Self-Care Practices to Make You Feel Unstoppable

Shannon

6 years ago

Simple Self-Care Practices to Make You Feel Unstoppable

As of late I have felt myself loosening the reigns on my self-care practices. And I must admit, the effects are tangible. I have not been properly fostering my mental wellbeing or prioritising self-care practices. It does take a physical and emotional toll. Over the past year, as I have been diving more and more into self-development practices, I have become very aware of when something is out of balance. I can tell when I am not in alignment. When I have not been making self-care and my mental state a priority, I feel it manifest as physical symptoms.

While it can feel discouraging that I still get down at times, I take it as a positive thing because now I can actually distinguish between feeling well and feeling less so. Not too long ago, I would have probably never been able to recognise what it was to feel good and have mental clarity. Frankly, try as I might to appear upbeat on the outside, I felt down and off-balance all the time. I did not prioritise my happiness, nor did I give a second thought to self-care practices.

On my blog, I like to tackle all aspects of self-care, from beauty practices to mindset practices. This blog post primarily focuses on self-care practices that will have an impact on the way you feel. They are mindset habits you can take to foster a positive mental attitude. Everything stems from the mind. Work on your mindset and the quality of your daily life will improve multiple times over.

Feeling unstoppable

Implementing daily self-care practices is empowering. Once you know how to take care of yourself and your own wellbeing, you begin to realise that your fate lies in your own hands. Oftentimes, people blame the outcome of their lives on others. The problem with doing this is, you are placing your life in the hands of other people. I have news for you: you are in control of your own life. I know that many times in life we are faced with circumstances we did not ask for nor did we forsake upon ourselves. There are certain situations beyond our control. But one thing you can control is the little internal unit that is your state of being.

While you may not have a say in what goes on in the outside world, you do have a say in the way you run your internal factory. You have a say in the software and hardware of your spirit, soul and body. And if you dedicate enough time to working on it, you can achieve things beyond your wildest imagination. So, nurture and invest the time and energy in to yourself. The work you do on yourself will no doubt be the most strenuous and at times excruciating work you will ever do. But it will be worth it.

Once I began on my journey of really tuning into myself, I began to see that self-care was not selfish. That I am far more useful when I am in a beautiful state than when I am in a state of anguish and chaos. Whenever I feel myself slipping under, I realise it is time to re-centre and prioritise my wellbeing. These simple self-care practices will help you to be the most optimal version of yourself.

Do not look at social media first thing in the morning.

I took a six-month complete break from social media this year. Yes, six months. In the current day I realise that is nearly unheard of. And I still haven’t fully returned to social media yet. I find that while social media is a valuable marketing tool, it does nothing for making you feel good about yourself. Scrolling past a host of curated images showcasing the edited versions of other people’s lives honestly does nothing for my state of wellbeing.

You want to set your day up for brilliance and success when you wake up in the morning. Bombarding yourself with hundreds of snapshots of other people does nothing but evoke various emotions in you, all in a short space of time. It may evoke negative and uneasy emotions. You may find yourself unnecessarily comparing your life to that of others. If you want to be drained of energy and allow any toxic influence into your life first thing in the morning, social media is the fastest way to do so.

It can be tempting to automatically open social media apps when you wake up. Especially if you have to reach for your phone when the alarm goes off. But I know that avoiding all social media in the first hours upon waking can result in a much better mindset for the day than when choosing to glance at Instagram. Be in control of your outcomes from the moment you wake up in the morning. Cancel out the external noise of social media and focus on you. Feel your body fully, feel gratitude for being here, and begin your day.

2. Express gratitude daily.

I consider taking time for gratitude as one of my self-care practices because it has such a notable effect on every aspect of life. Really being grateful for the blessings in your life encourages even more things to be grateful for.It is a powerful thing, to write down the things you are grateful for on a daily basis. Even if it means only writing down a small minor win. I always try to do a mental checklist of everything I am grateful for. However, the physical act of writing down three things is even more impactful.

