Tips For Self Care When You Are Dealing With Stressful Workplace

by nukhba khan

Reading Time: 7 mins

Why self-care is important. Tips for Self-Care.

So, I get it that it becomes tough to even find some free moment for yourself, and taking care of yourself drops to the bottom of your priority list.

But here’s the thing: self-care is critical for your well-being. You can keep ignoring it at first, but it catches upon you, and your health and happiness in life suffer. And sometimes, it takes a harsh wake-up call to realize that not prioritizing your self-care has taken a significant toll on your life.

Without self-care, your mental and emotional wellness is compromised. And this impacts your ability to cope with daily stress and the inevitable curveballs that come swinging in life. We all know how stressful life can be, so anything that hinders our ability to deal with stress cannot be taken lightly.

So let me ask you:

Are you sitting there thinking about all that you have to get done this week? A presentation to prepare, a campaign to launch, loads of emails to reply to, and your work calendar is jam-packed. You wonder how you will ever get time for your personal responsibilities. So you overwork? End up skipping your meals or decide to have working lunches? Cut back on your socializing and perhaps cancel your workout plans for the week?

If this is you, living a roadrunner lifestyle, you will love this blog. I will show you simple steps that you can start taking today to nurture yourself to live a healthy and happy life.

Let’s first understand how important self-care is for you, to help motivate you to start carving out time for self-care,

Why Self-Care is Important

On some level, we all know how essential self-care is. We know it’s important to eat healthy, exercise, stay hydrated, meditate, and spend time with family and friends. We know it’s good for us, yet we don’t do anything about it. When you are not prioritizing your self-care, it’s probably because you have not fully grasped all the benefits of self-care.

Raises Self-Awareness: With self-care, you tap into understanding your physical, mental, and spiritual needs. And when you make an effort to meet these needs, it helps you have a better relationship with yourself which boosts your sense of self-respect and self-confidence. Ultimately, helping you build the inner strength to better handle your daily or life challenges.

Helps You Perform at Your Best: Self-care habits ensure that you balance all your needs, which help you keep moving forward with energy and purpose. If you are constantly choosing to meet work deadlines over making time for workouts, then, in the long run, it will cause you to slow down and not perform at your best.

Makes You More Resilient: When you take care of yourself, make time to exercise, eat healthily, meditate, or enjoy fun hobbies, it can improve your mood and boost your energy. Which goes a long way to cut down the toxic effects of stress in our daily lives. And when you are less stressed, it makes you more resilient to take on challenges that you inevitably face at work and in life.

Types of Self-Care

There are 3 main categories of self-care:

Physical Self-Care: Implementing an exercise routine, prioritizing sleep, eating healthy and nutritious food, getting your regular health checks.

Emotional Self-Care: Positive self-talk, setting a coffee date with a friend, giving yourself permission to pause, journaling to put down your thoughts, saying ‘no,’ and setting healthy boundaries.

Spiritual Self-Care: Meditation, spending time in nature, keeping a gratitude journal, doing random acts of kindness, volunteering at a shelter.

What Does Not Count as Self-Care

Each individual’s definition of self-care is unique, so it is hard to say what counts and what does not count as self-care.

But the key thing to remember is that self-care is not only supposed to bring you joy at the moment, but it also helps you feel good in the long run. And that is why it’s essential to differentiate between feel-good enhancing behaviour vs. self-indulgence. For example, watching Netflix can feel good, but if you overdo it and binge-watch a TV show, it can end up making you feel guilty and perhaps not that great for you in the long run.

Also, self-care does not mean that you have to book luxurious experiences and activities that cost a lot of money. But if you feel booking a massage or some other pampering activity helps you to carve out time to de-stress, then, by all means, it is self-care. My point is that if weekly or monthly pedicures are beyond your means, there are plenty of other self-care practices that don’t cost a single penny. Like, a relaxing walk in the park, listening to an inspiring podcast on your commute, finding quiet time to journal every day, reading a novel, taking a bath with scented candles, or even deep conditioning your hair.

