Paying attention to yourself
All our actions are shaped by our habits, good and bad. These ensure that we do not question every decision we are about to take and can therefore focus on the things that are supposedly important. Taking good care of yourself is usually a conscious decision.
In this article you will learn how self-caring you are and what you can do to integrate more self-care into your everyday life.
Definition
What does self-care mean?
Self-care means to care about your mind and body. Taking care of and observing yourself is an essential requirement for physical and mental health. “Healthy egoism” helps to always keep an eye on your personal needs.
Priorities
Create Time slots
Lack of time is often one of the biggest challenges for us to overcome in order to integrate self-care in day-to-day life. Therefore, it is essential to prioritise the time that is left after work and other commitments. This includes identifying and avoiding so-called “time thieves” as well as consciously blocking time for yourself and communicating these time slots to the people around you.
Think about what gives you energy, peace and joy and fill your free time with it. Keep in mind that your everyday life also offers many opportunities for self-care. You will find some examples in the next section.
Implemen-
tation
How it works
Self-care consists of smaller or bigger things. The most important thing is that you stop thinking and start doing.
Here are some examples of concrete things you can do:
- Start your day with a yoga routine (check the video below in this article) and don’t check your phone.
- Take a walk outside during your lunch break.
- After an intense situation, take 5 minutes to take a deep breath and reflect on what went well.
- Write down 10 small things that you enjoyed during the day and train your mindfulness for the supposedly small things.
- Meet with friends to cook together.
- Remember the last time you really laughed.
- Run barefoot through the grass.
- Make cooking dates with friends.
- Remember the last moment, you laughed out loud.
As you can see your everyday life offers lots of opportunities to take care of and be mindful with yourself. But are you really self-caring with yourself? You can do the self-test before reading through the 5 tips for more self-care.
5 tips for more self-care
1) Start small
If you’re serious about this, start now. Decide now when you want to take 5 minutes of your time throughout the day. Block this time in your calendar and do something nice just for you in those 5 minutes, like going outside and getting some fresh air, listening to your favorite song, calling a friend, or doing some gentle movements. A little extra tip: If it feels like a reward, then you’ve done it right.
2) Prioritize
Yes, every day has only 24 hours, and that will not change anytime soon. Whether you have time to take care of yourself is always in your own hands. Of course, there are phases in life when we are more in “survival mode” and simply try to somehow manage our everyday life. If this feeling became normal for you, then it is high time to change something. Do not wait for others. Start with yourself and decide what is important to you.
3) Get support
Everyone needs a friendly gripping crocodile! This good friend is someone who knows you well and feels when you want to fob him off with excuses. He remains persistent and nags you until you put your words into action. Sounds unpleasant? Good, because it should be. The sooner you start doing something good for yourself, the sooner the friendly crocodile will give you a break.
4) Be emotional
Are you a bit uninspired and don’t know what is actually good for you? That’s not unusual, after all we are often very good at suppressing our needs. Let’s try emotions and sensations: When was the last time you had goose bumps from joy? When did you burst with pride? Which food made your mouth water? When were you overwhelmed by the starry sky? Search for these feelings and perceive them consciously.
5) Ask others
Often our best friends know very well what is really good for us. So ask your closest friends to make a list of 3 things you should definitely do again. Challenge accepted? Then have fun following the principle: going from knowing to doing.
