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This winter has been cold, team! Like, really, really cold. But we’re not going to let these negative temperatures give us a negative state of mind. With the holiday season over and the chilly winter weather in full swing, it’s more important for us to amp up the self-care to defeat season blues.
10 Self-Care Tips
While extra streamy bubble baths with fizzy bath bombs are a crucial part of our self-care routines, we can do some other things to care for ourselves on a deeper level. So here are some simple ways to take care of yourself after the holidays!
Create a Morning Routine
There are two types of people out there: those who love a routine and those terrified by them. But science is hard to argue with, and routines are proven to positively affect our mental health. According to Real Simple, routines help us:
Maintain healthy habits
Fight against depression
Lower anxiety levels
Help us focus on more important things that need our time
By creating a healthy morning routine for yourself, you’ll be less likely to procrastinate beginning your day, start off on the right foot, and stick to the healthy habits you want to keep.
Our favorite morning ritual routines that you could incorporate are:
Stretching and/or a gentle yoga practice
Journaling
Running
A healthy breakfast
Mediation
The key is to create a morning routine that works and feels good for you.
Respect Your Budget
Most of us probably don’t think of budgeting as a form of self-care, but we should! Anything that positively affects our mental health can be considered self-care; making responsible financial decisions fits the bill.
By making a budget for yourself and sticking to it, you’re practicing self-control and organizing your life. Money has always been one of the most significant contributors to stress and anxiety for adults. If you stick to your budget now, you’ll be able to save up money for emergencies and lower your stress down the line. Plus, you’ll be able to treat yourself every now and then, which can also be great for your mental health.
Take Time For Yourself
Throughout the holiday’s it seems like we have one social obligation after the next. Between friends and family, we forget to stop and take time for ourselves. So, if you felt overwhelmed over the past few months, now is the perfect time to slow down and have that alone time that you need.
Don’t be afraid to say no to invitations. If your house is full, and it seems like you can’t get away, just close the door to your bedroom for 15 minutes. Even the most social of us need time to recenter ourselves. If this is something you struggle with, check out these 10 simple ways to help you say no.
One In, One Out
A few weeks ago, we went through our Stax Method of Getting & Staying Organized for the New Year, and we are so proud of the great work you all did getting started! But, let’s not stop now!
The easiest way to be organized is to stay organized. So, to keep our organization on track for 2022, don’t forget the one in, one out rule.
For each thing you add to your closet, choose something that you no longer use to donate or sell. We love our little black dresses too, but there is no reason we need nine of them hanging in our closet. If you haven’t used it in over a year, it’s a great contender for being donated.
Read a Book
Reading isn’t just good for your mind. It’s good for your soul. A good book can teleport you to another world. It gets your creativity pumping, forces you to use your brain, and improves communication. The things we can learn from books are all-encompassing, from general knowledge to compassion to communication skills.
A good book is an essential part of our self-care habits. Grab one of your Stax instructor’s favorites for the season, snuggle up on the couch, and get a good read in.
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides: A psychological thriller about Alicia Berenson, an artist who shockingly shot her husband, and Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist who is trying to get to the bottom of this violent murder.
In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park: The autobiography of human rights activist and North Korean defectorYeonmi Park, who tells the story of her long and difficult journey to freedom.
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris: A novel that dives into the complexities of the relationship between two freedmen and the farmer they work with during the end of the Civil War.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: After growing up isolated and learning from the land, Kya becomes interested in two young men from town. This coming-of-age story contemplates how isolation can influence us.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah: This best seller is about two sisters in France during World War II and is filled with plot twists that will continuously pull on your heartstrings.
Go Internet-Lite
It’s so hard to go offline in 2022. Between home office, screens everywhere, and the rolling lockdowns, sometimes it’s just easier to stay glued to your device. Screen time rates have risen drastically due to the pandemic, and it’s hurting us both mentally and physically.
According to Scripps, too much screen time leads to eye strain, headaches, disruptions in our sleep patterns, pain in the neck, shoulder, and back, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, and even social media addiction.
Looking for a way to break your toxic social media additions?
Turn your phone to grayscale
Turn off your notifications
Uninstall all but the most essential apps (we’re not looking at you, Instagram)
Use time tracking tools to limit usage
According to former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris, going grayscale removes positive reinforcements and dampens the urge to keep loading up social media feeds or games.
Get off your phone and spend more time with some of the other healthy habits on this list.
Be Grateful
Unfortunately, the world has a lot of negative things going on right now that it’s easy to focus on what we don’t have or can’t do, rather than being grateful for what we do have and can do. By practicing gratitude in our daily lives, we can totally switch our mindset and our energy into a more positive light.
One way to help us focus on gratitude is by journaling. Journaling is a great addition to a healthy morning or bedtime routine. If you’re struggling to find things to be grateful about in your life, check out Gaiam’s 8 Reasons to be Grateful for some inspiration.
Take Your Supplements
During the winter, we face many more attacks on our immune system, and now with Covid, it’s more important than ever that we take care of our bodies and keep them ready to fight off any infections. Not only that, but we tend to feel sluggish and sad in the winter as well.
Last month, we rounded up a list of the Best Supplements for Winter to Improve Your Energy, Immunity, and Recovery. These all-natural additions to your diet can help your body combat the winter blues and keep your serotonin and melatonin levels up.
Move Your Body
You already know that we’re here to help you with this one! It is so easy to get complacent in the winter, with the cold weather, and endless holidays. But it is so much easier to fall out of shape than to get back into it, so now is not the time to let all your handwork fall to the wayside!
Between our strength and spin classes that are available both online and in-studio, we’ve got enough content and classes available to you that you’ll never get bored. Both strength training and cardio have positive effects on your mental and physical health, so exercise should always be on your to-do list for self-care.
Throw Away Your Scale
We have been taught from a young age that what we read on the scale is somehow a reflection of us. That's a lie. You are so much more than a number.
Throw that dang scale in the garbage! Weighing yourself daily can be damaging to your mental health. Our weight isn’t always a good representation of our physical health anyway.
If you’re feeding your body the healthy food and nutrition that it needs and getting plenty of exercise, who cares what your exact weight is. This year, focus on how you feel on the inside and not on what the scale reads back to you.