5 Easy Self Care Ideas – Make Yourself A Priority
Self care can be hard when you live a busy life or have kids, but we need to make ourselves a priority. Self care looks different for everyone and there are many different ways to practice self care. Maybe you have never practiced self care or maybe you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin. Don’t worry, I have 5 Easy Self Care Ideas to help you appreciate your self a little bit more.
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What is self care?
Self care can be many things. It can be letting yourself get some extra rest when you need it or buying yourself something you have wanted. It can also be making sure you take care of your body in the way it needs. Maybe it’s letting yourself cry when you need to or healing things you need too. It look different for everyone.
Nurture yourself.
Love yourself.
Take care of yourself.
5 Easy Self Care Ideas
As a mom, I tend to focus on everyone else’s needs before my own and I don’t think that’s always a bad thing. I am sure many of us do this, but there is that saying “you can’t pour from an empty cup” and that is very true.
If you take a little time for self care you will feel so much healthier and happier and be able to give more. I don’t know about you, but when I am feeling grumpy or unhappy it shows through in the way I am acting towards others.
Try my Self Care Journal Pages to dedicate some time to yourself. There are printable weekly journal, gratitude and self care sheets to help you out. Or grab a positive journal to start journaling in.
Making the time to love yourself and take care of yourself really pays off in the long run. Let’s start some self care!
DRINK MORE WATER
This might seem like such a small thing, but it has a HUGE impact. I really love having a large water bottle like this one to help me drink more water.
I started drinking a gallon of water a day and it has changed so many things. The main things are my skin looks and feels so much better, I haven’t gotten any headaches (normally had one everyday) and I am way less tired.
Once you start drinking enough water you will notice the difference in your body. The general rule of how much water to drink is take your weight in pounds and divide it in half. Drink that many ounces of water a day, add 12 ounces to that per hour that you work out.
Try adding beneficial things to your water such as herbs or minerals. I like to add chlorophyll.
DO ONE THING YOU LOVE DAILY
Reading a book (I am reading this one), listening to music, meditating or watching your favorite show.
Take 20-30 minutes out of your day and spend some time with yourself, doing something that you enjoy. I know being a parent or adult in general has a lot of responsibilities, but you can find 20 minutes in your day if you really focus on it. It can be when the kids go to bed, or right when you wake up and drink your coffee. Having a little time spent doing something you love with make you feel so much better.
RELATED: Benefits Of Dry Brushing & How to Brush Properly
EAT BETTER
This is hard for a lot of us, but just taking small steps in the direction of eating healthier is so beneficial. Don’t tell yourself you can’t have this food or that food, just make baby steps to eating foods that are better for you.
Try to eat a fruit or vegetable with every meal. Swap out the unhealthy food for healthier options. Check out this Clean Eating Book.
For example, if you make burgers for dinner go for a leaner meat, remove the bun and wrap it in lettuce, trust me it’s still tastes really good. Try eating more whole, good foods. When I eat clean, whole foods my energy is higher and my whole body feels better.
When you feed your body good things, your body will feel good and be able to function better.
GET ENOUGH SLEEP
This one is tough for me, I am a night owl. When I stay up to late, I always regret it in the morning when my kids are so energetic and I want to go back to sleep!
If you already get enough sleep, then go you! If you tend to stay up late, like me, try going to sleep an hour earlier to start. Getting enough sleep is crucial to your health and mental well being. Magnesium oil helps me sleep better, I wrote a post all about it, you can find it here.
DON’T BE HARD ON YOURSELF & STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS
This is the most difficult one for me. I have always struggled with self image and self love, always the overweight kid and teenager.
If I messed up my eating for one day, I would continue all week with my bad eating habits and start over again on Monday. We are human, we make mistakes and it’s okay. Self care isn’t linear. The journey to self care and self love has bumps in the road!
If you have set goals for yourself, that’s so great, but if you “mess up” it’s okay! Trust me, it’s part of the journey. I like to say every failure is still a success because I am always learning.
