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When you’ve had a really stressful day what’s the first thing you do? Do you go home and have a cup of wine? Maybe you go home and go straight to bed? Do you call up a friend or your significant other and vent to them? Or are you the type to keep it all bottled in, letting it slowly die down and leave your system?
I’m a mixture of all of these but more so the last option than the rest. Dealing with stress is a big deal for me especially because it seems to be a part of my daily routine. While I am not complaining at all about the life I was given, I do recognize that stress just comes with the territory of caring for children and chasing entrepreneurship. As a result of this I’ve also learned that it’s really important for me to engage in self-care a lot more often that I use to do in the past.
If you stress on a regular basis, and honestly even if you don’t, then daily or at the very least weekly self-care is a must for you! It helps you re-center yourself, rediscover your purpose in life, and most importantly it’s a great way to remind yourself that you are a priority. I truly do believe that we cannot give the best version of ourselves to others if we are not treating ourselves with the highest of priorities.
Self-care is a must for anyone especially on stressful days. Today I’m sharing with you some of my favorite self-care activities for a stressful day.
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Exercise
Exercise is so good for our health. Whether your goal is to lose weight, tone your body, gain muscle, or just be more active in general, these are the type of goals that you can achieve by exercising. I love to exercise mainly because it’s a great confidence booster. When you are putting in the hard work to take care of yourself, and you are seeing positive results from doing so, it makes you feel so good inside.
It’s a sense of pride and accomplishment like no other.
The best part about exercising is that you don’t have to do anything crazy to get your body moving and to feel good about yourself. Literally it can be some of the simplest moves. Focus on strengthening your abs, or butt, maybe even your legs or arms, or if you’re down for it do a total body workout. Whatever you choose it doesn’t matter. The point is to do something for yourself that will make you feel good.
This doesn’t have to be an hour-long workout either. All you need is 15 minutes! 15 minutes dedicated to focusing on bettering yourself and getting stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally. If you’re interested in a beginner’s workout routine that will challenge you in all the right ways then check out my 30-day fitness post.
Clean house
Who likes to clean as a form of self-care? Believe it or not I do and so do a lot of other women. I’m not mad at this form of self-care at all because it’s a good one! Not only will cleaning your house get your body moving and give you a mini cardio session, but it will also help distract you from whatever was stressing you out to begin with.
Cleaning is a great way to ease yourself of anxiety and to keep yourself busy. If you’re anything like me when you’re stressed you probably get really antsy and need to be physically doing something with your hands. Otherwise you just go even more insane! This is where cleaning the house will become your best friend.
It’s a great way to finally clean out a space that you’ve been meaning to clean out for a while and for whatever reason just haven’t been able to. It’s also a great time to start thinking about re-decorating or re-organizing your house as a way to invite in new beginnings. Or if you just find cleaning to be the perfect stress reliever for you, that works as well.
The bottom line is that we are all a product of our environment. If our environment is untidy and hasn’t been attended to in a very long time, chances are our lives will be hectic and a reflection of that. So, keep your house neat and tidy by cleaning at least once a week. You’ll notice the results taking place in your mood and attitude almost instantly.
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Participate in self-refection
Another great activity that you can do on a stressful day is spend some time self-reflecting, or journaling. This is the perfect time to detox everything that is on your mind or everything that you experienced in the day that contributed to your stress. What’s so great about journaling is that you can literally do this whenever.
You can do this in the moment of feeling extremely stressed, when you first wake up, or even before you go to bed.
All that is required is a quiet place where you can peacefully journal, your journal of course, a pen, and your commitment to do it. I like to journal every night before I go to bed. I journal in my bed, I keep my journal and pens I use to journal with inside my nightstand, and about 30 minutes before I lay down to go to bed I just journal. I will participate in this activity anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, it really just depends on how my day went and what I need to get off my chest.
All in all, journaling is a self-care activity that I definitely approve of! Let me know if you give it a try.
Practice meditation
This is a tough one. Meditation is the practice of sending your energy out to the world and slowly manifesting the things that you want for yourself. The trick to meditating is that you have to zero in on yourself, and focus on your surroundings. In order to truly meditate you have to be willing to allow yourself to be present in the moment, free of any distractions, so that you are able to send your energy out into the world and begin manifesting your future.
I’ll be honest meditation is not something that I practice daily simply because I do not have a quiet space, let alone enough alone time in the day to be able to do it. However, when I do meditate I usually do it in the late hours of the night in my bed while everyone else is sleeping, or early in the morning while in the shower after working out.
Meditation is a lot like exercise in the sense that it doesn’t really require a whole lot of time. Give yourself anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to be able to really dive deep into it and begin the process of meditating. Practice this daily and I promise that everything you have slowly been manifesting for yourself will be yours in time.
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Re-evaluate your priorities
Sometimes the best form of self-care is taking a step back from your life and re-evaluating your priorities. I have had to do this many times in my life in regards to my career, my school, my family life, and even for the things that I want for myself. At first it may be hard because we become so easily attached to our ideas of what we want for our lives that we don’t even dare think twice about switching it up.
However, I am a true believer that the first draft of our dreams and goals is not always the right draft. Sometimes we have to make 7 or 10, maybe even 100 different versions before we land on the one that is going to excel us forward. And that’s ok. Life isn’t perfect and it will always be an uphill climb so long as you have goals that you want to achieve.
