Self-care
Self-Care Therapy Services: Five Easy Ways To Improve Your Self-Care
Written by
Inner Clarity
September 10, 2024
Drinking water, sleeping in, taking a walk in nature, or grabbing lunch with a friend. These may sound like insignificant things on their own, yet when enacted together and with intention, they are the kinds of activities that constitute the vital practice of self-care. But what exactly is self-care? Self-care can be developed on your own or with the help of therapy services, but it is largely defined by the set of actions, habits, and routines through which you commit to nourishing your mental, emotional, and social well-being throughout your life.
While certain aspects of mental health care, like prescription medication or intensive one-on-one counseling, will always serve as effective tools of treatment, more and more people today are realizing that consistently utilized self-care provides an accessible way to cultivate stability through reliable and even enjoyable measures. Review this Inner Clarity guide to gain applicable self-care tips and learn more about how partnering with a virtual therapist can make it easier to get started and stay supported.
Every person’s best method of self-care will ultimately be unique to that individual, but there are common categories of personal upkeep prone to benefit anyone. Consider the following self-care tips in devising your own special plan.
Change is simply a part of life, and it’s to every person’s advantage to accept that. However, daily routines can help you fashion a sense of structure that reduces the stress that results from unnecessary uncertainty. For example, by scheduling specific blocks of time to fit in exercise and meditation before work, you can guarantee that you are repeatedly nurturing your body and mind. Then, that allows you to relax guilt-free. To begin, try writing a list of what an ideal day looks like to you. Next, examine what would be manageable or realistic to include before you climb into bed for a full night’s sleep. Routines will clarify your priorities and the best regimens offer a realistic and balanced path towards living your best life every day of the week.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even 30 minutes a day of walking, dancing, or yard work will strengthen your muscles and reduce the risk of diseases. Though fitting in exercise every day can seem intimidating at first, you’ll soon come to crave it as the body releases multiple feel-good hormones like serotonin during a workout, and physical activity helps the flow of oxygen through your tissues, which boosts energy levels. You can discover more ways to move your body by tweaking parts of your work commute to allow for more walking, or by finding a friend to do yoga with. Regardless, physical health isn’t just fostered by going to the gym. Review what you usually eat to consider how you may start weaving in nutrients and vitamins missing from your diet, and ensure you’re getting adequate amounts of sleep.
Implementing more mindfulness into your life has the potential to enhance your mental clarity and reduce anxiety at lengths you cannot even imagine. The principles of mindfulness involve being curious about your feelings — noticing how they arise and change — instead of being judgemental about any experience being intrinsically one fixed way. While that may sound complicated at first, you can cultivate mindfulness by integrating meditation, stretching, journaling, or deep-breathing exercises into your daily life. These activities give low-barrier ways to deliberately build a sense of patience and apply trust to your inner movements, thus removing the need to always be seeking the next source of external validation.
It’s fulfilling to work hard and make significant progress in the tasks we set out to complete. But the productivity pendulum can swing the other way and become unhealthy if we overwork ourselves to the point of frequent fatigue. By setting boundaries with your employer or job obligations, you can prevent burnout and make certain that every day extends an opportunity for you to be both useful and restive. Doing so often requires assertive communication to both advocate for your needs and arrive at a consensus of reasonable expectations. This can extend to social situations as well; learn to say no to friends or colleagues if you know that accepting the invitation will knock you off balance. You can convey gratitude to be included and suggest other times or activities that will better suit your well-being.
Newsflash: you stand to benefit from programming time to go for a bike ride or conduct some walking meditation after a hard end-of-the-work-day deadline. But indulging in hobbies or activities that bring you joy is also healthy! Self-care doesn’t have to be limited to trying out new and challenging tasks. Appraise which of your personal interests you could just talk endlessly about and how you might protect those pursuits. The pleasure gained from starting a new crochet project, setting aside an evening for a good movie, or facilitating a board game night is no trivial thing if it regularly makes you happy. Find a friend or family member who shares your interests and schedule a weekly date to meet up and take part in your favorite thing together.
The above self-care tips provide a good place to start when creating your own daily, habitual practice. But you don’t have to set off on supporting your mental health all on your own. Inner Clarity provides a roster of experienced professionals who offer virtual therapy services capable of being tailored to the most effective treatment for your individual needs.
Virtual therapy services enable you to support your mental health in the most convenient way possible. This way, you can check in with a qualified provider about the ongoing status of your self-care routine from the comfort and privacy of your own home, which makes it easier to maintain a consistent commitment to weekly sessions. An Inner Clarity expert therapist who will become familiar with your mental health challenges can also render customized self-care tips for what will be most beneficial to your comprehensive well-being. That means that a counselor can teach and troubleshoot what kind of mindfulness techniques work best for you based on you, help form realistic physical activity goals, and assist you in talking through how to communicate boundaries with your boss or loved ones.
In today’s busy world, applied self-care is a reliable method to create a foundation for your own physical, mental, and social health. Constructing a daily routine that periodically embraces physical exercise, mindful techniques, firm boundaries, and occasions for unabashed joy will offer a well-balanced well-being. What’s more, Inner Clarity therapy services are the best at orchestrating a plan for obtaining a sustainable self-care plan on top of personalized counseling. That way, you can engage in specific services — perhaps you’re interested in cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety, or marital counseling for you and your spouse — while also enacting a self-care routine outside of regular sessions with the confidence you are participating in the right medley of treatment for you. Partner with Inner Clarity and request an appointment today to learn more about how you can embark and empower yourself on your self-care journey.
