5 Top Self Care Tips for Professionals

If you have been following me for a while now, you will know I am a massive advocate for Self-care. You may wonder why. There are so many reasons for this – some I’ll share today. And for others, perhaps another time in our journey together.

As most of us know, self-care is self-love. It is that time you set aside to look after yourself whether you mental , physical or spiritual. As we all know, mental  illness is sometimes more painful and hard to shake off than physical illness.

There are reasons for this – when we are mentally ill, it doesn’t immediately show so we think we are fine. We tell ourselves we are strong so, keep going- don’t give in to weakness. We say things like, look at so and so – they keep going so you should do the same.

Not only is this wrong, it is detrimental for your health. Because, talking ourselves out of illness ( whether physical or mental) will not get rid of the illness. We need to address it, before any sort of healing will begin to take place.

Talking yourself out of an illness because someone else is responding or has responded differently to the same illness is the worst thing we can do to ourselves. First, we are not the same therefore, our needs are different. Second, there are also various factors that come to play such as upbringing; food that were eaten growing up; body disposition; climate etc.

In the current pandemic world we live in, it has become a necessity to put in self-care routines into our live styles. As most professionals work from home, turning a home into a sanctuary is key to maintaining this lifestyle. I will share more on how we can turn our homes into sanctuaries in another post – stay tuned!

Today, I will explore 5 ways busy people can turn their lives around and incorporate self-care into their daily routine/ rituals.

People tend to ask, why do I need self-care? I realised the importance of self care after I suffered a few burn-outs. I am a workaholic and often times, I struggle to incorporate rest times and breaks into my lifestyle and I’ve had to pay dearly for this.

From suffering multiple burn-outs, I’ve learnt to change my lifestyle to sustain my way of life. There is nothing wrong with working hard, but we need to learn to work smart. This includes setting times aside to pamper and  show our body some TLC.

I’ll share with you today, the 5 quick tips that help me. Not that these are all the self-care routines, these are just a few of them.

 Meditation

This means very different things for different people. I will only look at one aspect of meditation that I practice in the morning or at night before bed time.  I meditate in very different ways which again, I will share on my blog but today, we will focus on my morning or night meditation.

If you follow me on Social media, you will see that I have just started reading a book called ‘Celebration of Discipline’ by Richard Foster. And it looks at key disciplines that we require to live a fulfilled and bountiful lives. One of those discipline is Meditation.

The aspect of meditation that I explore is not detachment from the body like Eastern Meditation. I do not practise this. I see meditation as a wholesome act – we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct an inner sanctuary in our hearts.

As  Thomas Merton put it ‘Meditation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in life’.  It is a time when I release all my thoughts and feelings to God and allow Him to fill me with his Love and Strength.

During this time, practicing Silence allows Him to speak  and instruct me on what to do and how to go about the day- including all the mundane aspects of my day.   The Quakers practice silence, allowing God the space to direct and instruct us – equipping one for the task ahead.

As William Penn rightly noted, ‘ True Godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it’.

Limited screen time

This is a very hard one for most busy people – but it is necessary. In 2021, I told myself that I need to limit the length of time I’m on social media and my phone.

Guess what I did? I put a time restriction on my phone and it automatically sets at 21:30 pm. Anyone talking to me on social media once it’s this time, the screen time gives a warning 10 minutes before so I can wrap things up and at that time, it logs me off!

Honestly, as a business owner and someone who literally works off my phone and computer, this is the hardest but the best thing I have done. It is a discipline which must be adhered to for my sanity. I’d imagine most of you have the same needs but the time we spend on social media can adversely affect our sleeping patterns; create insomnia and cause headaches; dry and itchy eyes.

I use more eye drops now then I’ve ever done in my entire life! So, its for my self preservation that I limit the use of screen times 🙂 Who can relate to this? Comment below and let me know your experiences.

Self – Reflection

You might ask, why is this important?  I believe Self reflection is the very first stage for self actualisation leading to self- love and evidently self-care.

How can you love and care for yourself when you don’t really know yourself? I went through the phase of self actualisation through numerous self-reflection. I must say, I still self-reflect as I believe we are always still learning ourselves through different seasons of our lives.

Some might ask, why do I need this done regularly? In the world of social media and digital space, the world is constantly telling us who we are. If you don’t have a firm foundation and root on who we are, we will fall for any definition of self the world gives us.

Also, I like to spend time accessing my actions on a given day- processing what I did wrong and what can be done better. I like to look inward and question by thoughts and motives. In our very busy life, it’s easy to think of all our actions as coming from the right motives but more often, this is not so. So, it helps me to take stock of my day or week to reflect and see areas needed improvements.

With combined act of meditation, if we are unable to see our errs, the good Lord will show us during our meditation times with Him. As  mark Twain wrote , ‘ The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find our why’ .

Pamper sessions

Who doesn’t enjoy pampers? I loooovve this! It’s the best part of working hard. After all the hard work during the day, you find 15-30 minutes to unwind.  This is again one that there are so many ways you can go about it. I will write more on this as we journey together, but for this post, I like to share a few quick things you can do to relax and unwind:

• Learn to take a bath – I have met many people who say they can’t have a bath. That it’s a waste of their time. Gosh, this is so far from the truth. Baths are essential for your self-care. I will confess that it is something you need to learn for some people. For me, it is difficult to learn to stay in a bath as I am always itching to do something but when I’m in a Bath, I turn off the lights, and relax in the dark with the water seeping into my body. I tend to add some sea salts, bath oil and bath bomb to give me that extra Scents and colour!
• Massages – These are my favorites! who doesn’t like a massage with candles. Well, do you know you can book a massage at home if you’re too busy. I use Urban Massage for my at-home treatments.  If you’re tight on the money, you can also get yourself a massage chair and after every hard day’s work, you rock yourself back and forth in the chair whilst getting your neck and back massage done.
• Light Candles and Dim the lights in your living room or bedroom – Even something as little as dimming the lights and lighting a candle in your home can make such a difference to your wellbeing. I like to buy organic candles and essential oils from Neom . 

  

• Give yourself a deep facial or deep hair conditioning- have you seen my recent YouTube video on this?  This is a great form of self-care. I like to get my facial treatment every 3 weeks and deep condition my hair every 2 weeks during the winter months. As my afro hair gets really dry due to the cold season, it’s  vital to use products that keeps it nourished.

Spirit of Gratitude

Last but not least, this is the most important of all. A heart of gratitude helps restore healing , I have experienced this. When I am more grateful, I see that I am  full of life and health. We practice gratitude in our family for the smallest things  which then builds to the bigger things. I’m thankful for waking up, eating, having a family, loved ones, friends and the list is endless.

They say that, ‘where attention goes, energy flows’. So the more we share gratitude and thankfulness, the more we are in a thankful state. Which also reflects in our attitude.  This is key to self-care.

On this every good note, I will wish you all a wonderful New Year. And a fruitful one with gratitude and thankfulness!