Step one: Change the way you think about self-care.

“Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.” If you think of self-care in these terms it can become a chore. When you try to do it all – take care of your mental, emotional, AND physical health all at once, it is overwhelming and time-consuming. Thinking about it like this makes it seem like you need to carve out a large chunk of time to really engage in self-care. Change the way you think about self-care starting by saying self-care does not have to equal self-improvement. Self-care doesn’t even have to change your daily routine. Self-care can be being kind to yourself or letting yourself relax while doing “nothing”. Changing the way you think: having a positive mindset, during your routine can be self-care or make your daily routine your self-care.

Step Two: Identify the things you are already doing that can be relaxing/self-care.

Think about what kinds of things you are already doing that make you happy or bring you joy. Examples: Watching TV, reading, eating a meal, sitting outside, etc.
Once you identify these things, be intentional in focusing thought or energy into those normal parts of your routine that can help you feel better.
Step three: Turn off the noise in your head so you can relax
Your mind can tell your emotions that you are relaxed. What you say to yourself during self-care, down time, anytime, impacts your emotional and physical health. Our minds are powerful and changing our thoughts can impact our emotions and how we feel physically. When engaging in an activity that brings you joy or could be relaxing, give yourself permission to enjoy it. You might say something like, “I deserve to enjoy this”, “My to-do list can wait”, “Relaxing is on my to-do list”. Being mindful and intentional of what you’re doing increases the value of self-care.

Here are some examples of how to change your thinking to improve your mindset and easily increase your self-care

• Watching TV can be self-care, it all depends on how we do it. The problem with TV and why it gets a bad reputation for not being self-care, is that most of the time we come home from work, have dinner and then we sit on the couch and watch TV. The whole time we’re watching TV we’re thinking about all of the things that we should be doing instead, like the laundry, the dishes, cleaning, etc. If you are feeling guilty and “shoulding” all over yourself, you’re not really relaxing and enjoying watching TV. Here’s a different approach, sit on the couch and you say, “I’m going to sit down, watch TV, and allow myself to relax and enjoy it. There’s nothing else I need to be doing; this is my self-care time.
• Commute time can also be used as self-care time. When you get in the car remind yourself, “I’m driving to work. I’m going to listen to this audiobook and enjoy it and there’s nothing else I need to be thinking about right now.” Or on the train think to yourself, “I’m going to read a book and listen to music because there’s nothing else I need to be doing right now.”
• You can have self-care time by mindfully taking a lunch. Saying to yourself, “I’m going to take these 20 minutes to enjoy my lunch, I deserve them.” Then taking 20 minutes to yourself to enjoy your lunch and not think about the stress of your day. You could do the same with your morning coffee, “I’m going to drink my coffee for 15 minutes and scroll on my phone. This is okay because I need to take some down time.”

You’ll notice that the definition of self-care says it’s something that we do deliberately to take care of ourselves. Self-care doesn’t have to be a big activity that takes up a chunk of time; all it has to be is deliberate. Being mindful and changing the way you think about the things that you do for yourself and the time that you take for yourself can be a manageable way to add self-care into a busy day. Don’t underestimate the power of your mind.