Write down three things you are grateful for in the morning, and three things before you go to bed. It’s simple but effective and you can start with a simple exercise like using this 6 minute diary every morning. This mere act will help invite more gratitude into your daily life and help you cope on days where there is a level of overwhelm or frustration. Gratitude is immensely important for personal growth and constant development. It is one of the most simple but proficient self-care practises.

3. Exercise

Exercise is high up on the list of self-care practices that impact me most. The daily practice of moving my body has definitely taken a back seat in recent months. I have no solid excuses, I just have not been prioritising this aspect in my daily life as much. It can be discouraging when you have fallen behind on your strength training and return to the gym feeling that you can barely move half of the weight you did before. I am planning to start up again slowly and consistently, even if it means only doing bodyweight exercises for a while first.

Many people approach exercise with a view to lose a set amount of weight, or slim down for a big event. They use this particular goal as their fuel to work out or go to the gym. This mentality is a short-term fuel and is no way sustainable in the long term. People search for some kind of motivation to push them to go to the gym. They push themselves to exercise out of guilt for overindulging. It is almost like a ritual of punishment for so many people.

This entire mindset is unsustainable and will not set you up for success in the long term. You burn yourself out with this constant exertion and not giving yourself the space to rest and recover. Once your big event comes and goes, exercise will be put on the backburner and is no longer a priority. In fact, you may end up dreading exercise because of the mindset you have had towards it the entire time. It is like you have to be all-in or not at all.

Enjoy the process

The issue with this is people are so focused on attaining the results that they completely neglect the process. They don’t enjoy the process, the physical act of getting their body moving, the endorphins and feel-good chemicals being released. Trying to quantify your goal into a specific number of inches or a specific weight on the scale may be a short-term way of attaining results. But the human body can only be pushed so far, and you may end up rebounding twice as hard once you loosen your grip.

This is why the majority of people are on this perpetual cycle of weight loss and weight gain, on a diet and off a diet. Many people are at some kind of war with the gym, dread the act of exercise and impatiently scrutinise themselves every day for results. And if the results do not come fast enough, they give up or turn to drastic measures.

I love the practice of being at the gym. I am by no means a professional lifter or the fittest individual but that is not my reason for working out. Going through the motions and process has a therapeutic effect. I now view exercise as a self-care practice. And that is how working out has become one of my favourite things to do. As a girl who values her lazy time, that is quite a feat to achieve.

Don’t just rely on motivation

To me, motivation is fleeting; it comes and goes. Some days you feel inspired and some days the gym is the last thing you want to see. I view the gym as my happy place. Yes, I have been able to make an enclosed environment full of sweat and rusty weights my happy place. I know that the Bro Science mentality views the gym as a place where you have to push yourself and go hard, but truthfully, the gym is simply my therapy.

As someone who has always been on the petite side and never engaged in exercise before, I did not begin the gym for aesthetic reasons. Sure, I would love to gain some muscle and strength but that would be a happy side effect rather than a main goal. I began because I realised that the designated time I gave myself to work out was my ‘me time’, my little escape. A place to let out my frustrations and to feel strong and empowered.

Mental effects

My mood is lighter when I have been exercising. I have more mental clarity and I feel more resilient towards stressors. I know for a fact that if I had been purely motivated by appearance to work out, it would not still be such an important aspect of my life today. The key to building a consistent exercise ritual is to find a mode of activity that you enjoy. Something you look forward to doing daily.

I enjoy the physical act of being inside a gym because it somehow gets me into a head space where I know this is my uninterrupted time. There are many intense exercises and workouts you can push yourself through, but my personal goal is not to achieve a certain aesthetic. Rather, it is to keep my mental state in check. I favour slow and controlled movements to intense bursts. And I avoid cardio at all costs; I don’t enjoy the repetitive movement. I like changing up between movements and running in place for an hour just is not interesting to me.

