How to Practice Self-Care and Feel More Energized

You’ll learn how to incorporate a self-care practice into your routine so you can feel happier, more energized and enjoy each day.

I’ll admit that self-care has been a bit of a buzzword lately in the wellness community. BUUT it’s for good reason. I’m a firm believer that self-care is an essential part of a well rounded healthy lifestyle. Gone are the days where you need to eat perfectly, work out 6 days a week to feel and be healthy.

I love that the conversation around health is changing and moving in a more wholistic and sustainable direction. Because god knows there’s more to life than obsessing over calories.

But before I go on and on about why self-care is important, first let’s define it.

What is self-care?

Self-care is the practice of taking time to do activities that nurture your mind, body and/or spirit. Some common examples include: reading, taking a bath, lighting candles, coloring, going for a walk. But there’s no wrong answers really.

Self-care is about intentionally taking time to care for yourself in whatever way suits you and nurtures you.

It’s important because…

When you can take good care of yourself you can really show up and be present in your life. I’m sure you can think back to a time (maybe it’s right now) where you were running around doing everything for everyone else 24/7. You probably weren’t sleeping well and maybe the exhaustion spiked your food cravings. Maybe you stopped exercising or maybe you over exercised. At these times, we tune out the signals telling us we need to slow down.

Often, what happens is eventually you’ll burn out. When you’re physically and emotionally exhausted, you just can’t do good work, period, even when you’re doing what you love.

Taking breaks is vital for restoring energy. That goes for creative energy, too.

And incase you’re thinking self care sounds indulgent…

It’s not. Seriously it isn’t. It’s an important aspect of your health. When you’re well rested and seen as a priority (by YOU), then you can be better in pretty much all areas of life. It’s really all about your energy. That goes for your energy to physically show up and be engaged, but also your emotional energy. Self care is a way to recharge your batteries.

How you practice self care is totally up to you

Whether you take a day for yourself every week or incorporate some kind of self care practice each day it doesn’t matter. What does matter is how you feel and whether you can make your practice sustainable.

Different activities and strategies will work for different people, but have fun while you try new things out and document what really makes a difference.

Ideas to get you started

Want to kick start your self-care practice? … Awesome!

I’m hosting a 2 week self-care challenge to help turn this key wellness practice into a regular enjoyable and beneficial habit.

What’s involved?

• 2 weeks of daily self-care challenges & journaling prompts via email
• Supportive engaged community to help share the experience

How do you join?

It’s totally free, all you have to do is sign up here

What you’ll need:

• A journal
• A open & positive mindset

Want to be extra awesome?

Share the challenge with your friends who would be interested and/or let people know you’re joining on Instagram – tag @init4thelongrunblog and use the hashtag #selfcarejunkies

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