Its Self-Care Time

Everything about you is important! Your mind is important, Your body is important. Your spirituality is important. With so many things going on in life, most people forget to treat themselves as important. Today we are going to talk about self-care. Self care is an action that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health (psychcentral.com).

When done well, self-care can improve your mood and decrease anxiety. So let’s jump into some practical ways to do some self-care.

Mental

• Take Breaks: Don’t work too hard, make sure you take a few breaks. Breaking away from a project and coming back to it with a fresh mind has been proven to make many problems simpler.
• Create: Take some time to do something creative. Paint, draw, build, design, orplay music. Make something come to life from the brilliance of your own mind.
• Hobbies: We all have things we love to do. Set aside a chunk of time and rediscover an old hobby, practice a new one or enjoy one you already love. Take a break and do something you love to do.

Emotional

• Journal: Write out your emotions. Putting your thoughts to paper can help remove some weight from your shoulders. It also allows you the chance to look back later and see the growth you have made.
• Friendship: Find someone you can talk to and laugh with. We were not created to do life alone.
• Boundaries: setting limits with people or activities can help relieve stress. If it doesn’t bring you joy you can say no or put a limit on the time (we can’t always say no to that one relative).
• Therapy: Sometimes it’s just really helpful to have someone to talk to who is removed from the situation. At Granite Creek we have amazing Pastoral Counselors and Biblical Counselors who are available for you.
• Laugh: As much as you can, whenever you can.

Spiritual

• Time Alone: Find moments where you can be alone so you can be open to listening to the Holy Spirit.
• Prayer: This is our way to connect with our heavenly father, there is no better way to improve your spiritual health than talking with Him. During this time you can follow any prayer model, ACTS is my favorite: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. The main goal of this time is connecting and communicating with God.
• Scripture: Knowing what the scriptures say helps keep us anchored. Most Bibles will have a topical index to help find verses on desired subjects or you can do a Google search. No matter how you find scripture to meditate on, read the verses before and after so you know the context of the scripture.

Physical

• Stay Hydrated! Our body is mostly made up of water, which means drinking it gives us life and energy. If you’re like me and plain old H2O is not flavorful enough, you can cut up fruit and infuse your water or you can try sparkling water.
• Exercise: This is definitely not my favorite. But I have noticed the days I take a walk or do yoga I feel so much better! So choose a physical activity that is best for you: run, walk, stretch. Get up and move.
• Nutrition: No matter how busy you are throughout the day, stop and eat something. Don’t just eat anything, treat yourself to something delicious but also nutritious! (Today I am treating myself to an açaí bowl, yum!) To eat in a healthy way, you don’t have to eat gross food. Spend a little time to find some foods that you enjoy that are also great for your body.
• Sleep: Give yourself enough time to get a good 6-9 hours of sleep. If you have a hard time sleeping, start setting bed time rituals for yourself to get your body used to when it’s time to settle. Avoid screens during this time if you can. A good nights rest can be the difference between a good and a bad day.

Each day this week, choose one of the above types of self care and treat yourself to some “you time.” The goal of self-care is not to escape your current reality, but instead it is to make your current reality more enjoyable for you. Life is always more enjoyable when there are things to look forward to. Give yourself things to look forward to with self-care. You will thank yourself for it for years to come.

By Pastor Mandy VanHolsbeck