Well, it’s been a while!
I haven’t written a post in quite a few months, which I’m sure not many people have noticed, but I wanted to get back into the swing of things and start blogging more frequently again.
So, this #SelfCareSunday, I thought I’d talk a little bit about what self-care looks like to me…
Preventative Self-Care
I’ve been trying to put more of my time this year into preventative self-care. That is, taking care of myself to keep my body and mind healthy, to avoid any down-turns in my mental health, rather than waiting until I feel the need to use self-care to recover.
One of the main ways I’ve been doing this (hint the picture above…) is heading to the gym. I have a real love-hate relationship with exercise on the whole, but I do know that if I drag myself out the house and go for a jog, or sweat my way through a gym class, I do feel better. This works if I’m in a bad mood, but I have also noticed that on the weeks that I put the effort in to work out more often, I feel better on the whole.
I also like to make sure that I am always getting enough sleep. I am someone who needs plenty of sleep to function properly! I know this fact about myself, so why starve myself of sleep? For me to feel calm and prepared for the day ahead, I need to have had a good night’s sleep.
Self-Care First Aid
Sometimes (frequently) you have a bad (awful) day, filled with stress and panic, and you need some serious self-care time that evening to recover.
On those days (and there are plenty of them, believe me!) I like to take time to myself to calm down, relax and repair. This will look different all the time, but it usually involves some of the following:
- Climbing into bed early.
- Curling up with a good book. (Have you read my post on The Best Book Genres for a Cosy Night In?)
- Watching Netflix. (I might write a Netflix recommendations post soon, if you’d be interested in reading that then please let me know in the comments!)
- Cuddling my cat.
- Cooking up some delicious comfort food.
- Taking a bath with lots of Dead Sea salts.
- Stretching/attempting some funny-looking yoga.
I have found that doing some more pro-active and preventative self-care has lessened the frequency of those ‘first aid’ days, but sometimes you just have to spend a few hours recovering.
What does self-care look like to you?
If you want to read more about my self-care habits, I have written posts before on winter self-care ideas and low energy self-care activities.
The Self-Care Sloth 
Preventative self care is so important! I often forget that self care is necessary before you really need it as opposed to in a moment when you’ve hit sort of a rock bottom.
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I know, me too! This is what I realised earlier this year – it’s so important to take care of yourself before it’s urgent. Just like with your physical health!
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Preventative self care is so i.portant and something I’ve been trying to introduce into my own routine. For self care ‘first aid’ Netflix is one of my favourite outlets.
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I love it! Getting into bed early and reading a good book always helps me relax
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My favourite part of the day 🙂
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