Hi lovelies

Interlinked, intertwined, and symbiotic for all eternity, your body, mind, and soul are you. From the most pragmatic person to the spiritual among us, nobody can deny that these three core concepts form the basis of self-knowledge and self-actualization.

Self-care covers all personal aspects of anybody’s journey and recognizing and implementing these into your life through all three disciplines of micro, macro, and situational can help you become more in tune with yourself than ever before.

Taking care of the body is directly linked to the mind and the presence of the soul can depend on your willingness to accept who you are, both positive and negative, and strive to make meaningful changes to your life:

• Exercise for joy

• Free your mind

Many people exercise as a purely competitive and body toning sport but light exercising for fun can make a huge difference to your life and help to bond with others while focusing the mind will help release the demons of the day which frees you to focus on the important things in life.

Exercise for Joy
Exercising for competition is as old as human civilization and dates back to the original Olympic sports games of Marathon in ancient Greece. While many of us don’t have the energy, drive, or time to sit in the gym all day, there are the obvious physical benefits of exercise in terms of losing weight and toning the body. But there are also other aspects to exercise as it relates to self-care.

Micro: Calorie Control
Most people don’t exercise to their physical limits and they really shouldn’t since this can be dangerous and should only be reserved for professional athletes or those under the supervision of a qualified trainer.

What you can do though, is exercise as part of a healthier lifestyle that will be a huge benefit when it comes to staying a healthy weight for your age, height, and body type. A popular method of exercise is to partake in light exercises that are meant for burning calories as part of a controlled diet that will keep the extra pounds away.

Jogging and stationary biking are the best exercises for burning calories and they are as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. If you haven’t done any running before or for a long time, then you can start with brisk walking and then jogging. A good rule of thumb is that if your heart rate is elevated then it qualifies as exercise. 

This great free exercise calculator can help you work out how many calories you've burned from a single workout.

Macro: Form Relationships
Another benefit of exercising is that it can be an excellent group activity. Apart from the obvious social advantage, exercising with others has been shown to improve the workout experience and make it less boring for those who find it difficult.

Friends will also encourage each other and a workout that might otherwise have seemed like a long and tedious process can go by in a flash and feel like a day out with the girls or guys since the bonding activity takes your mind off the fact that you are exercising. 

Motivation plays a key role in exercise and many people suffer from motivation issues. While it is normal to feel unmotivated at times, lack of motivation all the time could be a sign of depression and might be serious. This is why exercising is a great self-care method since it has been directly shown to alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Situational: Pandemic Stress Relief
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused depression among the population to rise sharply and with no end in sight, it has become necessary to find ways to relieve the effects of being isolated while under lockdown orders.

The situation will change but it could take some time. Because of this, situational self-care has become an essential element of our daily lives as we might be alone, far away from friends and family or even unable to leave the home. While there are many distractions we could indulge in, they might not be the best for us. 

Binge-watching TV shows or playing video games is fun for a while but it won’t do anything to relieve feelings of loneliness, depression, or anxiety. Physical activity such as exercise causes serotonin to be released directly from the central nervous system into the brain and body which causes you to feel good and is the same feeling you get when accomplishing something, eating your favorite meal, or falling in love.

Free Your Mind
The body can be taken care of with exercise and physical activity which has been shown to have a direct impact on the health of the mind. However, exercise alone isn’t enough for a healthy mind and clarity of conscience, shedding of desire and feeling free are essential aspects of good mental health.

Micro: Guided Meditation
There are numerous techniques of meditation and you don't need to be a Tibetan monk to enjoy the benefits of a relaxed mind. While it's true that the optimal environment for meditation is one of self-imposed solitude somewhere you won’t be interrupted for a long time, for most of us, this just isn’t possible.

The requirements of daily life just don't allow for that kind of freedom but freedom, you can have. For the past 50 years or so, many meditation specialists including doctors, psychologists, and wellbeing gurus have perfected meditation techniques for just about every type of person and chief among them is the practice of guided meditation.

The beauty of guided meditation is that it can be done almost anywhere and tends to last between 5 minutes to 1 hour, or even longer if you wish to do so. The technique involves either listening to a narrator or focusing on something such as a candle flame and usually includes gentle music or sounds of nature to relax the mind. 

Breathing techniques are instructed by the narrator that help to put your mind in a trance-like, yet conscious state and this allows you to focus on yourself rather than the world around you. In the least, guided meditation will help you to temporarily reduce stress but has been shown to help with self-awareness, creativity, and anger management.

Macro: Organize Your Life
Resting the mind and focusing on what needs to be done either by guided meditation or other means can help with the self-care aspect of organization. Organization isn't only related to being organized, such as with scheduling, arrangement, or time management, but also prioritizing the things in your life that need to be addressed and how that should be done.

Studies have shown that the act of organization has many mental health and self-care benefits including improved sleep, reduced stress, and making better decisions when it comes to exercise, food, and general health. Unless prevented by a catastrophic external factor such as drug or alcohol abuse, physical or sexual abuse, or chronic depression, organization is easy and costs nothing.

First of all, you might want to make a list of anything that is preventing you from either caring for yourself or preventing you from moving forward with your goals. These could be financial, medical, or environmental but you should then address these issues with possible solutions.

Once any issues have been identified with solutions, you can begin the process of prioritizing them one by one in order of urgency and feasibility. It might be better to remove any smaller obstacles in your life that you can do immediately rather than focus on something larger that could take some time. Work towards the larger goals through a series of smaller ones.

Situational: Financial Freedom
One of the biggest impacts of Covid-19 is the massively detrimental effect it has had on the income of many families all over the world. Lockdown restrictions have meant that businesses have had to close, some have been shuttered and others completely abandoned which has led to many employees uncertain about their financial future.

Financial worries are among the most common with 73% of Americans citing money issues as the primary cause of stress in their lives. But the issue of money doesn’t need to overtake your life and there are many options and methods you can use to take back control of your money.

In these trying times, especially if you have been laid off or temporarily out of work, then you will need to address what you can and cannot afford. This is one of the most difficult things you can do if you are used to a certain level of living, but it is absolutely necessary.

Make a list of everything you currently pay for that doesn’t include gas, water, electricity, or food, and then ask yourself if you can live without it. You will find that the answer is yes to almost everything. You don’t need Netflix, you don’t need a magazine subscription and you don’t need to have your hair styled every week. The point is that sometimes, some things aren’t all that important next to genuine self care.