handle all these problems alone. We get so drowned and distracted by our thoughts and emotions that we usually fail to recognize the simplest solution there is: to pray.
Life is like a roller coaster ride, it has its own ups and downs, sometimes it gets fast and then slows down. But like any other ride, it always ends. We should always pray harder when things get hard and rough because your worst day with God will always be better than your best day without Him. The best way to express oneself is by expressing yourself to God. It’s okay to depend and find strength in Him when we can’t fight back because we feel weak and empty. People always try to run and find their own person to seek and satisfy their thirst for attention to be heard and to be seen. But we often end up being more broken and thirstier when we draw love from the wrong source.
But fear not, because when you turn to God, you will never have to beg for love and you will never be thirsty again. He may be our God, but He can also be your Father. A good listener and a good teacher. Never be afraid to open your soul to God and ask Him to heal every wound and bruise. Because the real battle only begins when we kneel down and pray.
“I have loved you at your worst.” -Romans 5:8
When life gets rough and you need a moment to just pause and breathe for a while. We always run to the place we seek comfort and convenience, and what we call home. Crown Asia offers numerous houses and lots for sale in Cavite where people enjoy the relaxing lifestyle and view it brings such as the Ponticelli subdivision at Bacoor, Cavite. It does not just provide a house and lot for sale, but also a lot for sale and a house for rent, all inspired by Italy’s picturesque countryside towns. It also adds relief and joy to an individual’s feeling, in having a nice room, location, and atmosphere whenever they practice and improve their self-care habits in the comforts of their house. Having a good, clean, and peaceful home helps a person achieve their successful me-time experience and adds up the motivation to be more consistent in practicing such self-care habits.
Related Blog: A Guide to Investing in Yourself: Self Care Tips to Improve your Well Being
