Written by Dr. Sandra Miranda, ND

Are you taking some “me-time”? If so, what is your favorite self-care practice?  Most of you may be thinking of a walk in the park, an Epson salt bath, or watching your favorite TV show.  All of those are great choices but there are other countless options that you may not have thought about.  What counts as “self-care” is much broader than many people think.

Let’s start by defining “self-care”.  Self-care is the practice of engaging in a health-promoting thought or behaviour and therefore cultivating feelings of well-being. In short, a practice that gives you a good vibe.

1. Practice being imperfect – Perfectionism makes it harder to achieve our goals and therefore it is so harmful for us.  Allowing room for error will lower your stress levels.  Intentionally try doing an activity 70% – 80% “perfect”. 
2. Get personally connected – No, I am not talking about social media.  The number 1 factor to happiness is our personal relationships with others.  Unfortunately, this has suffered during the pandemic. Find ways to spend time with people who are positive. Choose the long line with people at the grocery store over the self-checkout lines. Talk to the person in front of your or behind you.  Speak to the clerk and he or she is wearing a name tag, use his or her name.
3. Reassess your boundaries – Figure out how you can keep your “work” activities and “home” activities separate.  This is especially important if you are working from home.  Keep your home office in a separate room if possible and learn how to shut the door at the end of your 8 hours and on the weekend.   Your emails and work will still be there tomorrow.  Just accept the fact that your work will never be done… and that’s ok!
4. Let your anger out – You need to process negative emotions to feel positive ones. For example, when you are feeling angry – run your hands in cold water, scream into a pillow.  Why do we think that we should not get mad and that anger is a bad emotion?  Feeling angry is normal and once we process it and let it go, we will start feeling more positive emotions.
5. Clean out clutter – Clutter weighs us down.  Try it and you will see that getting rid of physical clutter alleviates mental clutter too.  You can start small ie one drawer from your bedroom and work up to bigger projects like a closet or the garage