Are you a mom, dad, a child, a therapist, nurse, small business owner or a multi-national CEO, construction worker, stay at home parent, entrepreneur or retired? No matter what you do, who you are, what you’ve done, or what you’v failed at doing…. Chances are, if you are alive, you could use more positive self care. This post has some self-care ideas for you to mindfully consider incorporating into your life.
This post will continue to grow as I add more items to it.
These items are not ordered in any specific order.
The List
- Get healthy human touch
- Get healthy mammalian touch
- Walk barefoot
- Be in nature
- Breathe deeply (article)
- Use eye movement techniques
- Drink chamomile herbal tea with raw honey
- Recognize your limitations and honor them, we all have them
- Increase your dopamine
- Increase your oxytocin
- Sleep soundly
- Nap
- Go to bed early and get up early
- Sit in quietness in the morning with nature (indoors or outdoors)
- Lucid dream about positive things
- Get massage and body work
- Use pressure points
- Lower perfectionism (be ok with not being good)
- Set healthy boundaries (that you have to enforce)
- Seek and ask help
- Practice gratitude. It is easier than you might think
Browse articles and ideas on gratitude here - Focus on gut health
- Practice self-hypnosis
- Practice QiGong or TaiChi
- Get acupuncture
- Get or practice acupressure
- Use essential oils, find ones that smell great and enjoy
- Practice mindfulness (watch thoughts and feelings without engaging or judging them)
- Practice gardening, dig your hands into the soil and touch plants
- Get vitamin D by laying in the sun for 20 minutes
- Soak your feet in a tub of hot water, salts, and essential oils
- Repeat positive affirmations
- Day dream about something beautiful, kind, or funny
- Day dream about a time in the future where you have done/found something you want
- Use BrainGym postures
- Use your creative mind
- Watch comedy and laugh
- Find, watch, or do things that make you laugh (not at others)
- Write positive belief statements
- Use audio-visual entrainment (AVE)
- Use cranial electrical stimulation (CES)
- Add ritual to your life (you already have rituals, become mindful of them, modify or create a healthy one mindfully)
- Consider that your suffering is a process of initiation, and a right of passage
- Consider that to every negative thought you have, there exists a different or an opposite one, that you could also have
- Consider that you are worthy, your worth is your birth right.
- Consider taking mini mental vacations (set a time limit if you need to)
- Remember, you are not just your thoughts. You are much, much, more…. Engage these other parts of you
- Burn sage, sweet grass, palo santo, frankincense or other plant matter for their unique and pleasing aroma
- Use your intention positively
- Remember, every moment, you are setting an intention along with your awareness of being alive, harness the power of your intention by gently directing it towards the things that make you feel better or are empowering.
- Pray / ask for what you want (use positively worded asks)
- Earth or ground yourself. Practice grounding or earthing
- Watch birds (bird watching)
- Stare at water
- Watch nature
- Look for color in nature
- Listen to sounds in nature
- Breathe better. Use one of many breathing techniques. They are wonderful and can combine imagery, awareness, energy, can calm the nervous system, increase blood oxygen levels, change levels of hormones, energize you, relax you, give you a mini-break, and a lot more
- Give yourself permission
- Drop the need for approval from others
- Avoid toxic people and places
- Stop multitasking, do one thing at a time, focus on one thing even if for a few moments
- Consider you walk your own very unique path, there is no one path that you have to follow. What worked for someone else might not work for you and that is ok
- When you judge yourself based on succeeding, know that this is an opinion, not a fact. All opinions stink
- Your inner saboteur actually wants to help you but doesn’t know better, it is doing what it can, the way it knows how. Negotiate a healthier way for it to help you
- Imagine yourself surrounded by radiant golden light or that your skin is golden colored. Imagine this incorruptible gold protects you
- Are you burnt out? Then, no wonder your energy is low
- Are you tired? Then, no wonder you are noticing more negative and limiting thoughts
- Have hope that this too shall pass
- Examine your feelings and thoughts at this moment, do they pass the Wise Thought Test?
- Spend time with horses
- Go to the gym
- Self-date night
- Grocery shopping for nutrition-dense or clean and tasty food
- Calming warm bath
- Warm, or warm-to-cold shower
- Use warm lights around the house
- Use accent lighting
- Add color to your nights with colored lights in the house
- Skin brushing
- Get some craniosacral therapy
- Make/consume seasonal dishes and drinks
- Celebrate seasonal milestones such as the solstice, christiams, and others
- Notice the sunrise and sunset, spend time appreciating the scenery
- Gaze at the moon
- Engage in activities/experiences that will make you laugh
- coming soon …
Browse additional self-care ideas here
Many self-care ideas overlap or work in a synergistic manner, that’s a good thing!