Working out really helped me cope a great deal last year when I was dealing with a lot of tension, stress and unfortunate events in my life. I have not been as zealous at the gym recently, so I will begin making it a point to etch out time in my schedule for work outs. I am not a fan of therapy, so I treat exercise as my time for growth and personal therapy. Instead of treating it as a punishment, treat it as a reliever. Find an exercise you love, a routine that gives you peace of mind and consider it your self-care time.

4. Meditation.

I have attempted to meditate once or twice before deciding it did not work for me. There have been times in my life where I have had to deal with chaotic situations. The world was seemingly crumbling around me. There was noise and destruction from every corner. I was a little afraid to meditate, to be alone with my thoughts for too long. I have been sceptical of meditation in the past. But adding meditation to your list of self-care practices can help to build mental strength and resilience. It makes you better able to manage external noise.

The mere act of deep breathing has a greatly underestimated powerful effect on calming you down. If you do not meditate regularly, it can be difficult to remember to find the time to engage in meditation. However, if meditation is something that truly helps with your mindset, and calm the business of your mind, it is a practice that is worth implementing into your routine.

Meditation keeps overwhelm at bay

Meditation teaches proper breathing and mental strength techniques that keep issues like anxiety and overwhelm at bay. For people who, like me, find it extremely hard to quiet their mind, factoring in a little bit of time every day can help to organise the clutter. But it is not something that comes easily. It most certainly is a lot easier to ignore your internal cues and continue wading along. Until of course you find yourself chin-deep in overwhelm and barely able to keep yourself afloat. So, preventing yourself from drowning in your troubles is key.

There are a number of ways to meditate. It’s all about choosing the mode of meditation that suits you best. I am considering using Calm for guided meditation but there are a whole host of other meditation apps to explore too. When selecting apps, I tend to download a few different ones at once, in order to trial and test which one most suits my needs. Please let me know if you have any other meditation app recommendations.

Ideally, meditation should be one of the first self-care practices of the day. I would like to meditate first thing in the morning in order to put myself into a peaceful, mentally strong state for the day. I struggle with racing thoughts and a rushing mind where I can barely piece together one thought quickly enough. Meditation is an incredibly effective tool for your self-care practices tool kit. It helps to quiet the clutter and give some relief to a busy mind.

5. Acupuncture.

Until only a few months ago, I had never considered acupuncture as a plausible solution to any of my issues. I have not attended acupuncture in months now since I have been away from my usual practitioner and have not been able to find another one. And let me tell you, I notice a big difference.

Acupuncture is great for rebalancing your energy and blood flow. It helps to relieve mental conditions such as anxiety, depression and insomnia. And there is even data to suggest it can assist with hormonal issues. There are anecdotal accounts of women whose infertility issues were solved with acupuncture treatment, so it may be worth looking into if that is something you are struggling with.

This is definitely one of the self-care practices I need to get back into. I plan to immediately schedule an acupuncture appointment once university starts, since acupuncture is a great stress reliever. I will warn that I end up feeling incredibly sleepy after every session. So, just make sure you do not have to do any strenuous activity on acupuncture days.

6. Say No.

It can be difficult to turn down opportunities. Especially if you’re someone who suffers a recurring case of FOMO. You want to do everything and be everywhere at one time. The problem is, you are one person. You have a limited capacity to execute and truly be able to give your all to multiple things at once.

If you have a chronic case of overachiever, you might fall into the trap of spreading yourself too thin. All your time may be dissipated to other places until there is nothing left for yourself. I have come to think of it as having a battery. There is a designated amount of energy and time to allocate to specific things. Wearing yourself away with depleting tasks is not self-care.

Value your time

Your time is precious. It is important to be selective with the things you choose to spend your time on. Unless you have certain urgent moral obligations like a funeral or wedding, do not allow external noise to dictate the way you spend your time. Saying no can be hard but it is extremely empowering to be able to speak your mind. As you get older you realise that time is the most valuable asset available. Do not expend your time or energy on things that are not important.