You don’t just wake up one day and have everything all figured out. It takes time. Baby steps my friends, baby steps. Start slow and steady. You can do it. Tell yourself you are beautiful every single day.
This might sound silly, but do it. Look at yourself, all your lumps, bumps, and say I AM BEAUTIFUL.
Daily affirmations are a great way to redirect your brain towards self love. Try using my 20 Daily Self Love Affirmations.
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
I am sure I am not the only one who looks on social media at others and thinks how pretty they are, and if I could change this or that about myself I would be prettier. That is so toxic.
Comparison is does not help you in this self care and self love journey. I can see another woman with stretch marks and fat rolls, like I have, and think how beautiful she is, then why can’t I think that about myself? I can and I am allowed too.
Sometimes society makes us feel we have to look a certain way to be beautiful, we are beautiful at every stage of our bodies. You can want to lose weight or be healthier but still love your body as it is right now. Or you can not want to lose weight and love yourself the way you are!
Any way you are, you are beautiful and deserve to love yourself.
There are my 5 Easy Self Care Ideas, I will be working on all of these this year, I hope I learn to love myself more than ever, and I hope you do too.
Comment below with your favorite self care ideas, I always love new ideas for self care.
Shoot me an email if you are struggling and need some advice or help, I have been there and having someone give me advice helped me when I needed it.
Sending you all the love,
Ashley
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These are all fantastic ideas. For doing something that I love everyday, I like to listen to podcasts!
I am starting a 4 week self care series soon. Hope you’ll join me!
I really love your list of five things to care for oneself. It’s something that so important this time year and you really should take time for yourself that way you could re-charge and be there for others. Really great post thanks for some great inspirational ideas for 2018.
Great tips! Will start using some of these this weekend
This is a really lovely (and doable) list of self-care ideas. They’re all things we know, but need to constantly reminded of for some reason. I really like how you encourage baby steps. We put so much pressure on ourselves to be get things right the first time, and don’t give ourselves time to LEARN the new skill or habit. Just imagine if that was how babies approached learning to walk – we’d all still be crawling! Take care, and I hope you have an amazing 2018.
Exactly right! Slow and steady wins the race! Thank you, I hope your year is amazing as well.
Inspiring post! Last year, I implemented self care goals and it was one of the best things I have ever done. I fell off a few times but like you said, “baby steps”. Those baby steps turned into habits and I am thankful! Wishing you much success as you achieve these self care goals!
– NeShama @ twogirlsandamomma.com
Yass, baby steps! Thank you so much!
Great post to remind me, and others, mostly me, that self-care doesn’t have to complicated. It is just taking some time out of your day to do things that are required and necessary for yourself.
Great goals! I really needd to work on drinking more water and loving myself. I am way too hard on myself. I always try to remind myself that it is okay that I am not where I want to be, because I am not where I used to be. Life is a journey — we must enjoy it. And our sleves. Thank you for sharing!!
Self love is a hard thing, it takes time. You’re right, it is a journey and we have to love ourselves along the way!
These 5 things are the ones I try to implement in my life daily. Sometimes it can be challenging to achieve all of these every day but as long as you are trying to take care of yourself, that’s all the matters!
I agree. As long as we are trying, we have to give ourselves some credit!
These are great tips! One thing I am defintkely focusing on this year is eating better. I can definitely make improvements on my diet ?
Thank you for these ideas, I’m trying to make a self care list! Definitely pinning this!
Such great reminders! Thanks for sharing!
Ashley,
You gave some really good tips! I so believe in the saying that you can’t pour from an empty cup. I live it daily. Thanks for the tips on spending time with myself. I have twin toddlers whom I stay home with and I get easily overwhelmed. I’ll definitely have to try these out.
Thanks!
I get easily overwhelmed with my 2 boys also. Hopefully this easy ideas can help you out.
Feeling like we have the same list of things to improve for self-care! I am really on exercising and drinking more water, finding time time to do more things that I like.
Yes! Good luck with your self care goals!