Ms. Susan Treadway, an addict in recovery, authored the following guest post. She uses a holistic approach to sobriety to stay on a successful path and believes adopting even a few holistic methods can help anyone struggling with addiction.
Susan wants everyone to know that you don’t have to be a hippie to embrace holistic wellness – this concept is simply about focusing on your entire sense of well-being rather than just one part. She hopes her website, rehabholistics.com, will inspire anyone who has struggled with addiction to incorporate holistic practices into their own self-care routine.
Everyone has their own unique fitness goals. Whatever your personal goals are, if you work hard in the gym but don’t make time for other self-care practices, you won’t achieve overall wellness. Finding balance in our busy lives is a challenge, but incorporating regular self-care just may be the solution.
Self-Care Is a Process
Fitness does much more than help us achieve our personal goals. Being active keeps your body healthy, while also warding off stress and anxiety. These are the main components of any self-care practice — giving your body and mind some TLC. Fitness is only one way to achieve self-care, though. You also need rest, relaxation, and good nutrition. Doing these things should be an ongoing process that you practice every day. Adding self-care to your to-do list may feel like an impossible task, but these ideas will help make it easier.
Make Good Nutrition Simple
Eating a balanced diet is one of the best things we can do for our bodies. One way to make nutrition more convenient is to find a meal delivery or grocery service in your area. These services eliminate the time spent planning and shopping, and many also offer low-calorie meals, so they make eating a balanced diet much easier to fit into your busy life.
Another self-care must when it comes to nutrition is to always eat breakfast. Whether you grab a protein shake to take on the go or you put together a healthy breakfast at night to have ready the next day, eating breakfast sets you up to feel your best all day long. And when it comes to fixing dinner, electric pressure cookers can easily and quietly help you create simple, delicious meals such as mac and cheese, BBQ pulled pork, and tomato soup, just to name a few.
Proper nutrition can also be easily obtained by eating the right amount of food daily. However, this might be difficult for those who are trying to manage their hunger. While eating foods high in protein and fiber are solid solutions, appetite suppressants also exist to help with hunger control. If you are planning to go with the latter option, it’s important to proceed with caution and do your research first to find the one that’s best for you. Keep in mind too that some appetite suppressants can interact with certain medications, and some contain caffeine, which can lead to feeling jittery and uncomfortable.
Create Daily Rituals
We all have our daily routines, from waking up in the morning and getting ready for our day to how we relax and unwind before bed. To make self-care stick as a way of life, look at how you can incorporate it into those routines with simple rituals. Remember that these rituals aren’t about the end result. Instead, it’s about the process of doing things that are good for you. Consider trying these ideas:
- Meditate – Can you add a quick meditation session to part of your day? Perhaps first thing in the morning or right after a workout.
- Practice yoga – Practicing yoga is an excellent way to stretch out sore muscles while caring for your mental health so you feel less stressed and more relaxed. Group yoga sessions are fun, but you can also do a quick yoga practice at home. If you don’t have a spare room, consider adapting a room for your yoga practice that you don’t use that often. A rarely used dining room can be perfect for this purpose.
- Get outside – Getting some fresh air and connecting with nature makes you feel more grounded and helps achieve balance. If you live in the city, simply taking a walk around the block or heading to a park will do the trick, and this is an easy ritual to combine with fitness.
Take Back Your Time
When you feel like there is simply no time to take care of yourself, the best thing you can do is stop spending time on things that aren’t good for you. Mind Body Green calls these “low-value habits,” and they can be anything from time spent watching TV or engaging in social media to checking emails and making small talk. Reducing these distractions is in itself an act of self-care, and it frees up your time for what truly matters.
Be Mindful of Your Schedule
Just like everything else in life, your schedule is all about balance. If you struggle to make self-care practices stick, try writing them down in a planner just as you would for appointments. At the same time, Bustle reminds us that we should also leave room for spontaneity. Balancing out your schedule helps make self-care a priority, but it also means allowing for fun and trying new things.
Self-care is truly the key to leading a more balanced life. It helps us live more fully, and it’s necessary to see fitness results. Most importantly, self-care doesn’t have to be a chore. When you make these rituals part of your new routine, it no longer feels like something you have to do and becomes a part of your daily life.
Susan Treadway
Best to you!
Eric
