The term self-care is often thrown around haphazardly in well-intentioned articles or conversations amongst adults seeking to prioritise a little extra “me-time” in their already busy routines. So, when we sat down with Founder and Wellness Coach, Melani De Sousa from workplace wellbeing provider The Wellness Workshop, we were keen to understand how they defined self-care and what it really looks like day-to-day.
"Self-care is planned and intentional. Most importantly, it is part of a regular routine, ideally one small activity per day.", Melani explains. “It’s important to not get self-care confused with pampering or luxurious activities like a one-off massage or facial, which we tend to treat ourselves to only a few times per year. Ideally, we should aim to participate in a self-care activity for every area of wellbeing including mental, physical, social, intellectual, vocational, environmental, spiritual and even financial wellbeing”.
In their aptly named “Self-care Workshop”, participants learn how to create a self-care routine by starting with one small activity in each of the eight areas of wellbeing mentioned above using a fool-proof formula developed by The Wellness Workshop allied health team. It looks something like this…
I will (insert activity) every (insert frequency) in/at (insert place) for (insert duration of time) with (insert person if applicable) to feel (insert feeling) and improve my (insert area of wellbeing) wellbeing.
Here’s an example of a few activities we put together ourselves using the above formula:
“I will read every night in bed for 7 minutes alone to feel more relaxed and improve my spiritual and intellectual wellbeing.”
“I will walk every morning after I’ve had my coffee around the block for 10 minutes with my dog to feel energised and improve my physical and emotional wellbeing.”
“I will go over my budget fortnightly on a Monday night on my laptop in the home-office for 15 minutes to feel in control of my spending and finances and improve my financial wellbeing.”
Other tips Melani provides for creating a sustainable self-care routine include:
- Create and start with one self-care tip for the area of wellbeing you feel is most in need of improvement. Repeat it for at least 1-2 weeks if it’s a daily activity, or 4 weeks continuously if it’s a weekly activity.
- Avoid creating difficult self-care activities that require a lot of time or money. Start small and once the activity becomes a habit (that is, you do it without thinking and it’s a part of your routine), then increase the duration.
- To drink more water, start by drinking 1 glass of water every morning after brushing your teeth, then with time increase the amount of glasses of water or the amount of times in a day you drink. 1 glass after lunch, 1 glass after dinner… etc.
- Spread out your self-care activities amongst all areas of wellbeing. Often, we can get stuck channelling all our efforts into one area of wellbeing (e.g., physical wellbeing) and then fall in a heap when factors out of our control prevent us from doing those activities (e.g., an injury). By having multiple different self-care activities, we’re giving ourselves the best possible chance of continuity and preventing ‘all or nothing’ thinking.
Information sourced from The Wellness Workshop: https://www.thewellnessworkshop.com.au/