Top 5 Selfcare Practices That Improve Mental Health
I was honored to be interviewed by Maria Angelova with Authority Magazine on the top five selfcare practices that improve mental wellness. Here is a snippet of the full article:
Here is our primary question. Can you please share your “Top Five Selfcare Practices That Each Of Us Can Use To Improve Our Mental Wellness”?
Take responsibility for your own self-care. You and only you can provide yourself with the care that you need and deserve. So many people put this power into the hands of others in their lives and then blame them for not being properly taken care of. This just continues the cycle of neglect. Going back to the car analogy: if a tree branch falls on your car and breaks a window, who is responsible for getting it fixed. You are. If the check engine light goes on who is responsible for finding out what is wrong? You are. If someone rear-ends your car and causes damage to the bumper, who is responsible for fixing it? You are. The same applies to self-care. Only you can do it. And if you are waiting for someone else to magically take care of it for you, your mental wellness is going to continue to decline.
Accept that self-care is a continuous process. One vacation isn’t going to heal all your woes forever. It’ll help, but you will need more than that. Same applies to a single therapy session, a single yoga class, a single walk around the block, a single conversation with your partner, etc. Self-care is not one and done. It is a continual practice. Just like how we need to continuously eat and sleep and bathe and use the restroom, the same applies to our self-care.
Movement. We are physical beings that are designed for movement. Find a way to move your body each and every day. Walking, running, swimming, biking, yoga, Pilates, weight lifting, boxing, jiu jitsu, etc. The modality does not matter. Find one or many that connect with you and embrace them every day. Park further away in the parking lot to get a few extra steps in. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. The movement of one’s body creates a positive feedback loop in the mind and leads to less pent-up energy and more personal satisfaction. And the more strenuous the movement the better, while honoring the limitations of your body, so that those limitations can grow at a natural pace for you.
Finding a safe outlet for your thoughts and emotions. It is vital that we have a space to be able to purge the continuous number of thoughts and emotions that we experience. When we don’t, they build up within us and start to weigh us down. This build up is what eventually leads to depression, anxiety, rage, resentment, guilt and shame. You can do this through journaling, therapy, talking with friends or family, prayer & artistic expression. Find an outlet that suits you and pursue it. By creating a practice that you can lean on consistently, you can begin the process of purging all of the backlog of your thoughts and emotions. This lightens the mental load that you are carrying around and makes you more resilient to the challenges of life.
Give yourself grace. You are not going to be perfect at this. No one is. You’re going to try things that don’t work. You are going to get distracted by life and return back to old habits. That is OK. It happens to us all. Just get back on the horse and keep moving forward. Part of self-care is self-discovery. Learning what works and doesn’t work for you.
A great form of selfcare would be incorporating the Emotional Freedom Technique into your day to day life. Below is a link to a free guide that can get you started on your journey towards improving your mental health.