Friday, August 4, 2017

Fun Friday: Self Care!

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! Happy Friday :) I'm sure all of you that work a regular schedule are excited for your upcoming weekend. I'm ready for mine but I have a little longer to wait.

So I'm going to be honest I was a bit stumped as to what I should post for today's Fun Friday. It finally came to me last night (talk about timing!) and I have decided to talk a little bit about self care. Self care is so important for your mental health and we all deserve to take care of ourselves and pamper ourselves a little bit. It's become increasingly more important for me lately as some of my mental health issues have been causing me some problems but I've been trying hard to make sure that I take care of myself. I figured I'd share some of my favorite forms of self care with you.


Sorry for the crappy picture, it is storming here so it is super dark. Anyway, my first and my personal most important form of self care that I practice is journaling. I started to journal at the request of my therapist but it has turned into a completely different beast from the original write down your current mood and what you are thinking. It has become a place for me to confide my deepest secrets, a place for me to get my thoughts out when my mind is racing, a place to write down ideas and words of encouragement to myself and a place for me exercise my creativity. To me, this is huge and a way for me to have a few minutes with my thoughts a few times a day. If I could recommend one thing to you it would be journaling.


The second thing I do for self care is get out of my house. I am the kind of person that withdraws and retreats as soon as I start to feel any sort of negative feelings. I want to be alone, locked in my room. This is when it is most important for me to get out and to connect with (at the very least) nature and ideally with people. Withdrawing does not help me overcome those feelings and feeling some sort of connection to something helps me by increasing positive feelings and emotions. There is a specific place (by Sands Point, which I've written about before) that I will drive to just to have some quiet and enjoy a beautiful view.



The next thing would be to TREAT YO SELF!!! Whether it is that new lipstick you've been wanting, a new cookbook to help you eat more interesting, healthy foods or just a weekly bubble tea it is important to treat yourself to something no matter how small it may seem. We all work hard and deserve a little treat every now and then. 


This next one is something that I'm looking to get into a little bit more. That would be aromatherapy. Right now I currently only have candles which I'm looking to move away from because lighting candles just tweaks my OCD (for those of you that didn't read this post, yes I have been diagnosed with OCD) way too much. I am looking to get into diffusing oils for so many different reasons. I've heard that it is so great and actually really helps and I know it is much cleaner than burning candles and also safer I'd guess. I get a lot of migraines too so I'm hoping that peppermint oils will actually help with those so I can stop popping pills for that.

If anyone has any diffuser and oil recommendations I would LOVE to hear them!!

source link broken :(

I've used this picture before because I love it haha. The next form of self care that I'm going to be getting back into is working out! Working out may suck at the time but after you finish there is definitely a little bit of an endorphins high that you feel that will instantly make you feel better. In addition, you are doing something for your health and your body will thank you. I used to be a workout fiend but fell off the wagon for a while but I'm planning to get into an at home routine of Youtube workouts mixed with yoga practice. 

These are just a few forms of self care that I currently practice or that I'm looking to start. Do you have any self care ideas to share? What do you do to keep your head in the game and to take care of yourself? This is of course the very tip of the iceberg and there are so many other things you can do but I figured I'd start here :)

I hope that you all enjoy your weekend! Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to post this Sunday and I know I won't be posting next Sunday (I have a friend coming to stay with me for the weekend) but I will still be posting twice until the following week. Just wanted to give you the heads up :)

Have a great weekend! I'll see you most likely on Tuesday <3



6 comments:

Bianca said...

I'd love to get into journaling. Used to be better at it when I was kid, but when I've tried as an adult, I just get tired of writing things by hand. Hahaha. I'm so used to typing, and I can't seem to hand-write my thoughts as fast as they come. I guess I could computer-journal!

Ingrid said...

Really wonderful self care strategies! Journaling is such a powerful tool! Leaving the house for some reason helps me "leave me head", so that is a tool I like to practice as well. And as you said - those who support us are critical, too!

I am on team Good Endorphins from workouts! As I've created a strong workout schedule this summer, I can tell when I'm in need of a sweat! (Love that picture!)

Oooh, I hope you are up to all sorts of fun! Have a wonderful week!

Sarah said...

I've really been loving it! I don't write pages at a time, it's usually just a paragraph at a time a few times a day. It's just to get what I'm feeling in the moment out at the moment. It's amazing and doesn't take long! I really recommend giving it a try!

Sarah said...

Thanks! The journaling has been so helpful for me. Leaving the house for a few moments really helps too. I guess the new scenery or whatever, ha.

I'm working on creating a workout schedule to try and get back in the game. I really need to get back into yoga asap because I've been dealing with a lot of panic and anxiety lately and I just need to deal with it even more proactively.

Thanks, you too!

Vegan In The VI said...

I 100% agree about getting out of the house. Really helps. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Sarah said...

It definitely helps, no matter how hard it is to actually drag yourself out. Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!