The important thing here is to not get married to an idea that you have. Instead, allow yourself to be flexible and be open to the idea that in due time you will have to alter that vision a little just so that it’s more realistic and representative of what you really want out of life.
Switch up your eating habits
As simple as this sounds it’s actually really hard for a lot of people to do. This is because eating is a source of comfort, and when we are stressed, we tend to want to eat all the comforting foods. I’m talking about cookies, brownies, chips and salsa, ice cream, pizza…you name it and we all have probably reached for it in times of comfort!
However, these types of foods do not have to be our only kind of comfort foods. Instead, we have to learn how to change our eating habits from wanting to reach for unhealthy junk food when we need comfort, to instead reaching for healthier options that still have the yummy and comforting taste.
One book that I just can’t stop obsessing over and I so want to get my hands on is A Whole New You. This book has all kinds of foods that we eat on a daily basis, just with a healthier twist to it. Although Tia Mowry, the author of this book, originally created it as a way to help her with her infertility issues, I think that this book can help with taking control of your health overall.
It’s filled with traditional family meals that provide you with a healthier way of eating those meals, without losing any of the amazing taste. One day soon I will finally have this book in my hands and I won’t have to rely on her YouTube videos for recipes from the book. However, if you get it before me be sure to share your favorite recipe!
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Engage in a digital detox
Just as it sounds take time off from social media. I know in today’s world this is everyone’s main way of communication and sharing with friends and family things that are happening in your life, but you guys it can be toxic. You know the saying “too much of a good thing can be bad”? Well guess what there’s some truth to this.
Not only does social media constantly set unrealistic and sometimes false expectations that we then pressure ourselves to buy into, but it also takes us away from reality. This isn’t to say that social media is bad because it’s not. There are a lot of positives and benefits from the usage of social media. However, we tend to get so caught up in whatever interesting thing is taking over the internet that we neglect ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally.
I’m no stranger to this. I have found myself in this rabbit hole many times. As a result of it I end up abandoning all of my responsibilities and goals for the day because I’ve spent so much time on social media that I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that all of my hard work is for nothing. DO NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF! Instead give yourself that time away from social media.
Set a time slot during the day when you will not check social media, and spend that time doing something else more productive. You should also make a point to not be on social media after a certain time during the day, like say 7pm? That way you will have more time to unwind and re-center and less time to compare, dread what’s to come, and stress even more.
Spend some time reading
One of my favorite things to do for self-care is snuggle up in bed with a good book. Currently I have like 5 books that I’m cycling through all at the same time. However, one that I’ve been slowing reading a little bit each day is How to Be a Bawse. I absolutely love this book not only because one of my favorite people in the whole world wrote it, but because it’s so inspiring!
This book is literally the perfect guideline for how to overcome your fears in order to achieve your dreams. It has a step by step, which is really a chapter by chapter, guide on what you should and should not be doing. The best part is that each chapter ends with a personal note about a dark time in Lilly’s life, and how learning the lesson for the chapter helped her move towards greatness.
If you have not yet checked out this book yet I highly recommend it. I have yet to put a dent in it but I’ve been slowing reading it on a daily basis. If you want to know more about this book and how it’s impacting my life for the better check out this post.
Work on your personal growth
Perhaps one of the hardest things for us as humans to do, but the most important. Working on personal growth requires you to admit your flaws, accept your flaws, and then do whatever is necessary to not let them hold you back in life.
I use to struggle with this so badly! Nobody likes to hear that they are too much too handle, or that they aren’t perfect, or even that they have areas of themselves that they need to work on. I get it trust me I do. In the beginning this can be a really shitty feeling but ultimately, I promise you 80% of the time it’s coming from a place of love.
But something I want to key in on is the fact that personal development should be for yourself. You should never strive to better yourself because someone wants you to change. Instead you should recognize in yourself that a change is needed in order for you to move forward in your life, and then make that change because you want to move forward in life.
Also don’t look at this as a bad thing. There is always room for improvement. Keep in mind that we are never reaching our full potential, as in giving 100% of ourselves. Heck who knows if we are even giving at the very least 50% of ourselves daily. Just see bettering yourself and working on your personal development as a necessity to achieve your best version of what it means to be great.
Challenge yourself to try something new
Something that I have been doing a lot of lately. I finally went on a hike for the first time two weeks ago and man, it was challenging but I learned a lot not only about my health, but also about the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone every once in a while. I think often times we do get too comfortable with a set routine, or specific activities that we usually engage in that we forget there is a whole world out there to explore.
Well I’m here to tell you just like you shouldn’t marry your first drafts of your goals and ideas, you shouldn’t marry your most common forms of self-care. While it’s good to have self-care activities that you thoroughly enjoy doing it’s also good to branch out every once in a while. Not only is this the perfect way to learn something new about yourself, but it’s always a great way to challenge yourself while still making your health, wellness, and happiness a priority.
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Conclusion
These are just a few self-care activities that I like to do when I’ve had a stressful day. I’m always looking for more ways to love, care, and treat myself so if you have any that aren’t listed here be sure to share them with me!
-Xo
Kimora
