Who else needs this reminder?
I the terrible for not making time for self care and am now only realising how important and beneficial it is. I need to remember that taking time out for myself is not selfish but vital to my health, both physical and mental.
In the past being busy has been like a badge of honour. Busy to the point of overwhelm and then burnout.
Before I decided to do ‘one year no wine’, wine o’clock was the only time I actually sat down and stopped what I was doing. Not a very healthy way to incorporate self care.
Looking back this is the worst thing I could do as not only did I completely stop what I was doing when I had wine, I tended to over indulge so then spent a day recovering and still nothing got done. Then I would be in catch up mode and back to wearing busy as a badge of honour.
A few weeks ago I realised how overwhelmed I was as I couldn’t even work out what I wanted for dinner. It was too hard to think what we should eat, too hard to go the supermarket and even harder to make sure the meal was somewhat healthy.
It was at that point that I also realised that everything I was doing was making me overwhelmed. Making sure I get enough sleep, we eat healthy, making time to exercise, being a good employee at work, being a good wife and mother. As well as setting up this blog and all the things that needs to be done like writing and posting weekly, regular posting on Instagram and setting up an email. Learning how to do all that as this has been a very steep learning curve for me, but it is one that I am loving.
When I think about all the things I need to get done my brain almost shuts down as it thinks ‘whoa that is too much’ and I don’t know where to start, what to start or even how to start.
Looking back I can see a pattern of self sabotage when I get burnout. Instead of recognising I am overwhelmed or burning out and stopping to do some sort of self care ritual, I go ‘stuff it, its too hard’ and get angry and then stop or even abandon projects.
Then ironically when I recognised I needed to start a self care regime I even got overwhelmed about that as well. What??
So instead of thinking of self care as something additional I need to add to my day I am thinking of it as introducing more healthy habits to kick start my self care regime.
So I have decided to start with and only focus on three things.
The first thing is do with the food. Instead of trying to incorporate every healthy food rule or recent bit of information I may have read I am going back to basic meals. Rather than thinking about what we should be eating I am cutting out what we shouldn’t be eating or rather cutting out the crap.
Easy and simple meals I know the kids will eat and don’t take long to prepare. I have also started doing some meals for the freezer for those nights when things are busy.
The second thing I have done is increase my water intake. This has been a massive change to my energy levels. Something so simple yet so effective.
It was no wonder I was so tired as I must have been so dehydrated. Most mornings I have to drag myself out of bed and want to punch the alarm clock – haha, but since upping my water intake I am getting up in the morning without any struggle. Of course I still would rather be in bed but it is not as hard as it has been
On the recommendation of my naturopath (and I know not everyone is a fan of them) I have started drinking 3 litres of water per day. I am drinking 32 ml of water per kilo of body weight (or half an ounce per pound).
Three litres a day sounds like a lot but I usually have two glasses of water before I take our puppy for a walk, then another glass or two when I get back and a cup of green tea. (I include herbal teas in my daily water intake).
So I have already had a about litre before I get to work. I take in a one litre stainless steel water bottle and make sure I drink one litre before lunch and the second litre before I finish work.
There are still days where I don’t drink enough water and I get tired again. So my challenge is going to be make sure I consistently drink three litres each day and keep it up in the winter months as I am not as motivated in the colder months to drink as much water.h
The third thing I have started doing is a few stretches when I get back from my walk with Evie. I usually sit in the backyard and watch her run around for a few minutes as I find her antics bring a smile to my face.
Then I do three basic stretches. One each for my calves, hips and quads. I have only been doing this for a few weeks and have noticed a small improvement with my flexibility.
Just by introducing these three small actions my overwhelm has decreased immensely and I need to remember to be patient with myself. Small changes do add up.
I also need to remember to celebrate how far I have come, especially in the last six months with going back to work, learning about blogging and making these changes to improve my health and sleep.
Once I have got these three rituals in place I will look at the next three self care things I can introduce.
Tell me, what do you do for self care?
Dxh
