Practising self-care can make a real difference, helping you to become more confident and resilient as well as boosting your emotional wellbeing and physical health. And it doesn’t need to be complicated as just a few simple changes to your everyday life can reap rewards.
To help you get started, we’ve compiled our guide to four of the most effective ways to look after yourself.
1. Eat well, keep hydrated
Regular meals, healthy snacks, and plenty of fluids – ideally around two litres a day – are key to looking after yourself and keeping your mind and body healthy and happy. Ensure your diet is nutritionally balanced and contains a wide range of fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, omega oils and quality, lean protein. You can also choose to give your diet extra support with a broad-spectrum multivitamin supplement to ensure you are getting the right amount of the vitamins and minerals you need.
And don’t neglect your gut – as your digestive health can also have a significant impact on your overall health and wellbeing. So, as well as eating gut friendly foods, adding turmeric, which supports healthy digestion, is another good way to take care of your health.
2. Keep active
Keeping active is another effective way to look after yourself as well as boost your mood. And it doesn’t have to be intense – an hour of moderate exercise three times a week is enough to make a difference to both your short and long-term health. And if you can make time to exercise outside, even better! Spending time outside helps you to boost your natural levels of vitamin D, which is needed to support a healthy heart and muscles as well as to strengthen your immune system (EFSA, 2010).
Whatever form of exercise you prefer, it should be sufficient to raise your heart rate and get you slightly out of breath. Couple cardio or aerobic exercise with strengthening exercises and body stretching such as yoga, and you will be getting the ideal mind-body workout to combat stress, while boosting your health, energy, and overall well being.
3. Get enough sleep
As well as eating well and keeping active, you also need to ensure your body has time to rest, regenerate and heal. And this means getting enough quality sleep to enable your body to look after itself. Between seven and eight hours of sleep per night is considered the optimum.
Creating the right bedroom environment, maintaining the room’s temperature, and aiming to go to bed as well as wake up at the same time will mean you wake refreshed and revitalised. If you do need a little additional support to help you through periods of temporary tiredness and fatigue, iron tablets can also be beneficial.
4. Make time for yourself
In our busy worlds, it is important to make some quality time for ourselves, so we can decompress, relax, and unwind. And whether it is a hot bath before bedtime, 15 minutes spent meditating before everyone else gets up in the morning, mindfully listening to music, sitting in your garden, or losing yourself in a good book, simple stress-busting activities can help keep everything in perspective.
And that, along with our other three top tips to look after yourself, is ultimately good for your physical and emotional health and wellbeing.
