Have You Been Practicing Good Self-Care?

(Image Credit: Sincerely Media on Unsplash)

Navigating working from home, the current state of the world and life, in general, can be stressful, and that’s why self-care and your mental health are important now more than ever. 

Recently, there has been a lot of devastating news internationally. Daunte Wright was another innocent victim of police brutality in Minnesota, U.S.A. Ontario has yet again closed all of its schools with rising COVID-19 cases and ICUs are so full they need to add more beds. Along with this, restaurateurs in Italy are rioting while they continue to protest against the take-out only delivery services for their small businesses. And closer to home, anti-curfew protests continue on in Quebec. 

There is so much going on around the world that this can cause anxiety and stress because it can ultimately feel like things are getting, if not staying, out of our control. 

While it is nothing new that the news can be emotionally draining, please remember that it is okay to step back from the chaos for a while and focus on your self-care and mental health too if it becomes too much to take in. 

In May 2020, a survey by Redfern Research and commissioned by Consumer Health Products Canada was conducted on how Canadian’s mental health changed due to the pandemic. The results stated that 96% of respondents found life different since mid-March and more than 50% of Canadians are even more interested in practicing self-care at home.

Self-care can help with maintaining your personal wellness and mental health and is beneficial for stress and anxiety management. It can be tough managing self-isolation and keeping yourself busy, so self-care is a must for your mental health, especially when dealing with the uncertainty of a pandemic.

Here are a few tips on how you can practice self-care and put your mental health first. 

 1. Take a Break from Social Media

One of the best ways to practice self-care is to step back from everything and simply focus on breathing. This can include putting cell phones down and logging off social media. Social media provides you with an infinite amount of content and news that it becomes easy to get an information overload. If you find yourself becoming overwhelmed or drained by the news you see on the internet or even on the TV, it is okay to turn it off and take a break from it. 

According to Resilience Expert and life coach Karen Dean, if you are feeling stressed, a few moments of deep breathing can help you centre yourself so you can think clearly again. Karen says:

“When I’m hit with a really hard time, I need to stop and take a minimum of five really deep breaths and only think about breathing...after you do that, the situation looks different and is easy to handle. When you stop breathing your body goes into panic mode, but when you allow yourself to inhale that oxygen, everything works better.” 

By being able to breathe and assess the situation, you can think through and overcome any negative thoughts as well. Taking a step back from the stressful situation can ultimately help you stay calm during the chaos.

Karen Dean was our most recent Life Works Well Mentor Circle guest speaker! If you would like to hear more words of wisdom on Resilience from Karen, click here! 

2. Keep a Routine

Having a routine can keep you organized and on track with what you want to accomplish. Creating a routine can be as simple as using a whiteboard and writing out times and the tasks that you plan to accomplish during the day to create a schedule for yourself. Having a routine will not only keep you organized, but it will keep your mind from wandering and help your well-being overall. 

Having a routine also helps you feel like you have more control over your life. From an article from the CBC, Tayte Willows from the Canadian Mental Health Association says that having a routine helps eliminate stress. Willows says:

“When we hit a big point of stress or when something goes sideways in our lives, knowing that those things are done helps to reduce the stress that we might be feeling.”

Although it might be hard to stick to, creating and sticking to a routine is a great choice in reducing stress. 

3. Connect with others

Staying connected with others can feel like a challenge, but with the miracle of technology, the ability to connect with friends, family or even mentors is at your fingertips. FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, LinkedIn, and plenty of other platforms make it possible to connect with people from the comfort of your own home. 

Talking to a friend or family member over the internet or the phone can be a great way to practice self-care by talking about how you feel or even just about what TV series you are thinking of watching next. When you communicate with people you feel more connected to the community and less alone. Also, it has been proven that talking to people and sharing your feelings and negative emotions relieve stress so make sure to reach out to those in your life who you care about. 

One of the practices we recommend for organizations and teams is to do a quick roundtable check-in with everyone before you start your meeting. This opens up the dialogue and makes people feel more connected. 

4. Exercise and Eating Right

Practicing good self-care starts with taking care of your body. With working from home and the stay-at-home orders in place in parts of the world, you can sometimes forget about the importance of frequent exercise. While getting proper exercise and eating right may seem like small steps for self-care, these two changes can create a world of difference in relation to your mood and energy levels. 

Exercising increases endorphins, which is the feel-good hormone, and also gives you more energy. Additionally, healthy eating can nourish your body! You can even add foods such as colourful vegetables to your diet to boost your mood. Combining both eating right and exercise will give you that boost you need in no time!

5. Find a Work/Life Harmony

Working from home and taking care of the family at the same time can be a difficult task to do, so it is really important to practice self-care and find healthy integration when trying to do it all. We like to think about work-life integration or harmony rather than balance since the focus is managing all of it rather than feeling overwhelmed. 

Having all of your work accessible from home can make it difficult to unplug from our work responsibilities at the end of the workday like you used to when you left the office, so finding work-life harmony can help your overall mental health and stress management. 

By finding a way to integrate all your responsibilities and creating a plan for yourself or for your family you will be able to manage both and avoid burnout. Some examples of creating a plan could be creating a dedicated workspace in your home so you can associate that space with work and can easily disconnect at the end of the workday or even scheduling time in your day for family physical activities like indoor yoga or going for a walk. 

Self-care is important for your overall health and well-being. Practicing good self-care will not only help your mental health but your physical health as well. Your mental health and wellness should be a top priority in your life so factoring in self-care into your schedule is a beneficial step to take now and that will definitely help you in the long run. It’s never too late to get your well-being in check, and once you do your body will thank you for it. 

For more self-care tips, feel free to check out our Life Works Well YouTube video Mindfulness & Self-care for Leaders or check out our resources page on our website here!