5 Ways to Restart Your Self-Care Routine
At the beginning of 2022, as always, I was full of optimism as to what the year would hold for me. I had plans to immerse myself in creating fantastic content across all my social media platforms and finally getting to a stage where I was seeing some income from the content I was creating. I had plans to expand my Detangled Hair Team (it’s just myself and my husband at the moment and mainly me creating the content and prompting the business) and finally being able to see real expediential growth. In a word, I was pumped and ready to go.
Well, I think you can probably guess that I haven’t yet achieved the goals I was so happy to create at the beginning of the year. Between January and April I have had the flu, covid, tonsillitis and a root canal (ouch). And in-between that I’ve struggled with sore throats and extreme exhaustion. Each thing knocked me out for a couple of weeks and while my body was trying to recover, something else came up. Not the start to the year that I had planned at all to say the least.
But one thing I admire about myself (we should all have things we admire about ourselves!) is although I may get discouraged or experience a setback (or two) I don’t lose hope. In fact all these bouts of sickness made me stop and really think about how effectively I am taking care of myself, and actually I’m not as healthy as I would like to be. I was forced to stop and rest, recuperate and just do nothing. Now if I’m honest, at first I worried about my social media engagement, falling behind on all the updates, losing followers, no longer being relevant etc. But then I thought to myself that if I didn’t have my health what did I have? To give my best I have to be at my best and quite frankly I wasn’t at my best (and still am not) and so needed to put in the work to reconnect with myself.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Wanting to do your best but getting knocked back due to your health? We let me tell you that you are not alone and there is definitely something you can do about it. For me self-care is a great way to make a conscious effort to look after yourself but we all know that life can knock us off course and even the most robust routine can be shaken making it hard to get back into the swing of things. But don’t despair there is still hope; in this blog post I want to talk you through 6 simple ways to restart your self-care routine and get you on the road to living your best life!
**Disclaimer: I am not a health care professional. All my posts are based on personal experience, preference and things I have learnt from reading and researching. If you are struggling with your mental health and well-being please consult a qualified professional**
- Book a full check up with your GP
Most of us only go to the GP when we are on our last legs, but sometimes those headaches you are experiencing, the foggy brain, the light-headed feeling, the tiredness etc can all indicate that you are lacking in something or that your blood pressure may be too high or too low. Having a general check-up at least once a year (more frequently if you need to) is a great way to check everything is good, or to identify areas you may need to give special attention. This could mean taking vitamins, or iron, implementing more physical activity in your daily routine or making lifestyle changes. So of you haven’t had a full check up in a while (including a blood test) take this as your sign to do so.
April and November are usually my self-care challenge months and they are always a welcome challenge for me at the turn of a season. If you have found that you are struggling to apply acts of self-care to your everyday routine then a self-care challenge is a great way to get back into the self-care swing of everything. 30 days of planned self-care that are easy to follow and implement make your life so much easier and help you reconnect with yourself and others.
- Book Some Time With Yourself
There are so many things vying for our attention, from family, to friends, to work, to social media, the noise can be overwhelming and we can often get lost in that noise and forget about what we need. I think it is really important to book some quiet time with yourself to reconnect with your voice and hear what your needs are. Go for a long walk, take a long bus or train ride, switch off your social media devices and just listen to your body and your heart and find what you need. I personally find when I spend time in nature I gain real clarity into what I really want and need to do. Once you do this you can then begin to put together a new self-care routine complimenting the things you want and need that will allow you to flourish.
- Pray, Reflect, Meditate
As a Christian, prayer is like breathing to me. It’s essential that I do it to survive spiritually. Any issues or problems that I have, any ideas, hopes and dreams that I have, I take it all to God in prayer and I find the process so uplifting and empowering. I can also spend time reading the bible and reflecting on all the promises that give encouragement and hope. If you are not a person of faith you can simply reflect and meditate on positive words, quotes and messages, inspiring music and beautiful art. All of these things help to give you inspiration as well as clarity which in turn helps to get you in tune with your needs and puts you in a better mindset of self-care and able to start a new self-care plan/routine.
- Journal
Journaling your thoughts and feelings is a great way to express yourself and release any stress from your day. It’s also a great way to express gratitude and reflect on the things that you need. This in turn can help to kick start and restart your self-care routine. Once you have journaled you can recount what you have written and begin to reflect on what you need to start putting in place and doing, to restart your self-care routine.
- Make a Plan
If you fail to plan you plan to fail; so the saying goes and it’s true; if you do not put a plan in place, you are on the road to failure. If you want to kickstart your self-care routine you have to plan for it. Purchase a self-care challenge or template to get you started. Plan simple acts of self-care for each day and then build on this to more complex acts of self-care to tackle the more difficult things in your life. Take it one step at a time, but make sure that you take the first step so you can start the ball rolling.
So there you have it, 6 simple but effect ways to restart your self-care routine and start looking after yourself the way you should. Setbacks in life are inevitable, we cannot avoid them, but we can take time to rest and recuperate and eventually bounce back from them with some concerted effort and a lot of self-care.
I would love to hear about some of your experiences in terms of how you have handled setbacks and how you incorporate self-care into getting you back on track. Please feel free to leave a comment below so we can all learn and grow together.
Read more about Self Care from some of my other blog posts:
8 Ways To Practice Self Care On Social Media
10 Ways To Practice Self Care Without Spending Money
13 Ways To Practice Self Care At Work
