Day-to-day life can often be pretty stressful with the sheer volume of work and activities plus a busy social life aspect that goes on.
This can get overwhelming quite quickly and can skew our mental health and well-being as a whole. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to incorporate self-care check-in activities into your lifestyle, ensuring that your mind, body, and mentality are in the healthiest state they can be in!
Many people today over-look their mental clarity and physical well-being! Just for a solid idea, here are a few statistics that prove this…
I’d highly recommend watching the Ted Talk in the video above by Racquel Armstrong. One of the key issues in today’s world is how a lot of corporate and heavily commercialized, large businesses view self-care as a luxury instead of a priority. Armstrong highlights this very clearly!
It’s important in day-to-day life that you view your self-care as a priority, otherwise you might suffer consequences! Whether it’s physical health issues, burnout, stress, or mental health problems, it’s essential to understand that no matter how intense a job may be or how overwhelming situations in life may get for you, you must put your health above it all if you want to live and prosper in a healthy lifestyle!
With this in mind, here are the ultimate self-care check-in activities you should try out to maintain a healthy well-being…
You can’t go wrong with a simple workout or participating in a sport of your choice!
Being in a poor mood or feeling stressed out are common products of living an overwhelming lifestyle. Doing a simple workout or sport is the most effective way to counteract this while also helping to increase the longevity of your life while minimizing the risks of catching any diseases or health conditions.
Keeping active and enjoying a good workout or sport helps to release endorphins and serotonin. These are classed as “happy chemicals”, helping to uplift your mood and counteract stress and anxiety.
Swimming – A perfect way to improve your cardiovascular health. For those of you sitting in an office all day or studying in your room, it’s important to keep your body active and rejuvenated with energy. Swimming is perfect to ensure your heart is healthy and active, helping to counteract any heart-related diseases such as strokes or heart attacks!
As a side note, the benefits of a healthy heart are endless and can be incredibly beneficial if you want to manage work that can be overwhelming and sometimes stressful.
Specifically, having a healthy heart can mean it has better efficiency at pumping blood around your body, in other words, more efficient blood circulation. This means your energy levels will be better in day-to-day life as your heart can pump more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, offering better resistance to fatigue!
Go-karting – A physical, but fun way to enjoy a self-care check-in! It’s the perfect sport to help you forget the stress of your work life and relieve your mind of any negative energy! Plus, go-karting is great for giving your body an adrenaline rush and helping you to feel more energetic and alive!
Golf – The perfect sport to embrace the beautiful, green landscapes, take in the fresh air and have fun with friends shooting golf balls! Check out how golf can help to relive your stress and relax your mind right here:
Perhaps you’re feeling tense both mentally and in your muscles from a long day sitting in front of a computer or standing around at work helping customers. Feeling tense is a widespread phase for most people who work physically and mentally taxing jobs, which is why a body scan can make for the best self-care check-in activity.
Body scans can be done in multiple ways, but for the most part, a lot of examples incorporate both meditation and stretching together. They consist of stretching every part of your body starting from your feet and moving up to your neck.
The idea is that as you perform a body scan, you focus on a certain area of your body such as your pelvis. You may then move into a position where you feel tension in that area and use inhaling and exhaling exercises to help release this tension.
You can check out a great example of a 5-minute body scan meditation exercise in the video below that I use whenever I’m feeling tension in my body.
Being able to release such tension can help promote a positive mood because your body feels much looser and less pain when you stretch. This can really help with being able to gain the energy and motivation to be productive!
Diet and nutrition are the foundations of self-care. You might have heard that food is like fuel for a car. You need to put the right fuel into a car for it to function at its optimal performance. This is the same case for putting food into your body!
Eat the right food and you’ll function optimally, specifically through having a positive mood, energy, and even your physical health such as strength and immunity to diseases.
If you eat the wrong food, you will feel horrible, whether that be through stomach problems, diseases like Type 2 diabetes, or coronary heart disease, and even feeling grumpy and depressed all the time! So what kind of foods make a healthy, nutritious diet?
Blueberries – Perfect for antioxidants, which is essential for sharper memory, better brain function, and immunity to cardiovascular/heart-related diseases!
Dark chocolate – For me, this makes the best dessert ingredient, especially if mixed with almonds, Greek yogurt, and blueberries. Their abundance of theobromine is what helps stimulates your body to produce endorphins and serotonin to improve your mood!
