The fact of the matter is that the “perfect selfcare routine” is the self-care routine you WILL do every day. While we will talk about some best practices for creating a self-care routine below, regardless of what you decide to do for your self-care routine, the most important factor is that you actually do it!

As we mentioned in the previous blogs this month, your daily self-care routine doesn’t need to take up hours of our day. Try to find pockets of time throughout your day to sprinkle a little self-care in – you will find that even a little bit of self-care goes a long way.

What might a good self-care routine look like? Consider, at the very least, finding some time every day for things like:

• Some kind of gentle movement/exercise (particularly yoga, Qi-gong, or Tai-chi)
• 7-8 hours of restful sleep
• Meditation or breathing exercises
• Eating healthy foods (organic, Non-GMO, whole foods)
• Reflective gratitude practice

Establishing a healthy self-care routine is essential to your overall health and wellbeing. Here are a few suggestions for how you might bring a little self-care back into your life:

• Schedule self-care time – that’s right, literally put it on your calendar like any other meeting or task. It might be a little time in the morning or in the evening, or maybe around lunch time…it doesn’t matter, whatever works best for you, just get it on the calendar
• Add self-care items to your To Do list – if you are a list person like me, make sure those self-care things are on your To Do list and be sure to cross them off each day as you complete them
• Start small – perhaps take 5 mins at the beginning and end of your day for some journaling, meditating, breathing, soaking in the tub, yoga, etc. and then slowly build up the amount of time you spend on those things so that within a month or so maybe you are at 10-15 minutes in the morning or evening.
• Be realistic – if you have not had self-care as a part of your daily routine, don’t expect to successfully add in an hour of self-care into your schedule as of tomorrow. As we said above, start small…experience the wins, build on your successes, and develop the self-care routine of your dreams over time.
• Practice permission and forgiveness – first you must give yourself permission, guilt-free, to practice some self-care every day (otherwise it will not happen), and second forgive yourself if/when you have a day in which you don’t get to it. While we never want that to be a habit, we are human and we might miss a day from time to time – beating ourselves up about that doesn’t help us. Forgive yourself for the slip up and then get back at it later that day or tomorrow.
• Enlist an accountability partner – this might be your spouse, kids, a friend, neighbor, or colleague. (Someone who has your best interests in mind and who will lovingly support your desire to implement some self-care routines into your life.) Ask them to check in with you daily or weekly, offer ideas or encouragement, whatever may be helpful to you as you work to stay on track with taking better care of yourself.
• Let’s stop falling into the trap of putting everyone and everything else before ourselves. Prioritize yourself. And love the people and all the facets of your life so much that you make time for self-care, then you can truly afford to give them the best of you.