Wellness influencers are constantly spreading the good word of more time for self-care. But when does too much self-care become a bad thing? It may sound counterintuitive, but self-care can turn around and bite you when it starts causing stress. The self-care ideas that wellness leaders share can often be expensive, putting a strain on your finances. And popular self-care ideas can also take up way to much time, especially when you feel pressured to squeeze every idea you come across into one day. Like, are we really trying to meditate, conduct our own tea ceremony, then practice yoga, go for a hike, use a dry brush before we shower, then tongue scrape, and make a handful of tonics and superfood lattes and smoothies all before work?! We’re exhausted just thinking about how much earlier we’d have to get up for all of these things. Remember that good time management, plenty of sleep, and feeling like you can breathe through your schedule for the day are the most important self-care rituals to maintain.
We decided to come up with a list of self-care ideas that feel totally manageable, don’t require you to spend money, and most importantly, don’t require a ton of time.
Don’t feel like you have to add all of these self-care ideas into your daily routine. Spread them throughout the month, or add them into your routine slowly.
Morning Meditation
If you choose one thing to do in the morning for self care, try meditation. You can literally set your timer for 2 minutes and just breathe deeply until the timer goes off. That is plenty of meditation for the day. If you feel like going for longer, try an app like Calm or Headspace.
Walk On Your Lunch Break
Since you’re sitting for the majority of the day, use your lunch break as a time to get up and get moving. You don’t even have to use your entire lunch break. If you have an hour lunch, walk for 15 minutes to a park bench, eat your lunch, and walk back. This will help your food digest better too! You can also walk while you meet with a coworker, or take phone meetings if you don’t need to be in front of your computer for them.
Boost Your Hygge
Hygge is a Danish way of life that emphasizes coziness. The easiest way to increase the hygge in your home is to light some candles and turn on your diffuser. It is also important to use the dimmer on your lights if you have one, or only use lamps instead of overhead lighting. These simple changes will totally calm you and make you feel ten times better.
Post-Work Yoga
No, you don’t have to buy a yoga membership. In fact, you don’t have to leave your house. Simply do as little as 8 minutes to as much as 20 minutes of YouTube yoga right when you get home from work. We love Boho Beautiful and Yoga With Adrien. This will help you increase flexibility, but it will mostly help you unwind and decompress from a long day.
Take A Break From Alcohol
We’re not asking you to go weeks or months without alcohol—we wouldn’t even do that. But you can take a night or two off from drinking. This requires no time at all and will do wonders for your liver!
Schedule A Date With A Friend
Women need their women. It is one of the most important self-care ideas we’re sharing because lady time does wonders for releasing stress and emotional baggage. Meet your friend for happy hour, or go for a walk and catch up.
Journal
This is perhaps the most time consuming of all of our self-care ideas, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. You can do just a few minutes of journaling, and you don’t even have to journal every day. Even setting aside time in your calendar once a month for a 10-minute journaling sesh can cleanse your mind, release tension, and unlock new ideas and revelations. Give it a try!
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