Do not put the things things you value most in second place. Always keep in mind the fact that by wasting energy in other places, you may not have the bandwidth to complete the tasks you originally set for yourself. So, stop selling yourself short and devote more time to self-care practices and doing the things you love. Prioritise things that bring you joy and advance you in your life. Discard the rest. Stop saying yes because you think that you have to.

7. Do more things that make you happy.

If something brings you joy, you should not need anyone’s permission to continue enforcing it in your life. And you should not feel guilty for choosing to do something that makes you happy over something you are ‘meant’ to be doing. If everyone else is doing something that you are not comfortable with, or behaving in a manner you would rather not engage in, do not hop on the bandwagon simply to try and fit in.

Do more of the things that you notice raise your vibration, and make you feel happy and more uplifted. Carve out the time to do things that you love as a means self love and as part of your self-care practices routine. Fill your days with things that make you feel your best. Steer clear of anything that makes you feel inadequate or unhappy. Remember you have a limited amount of energy to dispense. Choose your tasks wisely.

8. Treasure taking time to be with yourself.

This is one of the most powerful self-care practices I do not think people utilise enough. For some reason, people do not appreciate the time they spend with themselves. They view it as time spent alone. It confounds me and I wonder, do people really dislike themselves that much that they abhor the time they spend with themselves? Is it that mind-boggling of a concept to actually enjoy and actually choose to spend time with yourself?

I view it as spending time with myself, rather than time by myself. Nowadays with technology plugged in at all times and constant distractions, people can spend time by themselves but still not appreciate what it means to be with themselves. Mastering this time alone to really become self aware and conscious of who you truly are, is invaluable.

We live in our bodies, in our souls 24/7, yet we never really take the time to get to know the person whose soul and body we are inhabiting. When you enjoy your own company, you can begin working to improve yourself and grow yourself. How can you work on improving something when you have no idea what is wrong with it?

I can honestly say I never find myself getting bored on my own. I love being around people and connecting with people, but I give so much of myself a lot of the time that it can be depleting. Whereas you are still within certain confinements and are expected to maintain a certain image around others, when you are with yourself you are unrestricted. It is the only time you can truly be yourself. Take advantage of it and get to know yourself.

Life is about reinvention and updates

There is a reason that apps and software undergo constant updates. Developers are tirelessly looking for areas to improve on in order to enhance user experience. But they have to understand the software inside out in order to do so. The same thing applies to you. You need to fully immerse yourself into who you are and what drives you. I am not talking about enhancing your physical appearance. I mean looking at yourself internally, understanding your own software.

Many people severely lack a sense of self-awareness. They just follow other people and have no idea what they want. They are so out of touch with themselves, that when they do not have someone else around to make decisions for them, they are lost and uncertain. These people never change or grow and are still doing the same thing they were doing five years ago. They fail to learn from their mistakes and are too afraid to stray from the feeling of familiarity.

You cannot improve on something you don’t understand. Whether that means discerning your likes and dislikes, getting a clear picture of your ambitions, understanding your areas of weakness. On a physical level it might even mean taking the time to explore your own body. These are all self-care practices. You deserve to grow and develop. You deserve the time spent on improving and knowing yourself. Instead of spending all this time learning about other people’s lives, it is important to appreciate what it means to be you.

Make self-care a priority

These are some small, daily self-care practices that have a huge impact on how I feel on a daily basis. Once you begin implementing them you will be able to tell when you have been slacking on your self-care practices. I have struggled with crippling anxiety in the past which takes a lot of time and work to get under control. By implementing a few simple habits and making self-care practices a priority in daily life, I can ensure that I keep my mental state in check. This means I nip it in the bud before it worsens and never have to fall into a downward spiral or be in a low mental state again.

Truly looking after the way that you feel will in turn result in you showing up in the world as the best version of yourself. Make it a point of doing things that charge your energy, rather than exclusively giving time to the things that drain it. If you are considering introducing some of these self-care practices into your own life, I hope this post is helpful. I know it was a lengthy one and you may not have had the chance to read the entire post, but I hope that whatever small snippet you managed to assimilate, gave a little food for thought.