Personal development encourages positive thinking and suggests you become the Best Version of You that you can be. But in our modern world we are faced with many challenges in our work, family, and social lives. All set within a society that seems to be focused on economic growth, logicality, and material matters. Sometimes it can all seem a bit overwhelming. So how do people find the energy and the motivation to keep on track. This is where self-care comes in. Even if you change nothing else in your life, do these things; get enough sleep, eat nutritious food, stay hydrated, exercise, and meditate. If you do you will feel better, guaranteed. You may be doing well with some of these already, in fact you could do a self-audit and rate how well you are doing in each of these on a scale of 0-10, and then look at how you can improve. You may also feel that making improvements in any of these areas will require time. It may do, but you will get the benefit of feeling better and being able to accomplish more for the time you invested. If you feel time poor, then look at where you are currently spending your time and eliminate things which aren’t important.
Most people need 7-8 hours sleep each night, and by most, I mean 98-99%. Your brain cleans itself whilst you sleep. It does this so that it can function effectively. When we get enough sleep, our memory and our emotional regulation is better. This then means our relationships are less stressful. When I worked as an accountant, sometimes I worked late into the night, and even on a couple of occasions all through the night. Afterwards, I spent more time correcting the errors I made whilst sleep deprived than I gained. A well-rested brain makes better decisions. This is very important for doing exams. After a certain point you won’t know any more, but if you get some sleep you will at least be able to utilise what you do know in the exam. If sleep is a real issue for you, you could start a sleep diary to keep track of your habits and sleep quality. Keep your bed for sleep and intimacy and nothing else. Don’t watch TV in it, don’t read in it, don’t eat in it. Only go to bed when you actually feel tired. By doing, or not doing these things, you build up a positive sleep association with your bed. Go to bed and get up at about the same time every day. Harbour positive beliefs about your ability to sleep. Such as, waking up in the night is normal and I can easily get back to sleep, I will sleep if I need to, I am a good sleeper. If you feel like you didn’t sleep well when you wake, then tell yourself that you will catch-up next time. If you feel like you have a lot of worries in your life and these bother you when trying to sleep, then write them out before bed, and ask yourself can I do anything about them. If you can’t, then don’t worry about it. With the ones that you can, then tell yourself that you will be better placed to deal with them in the morning once you’re rested. And before you sleep also write down three things you are grateful for.
Your brain is just 2% of your weight, but it burns 25-30% of the calories you consume. Eating a healthy diet is important for brain health. I’m no nutritionist, but there seems to be a consensus around eating less processed food, more vegetables, nuts, and pulses, and less red meat. But you will need to work out what your body needs for yourself. At least pay more attention to the quality of the fuel you put in your body.. Another important aspect of a self-care routine is staying hydrated. A 1-3% decrease in hydration affects your memory and ability to focus. In a university study people who drank a pint of water before completing a mental activity performed 14% faster than those who had not.
Regular exercise has been shown to reduce people’s dementia risk by 30%. It improves memory, learning, and emotional control. As little as 30 minutes 3 times a week is enough. When it comes to exercise, I think you need to find something that works for you. Do something that you enjoy, you don’t want your exercise to feel like a chore.
The final piece of self-care which comes recommended is meditation. If you feel attracted to it, then give it a go. If not then at least have a little quiet time each day. Meditation helps with emotional resilience and your ability to focus. There are many different forms of meditation, you can focus on loving kindness to yourself and others, you could use a mantra, you can aim to focus on your breath and allow thoughts to come and go without paying attention to them. Again, find what works for you.
If I was rating myself on all of these, I would say that my eating habits aren’t always good, and my exercise is patchy at times. Though good right now, my meditation practice has also been patchy over the years. But my sleep is good, I get 7-8 hours pretty much every night. Doing all these things are the basic self-care package. Like me you may be good at some and not so good at others. Work on improving where you can, and other things will start to fall in place for you too.
“The world is a great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.” Swami Vivekananda
