How To Invest In Your Future Mental Health With Self-care

Despite all the buzz about self-care, very few people actually incorporate self-care into their daily lives. Self-care may be thought of as grandiose gestures such as spa days, vacations, and other infrequent events rather than the continuous small actions that add up to good mental health. If we think of self-care as adding small deposits over time like in a bank account, we can accumulate resilience, deposit by deposit. Then when something happens in life, a small stressor, or a large one, there is a withdrawal made. If we have built up enough resilience through continued, frequent acts of self-care, we will not feel the effects of the stressors as strongly. So how do we build up our resilience through self-care? What kind of things do we need to do to build up our resilience bank and improve our mental health? Read on to find out how to build your resilience and boost your mental health, according to a somatic therapist in San Francisco.

How To Invest in Your Resilience and Future Mental Health Through Acts of Self-care.

1) Start by connecting with yourself. In order to know what types of self-care will benefit you, it is important to do a self check-in. Find a place that is quiet, away from all electronics, and allow yourself to sit without any distactions. If it helps, you can close your eyes. Focus on any physical sensations that arise and ask yourself “How am I feeling? What do I need?” Whatever thoughts and feelings come up automatically, take a moment to acknowledge rather than suppress them. All of those serve as information. From there you can begin to identify what self-care steps you need to take to bolster your mental health. Try to connect with yourself daily, or even several times a day as a first step to identify what kind of self-care actions to do.

2) Start small. After taking the first step of self-care, connecting daily with yourself, decide what small steps you can take as acts of self-care. Maybe it is getting more sleep, drinking water, or adding more vegetables. Pick one small thing you want to improve and start there. This is a way to not overwhelm yourself and to build gradually.

3) Broaden your idea of self-care. Therapy, better sleep, boundaries, saying “no” to people pleasing, drinking water, etc. these are all examples of ways to care for yourself. Even if they don’t seem huge, these small actions are the building blocks of resilience and they add up. So don’t knock yourself for not doing an elaborate, multi-step self-care routine and instead work on getting the basics (good sleep, eating decently, and having emotional outlets) down. Other examples of self-care could be going to the dentist, exercising, meeting up with friends, etc.

4) Recognize that self-care can look different for each person. Self-care is about replenishing your energy and investing in your self. What is restorative and helpful varies from person to person so it makes sense that each person’s self-care routine may be different. For instance, some people may feel restored by intense exercise whereas another person might find meditation and calming music helpful. Find what activities and routines that help you, specifically, and make a list of those for you to refer to later. When you start to feel off either physically or emotionally, check how many of the self-care activities on the list you are doing lately.

5) Don’t make self-care a thing that you need to do perfectly. Truly, just do the best you can and if you get overwhelmed, go back to the first steps listed. You will add stress to yourself (and undermine the whole purpose of self-care) if you add on the need to be “perfect” at self-care. Think of each day as a blank slate where you can start over with self-care. Even if you did not do a great job at self-care the day before, today is a day where you can do a few things to help yourself. Focus on doing a few things each day, rather than a multitude of tasks, perfectly.

6) Find ways to incorporate joy. Self-care does not have to be all drudgery. Explore things that give you joy, make you laugh, and, as a consequence, make you feel better. It could be listening to your favorite comic, going to a dance class, taking in a baseball game. . .whatever makes you smile and makes things feel lighter.

7) Lastly, if you have trouble with any of these steps, find a therapist that can help you with that process. If you need resources or guidance on how to find a somatic therapist or someone to help you with this process, please reach out to me at lisa@lisamanca.com.