Self Care Strategy

Now that you know what self-care is and what it is not let’s jump straight into building your self-care strategy.

First things first, you have to keep it simple and find what works best for you. And the only way to figure out what works for you is to try out different things to see what helps you feel your best.

Step 1: Make an exhaustive list of all the activities that bring you joy and help you feel refueled. Put down everything that comes to mind. Write down all types of doable self-care activities for you: the simple type, the bigger relaxing ones that cost nothing, and the expensive kind. The intention is to create a self-care idea bank that you will start using and referring to. (check out self-care ideas to find inspiration).

Step 2: Once you have your list, it’s time to compartmentalize the list into 3 sections:

1. Daily Self-Care, includes activities that you need to be doing daily like exercising, eating healthy, journaling, meditating.

2. Weekly Self-Care, includes things you need to do 1-2 times a week, like going out with friends, indulging in a fun hobby, going for a hike

3. Quarterly Self-Care, includes things you do once in a while, like going on a vacation or a weekend retreat with friends.

Step 3: Next, you have to choose one activity from your list that you can start incorporating into your daily routine. And one from the weekly self-care list that you can schedule for your weekend. Pick the simplest one that you can start tomorrow.

Step 4: Build up the practice by pushing yourself to do it every day for a week.

Step 5: Check-in and reflect on how you feel at the end of the week. If you think it has helped you feel good, then continue. If not, go back to your list and pick another activity to test out. The aim is to find a self-care practice that works for you and makes you feel good at the end of the day. But remember to be honest with yourself by making sure you are doing your best to incorporate it into your routine and having fun with it.

Step 6: After a few weeks of practicing your self-care routine, check in again to see how you feel. And see if you are ready to add in another practice to your regimen or if you need to shake things up by switching out some of your self-care practices with new ones. Repeat this step as often as necessary.

Step 7: Once you have solidified your daily and weekly self-care practice, it’s now time to reward yourself. You can now start planning and implementing your quarterly self-care practice.

Step 8: Each quarter, repeat all the steps to check in on how you are doing and keep things fresh.

Tips for Self-Care

The biggest tip that I can offer you is to start thinking of self-care as a priority and not a choice.

You now know all the benefits and also the consequences of not practicing self-care. That should be enough to push you to proactively commit to building your self-care regimen that looks out for your needs to live a powerful and happy life. Don’t put it off for tomorrow or the new year. Start today and be consistent. It won’t take you that long to start noticing the difference in yourself and your life.

Another equally important tip is to know that there will be times when your self-care plans get thrown out the window. Sometimes plans with friends get canceled, work priorities do come, and you have to cancel your gym class (just make sure this does not keep happening), and that is okay. On such days, focus on the smaller self-care practices that allow you to unwind, refuel and be ready for the next day.

Self Care Ideas

Eat breakfast … always.
Eat more nutritious and healthy foods
Stay hydrated
Avoid emotional eating
Start a Journal
Meditate
Reflect on what you are grateful for every night
Prioritize sleep
Put your phone on airplane mode an hour before sleep
Call a friend to say hello
Learn to set healthy boundaries and say ‘no’
Take a break when you need to
Workout 3-5 times a week
Take a relaxing bath
Cook a new recipe
Read a book in a quiet space
Hang out with family and friends
Connect with nature
Spend time on a hobby, a creative outlet.
Practice positive self-talk

Summary: Why Self-Care is Important

I will repeat what I said initially: self-care can profoundly impact your well-being. Without self-care, your mental and emotional wellness is compromised, affecting your ability to cope with daily stress and challenges. And, we all know how stressful life can be. So anything that hinders our ability to deal with stress cannot be taken lightly.

It’s time for you to commit to investing in yourself and honor yourself. Because if you do, you will quickly notice the difference in your life and never again skip your self-care practices.

P.S. Want to learn a really cool step-by-step method to better control your feelings and emotions at work? And finally, stop letting external things, people, events, situations dictate how you feel?

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