St Stephen’s Day – a great day for a little bit of self-care after all the Christmas mayhem!
This is a post I first shared here on Happy Magazine a few months ago with some of my favourite self-care treats. Perhaps it might give you a few of your own ideas of how to spend some time today. If you’ve got time to let us know what you’re doing today, we’d love to hear in the comments below.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about the importance of making time for little self-care treats in my life.
Self-care is something that can easily be forgotten in the normal busyness of day-to-day life but I really think it’s important for anybody’s continued wellbeing. Before I had cancer, I rarely did any of these things.
When I say ‘self-care treats’, I mean things like:
- A coffee date with my little boy
- Sitting in the garden with the sun on my face and NO PHONE!
- Attending Grainne’s meditation group
- Going for a spa treatment
- Exploring somewhere new with my little boy and my husband
- Taking some time out to think about all I am grateful for
- Reading a magazine or a new book
- Doing some yoga
- Making myself a really nice meal and taking the time to enjoy eating it
- Going for some reflexology
- Taking care of my skin with a lovely body cream
- Filing my nails
- Applying foot cream and socks before bed
- Taking a hot water bottle to bed
- Diffusing essential oils in the house
- Applying an essential oil on my skin before bed
- Taking time out to just ‘be’ and listen to the sounds around me
- Putting on some of my favourite music
- Taking photos and making photo albums
- Painting rocks
- ‘Emptying’ my mind onto a page
- Buying myself a little present online or at the shops
A few more treats I’d like to do in my life are:
- Going for walks by the sea
- Bubble baths! I’m terrible at making time to have a lovely relaxing bath
- Trying new restaurants with my boys
- Trying a hot yoga class
- Learning to do calligraphy
I think it’s in these moments that we are able to really stop and experience life, to feel happy, to reflect and relax. If we are not having them on a regular basis, are we really doing ok? How would we know?
Do you make time for yourself with little things like these? What self-care treats do you have in your life? How many do you have every day/every week/every month? I’d love to read them in the comments below.
By Happy Magazine Editor, Holly Kennedy
