How I Practise Self Care

Self-care is important for our physical, mental, and emotional health. I don’t think I’m very good with self-care. What about you?

Some years ago, I was much better at self-care than I am now! Shocking, I know. But does it mean that I care about myself less? I don’t think so. I think my priorities have shifted a bit, I don’t have much time, and also I want to funnel money into other areas. I hope that some of you can relate to that, can’t you?

Of course, I have my list of self-care tips that are part of my ideal. In fact, I’ll share my ideal hypothetical list with you and then I’ll share what actually does happen.

My ideal self-care list

• A daily, relaxing shower
• a manicure and pedicure every two weeks
• A facial at least weekly
• a full body massage every month
• 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least 4 days per week
• A 1-hour session per day of doing nothing but relaxing and thinking my own thoughts
• A 1-hour reading each day

I can think of a few other ideas that I would absolutely love, but let me take a pause on that talk about what I find that I actually do in the name of self-care. I have a shower daily and I am very happy about that. In fact, when the time is very hot, my shower times can be more. I sometimes stay longer than necessary and treat the session as a bit of a luxury session.

I use my favourite shower gel which smells absolutely divine. My mom in Florida makes sure that we never run out and it is my little luxury each day. I also enjoy having a shower in the middle of the day, it feels even more special. I use the time to ‘sort out’ my head space and it’s a special time when I relax and unwind.

As for the other items on my list, I hardly get a chance to do them or I choose, as I say, to funnel my money into other areas. For example, right now my heels feel really crusty, but being frugal and mindful right now of how I spend my money in this economic climate, I chose to save up the £30 or so, and send it off to pay down on my mortgage! I still love myself, but, for the time being, I sometimes give myself a foot soak and do the exfoliating myself. It is not often enough though, I can tell.

As for the other items on my ideal list: I don’t walk (or exercise) as often as I’d like to. It’s partially because of the cold and partially because I am lazy. We recently checked out a gym that is close to home but it’s where the recent Commonwealth games were held and they are still deconstructing things and reassigning the buildings. Here are my excuses about the others near me: they’re too small and crowded, or there isn’t enough parking. Pray for me. We even considered buying a treadmill that folds away easily for storage as we haven’t got a lot of space. Under the biggest sofa looked ideal for storing it but when we actually took the measurements we realised that it wouldn’t be high enough for the folded thickness.

My reading sessions are few and far between and maybe I do get to do 1 hour per week! I guess I compensate for it by spending multiple 1-hour sessions of doing nothing, he he! 😂 Oh, the bliss of leaving teaching!

I particularly like holidays where I am in a beautiful setting and there’s not much to do. Waking up with a to do list that includes going fishing, can’t be a bad idea too.

Update!

Last night during our Happy Hour Live on Youtube, we asked our subscribers for tips for frugal self-care and I came up with a new little list. Afterall, we shouldn’t be bothered by having to fork out a lot of money for looking after ourselves. There should be things available to us that we can use.

• Reading books you liked as a child
• Using a paste of baking soda and coconut oil for use on the face
• Watching comedy (I actually forgot about this one and it was useful in getting me through grief)
• Journaling
• Make a face powder with arrowroot and cocoa powder
• Make a face wash/mask with aloe vera
•  To make a hair spritz, boil rosemary in water, cool it down and pour into a spray bottle for use
• For a leave-on-face treatment, make a paste with one and a half TBSP safflower oil and two TBSP cornstarch
• Long leisurely walks
• Dancing!
• A nice, warm bath with soothing music is a great self-care activity.
• My favorite self-care is watching things that make me laugh and playing dancing music for an hour where I sweat making it a great health benefit for me.

If you’d like to see this chat in action, click to watch the video below on YouTube.

How about you? What does self-care look like for you? And what would your ideal look like?

PS. I did get a shoulder massage once, and this made me feel like I would enjoy the full-body massage. Some people say it can be painful though! What do you think?

My Word of the Week is Self-Care.