Christmas and New Year is hailed as a time when people can slow down a little and re-charge the batteries, but in reality, many busy people come back to work in the New Year feeling just as stressed as before – albeit perhaps, with a renewed determination to make this new year different or better somehow.
Afterall, having a demanding job or running a business can be tough work. Your brain never seems to shut off. Even when you’re relaxing at home, or socialising with friends and family, your mind will be busy reminding you of your day-to-day challenges and unfinished ‘to-do’ list. Or it could be busy looking for inspiration of ways to improve your product or service, or how to systemise and automate better, or thinking up new marketing strategies or potential revenue streams…
You can be in back-to-back appointments, running around town, and always giving so much of yourself (to your clients, your staff), or spending seemingly endless hours glued to a computer screen of some description, analysing something or other.
In a way, it’s great – dedication and focus are a couple of the keys that have lead to your success in the first place. Unfortunately, as you are probably well aware, overdoing it can also lead to sheer brain fatigue, and a feeling that the ‘self’ is lacking in something really important. You can feel that you are lacking in NURTURE.
This is where yoga comes in for me. The focus and concentration I need to commit to a yoga session leaves no room for any business stuff to even dare enter my mind. It’s like a mini-holiday for the brain.
Where most people work hard all year and hold out for a couple of holidays in order to re-balance and nourish themselves, it’s even better to incorporate little moments of self-care into your weekly routine – no matter whether it’s your body or your brain that needs the break.
Try out some of these mini-holiday / self-care techniques:
- Laugh – watch a comedy, call a funny friend
- Have a bath or long shower
- Affection – spend some time cuddling with the kids, your pet, the other half, or even just yourself and a blanket
- Meditate
- Practise gratitude
- Focus on positive affirmations for five minutes
- Drink more water
- Tune in to the beauty of the present moment – notice the colour of the sky, and the leaves on the trees, feel the temperature of the air on your skin, smell the fresh-cut grass or freshly brewed coffee, hear a dog bark, a child giggle, a plane flying overhead…
- Spend some time in nature – walk through a park, do some gardening, or just sit outside somewhere and look at the sky
- Sleep
- Set aside some time for a creative hobby
- Practise a skincare regime to suit your specific skin type
- Prepare and eat a nutritious meal
- Exercise
- Watch a film – an old favourite or something new, or have a Netflix binge
- Read books or articles, or listen to podcasts / videos on specific skills you want to develop
- Research / study a topic of interest
- Spend time with friends / family
- Have a date day with yourself and go to a place you’ve always wanted to go to
- Fix something around the house
- Put on some music and dance
- Go out for a dance
- De-clutter
- Rearrange the furniture
- Kick a bad habit and start a new healthier habit
- Stretch your body
- Pamper – moisturise your body, put on a face mask, do a self-massage, ask someone to massage you for you
- Take a weekend off and explore somewhere new
Obviously, you choose those particular activities that make YOU feel nourished, peaceful, pampered, alive, free, refreshed – whatever it is you need to feel. The point is to think about what these activities are and commit them to your weekly schedule.
Even if you block out half an hour for yourself when you wake up in the morning, or an hour before bed at night – ask yourself what you need at that moment in time and deliver it. When you start to make self-care a priority, it will become a habit that you practise throughout each day too, not just at specific times.
And what better time to get started with a new Self-Care routine than at the New Year