Salmon – A great source of protein, which is great for building muscle as well as omega-3 fatty acids to aid alertness, energy and concentration!
Greek Yoghurt – Awesome for lower blood sugar, muscle growth, and digestive health, all of which help you feel much better, stronger, and focused for your day! What makes them so special is their versatility; Breakfasts, sauces, and desserts all can use Greek yoghurt, making them easy to incorporate into a healthy, nutritious diet. Just be cautious of the range of fat contents on offer. What you choose highly depends on your personal well-being intentions. For example, if you want to lose weight, go for low-fat Greek yoghurt, as it’s low in calories!
As a rule of thumb, foods that are high in sugar and highly processed should be avoided. These can include your common breakfast cereals, white chocolate, ready meals, and even pastries like croissants!
From experience, having these foods can often lead to sugar crashes after a spike in your blood glucose levels, leading to a bad mood and the feeling of tiredness and being slow! This is hence quite counter-intuitive for your well-being!
Breathing exercises and mindfulness are essentially an extension of body scan meditation. They’re a great way to improve your focus and concentration because the heavy focus on your inhaling and exhaling is what can help distract you from any negative energy, whether it be stressful thoughts, overthinking, or even worries!
But how can you make a great self-care check-in activity out of this? Well, there’s so many creative ideas…
If you’re an outdoor person or someone in love with the beauty of nature, try meditation and some breathing exercises on an open field. Perhaps you love admiring the scenery of a stunning city skyline. If that’s the case, you can try meditation from your apartment block. If there’s a mountain overlooking your city, that’s an awesome way to do this as well!
Whatever it is, do what you enjoy and what you think will ensure you get the most out of meditation and breathing exercises. It’s an incredibly effective way of going about your self-care and well-being!
In today’s world, it’s safe today that the current generation has been consumed by technology. Social media is currently at its peak and more and more people are falling victim to mindless scrolling on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube as well as the endless plethora of videos and content online all from the comfort of a little phone or laptop.
These devices are what lay the foundation for burnout, procrastination, laziness, and powerful resistance to the need to want to leave your home, socialize, and take in the beauty of the outside world! The short bursts of dopamine and enjoyment we get from these are why a dopamine and digital detox is essential to your self-care.
So, what activities make for a perfect dopamine detox or digital detox?
Going for a walk is the most simple but effective way of detoxifying yourself of burnout and short dopamine rushes. It’s a perfect opportunity to breathe in fresh air, instead of the claustrophobic, dusty air of your room and also enjoy the world around you. Whether it be socializing with people, meeting new people, and having a laugh, your brain becomes free and alive instead of rotting in front of a screen.
As I’ve said before, we as humans are incredibly social creatures. It’s how we thrive, communicate, learn, and grow together as people. Avoiding contact with the people around you can have seriously detrimental consequences to your well-being! That’s why ensuring you have a great relationship with your friends, family, and people around you is essential for your well-being.
In fact, as of 2023, roughly 27% of young adults across the world are said to experience being fairly or very lonely. This is nearly one-third of young adults globally which is considerably large!
This all has to do with not focusing on our social lives enough, so why should we socialize more often?
Socialising is a great way to speak your mind to others and get any underlying worries, or frustrations off your chest. This is because doing so is a great way to deal with them; more often than not, therapists, friends, and especially your family are likely to help you out or offer advice!
Making a note of what you do in day-to-day life makes for a great self-care check-in. By simply taking a piece of paper, or notepad or even writing a couple of notes on your phone before going to bed about how you felt, what you did, or what you failed to do after a long day, you can be able to assess each scenario or situation and improve upon it.
For example, maybe you were meant to go to the gym today, but you didn’t, despite having the time to go. Perhaps you went to work without a prepped lunch and this resulted in you spending 15 quid on a Chinese takeaway. Things like these can be jotted on some paper, and from ther eyou can assess how you could improve upon the situation.
Perhaps instead of ordering a takeaway, you should prepare your meals. This is great for your mood because you wouldn’t have to worry about the heavier financial burden.
Also, more likely than not, a pre-prepped meal is probably more nutritious and healthier, potentially offering you the energy to go to the gym!
It’s little things like these can make for great self-care routines because over time, you begin to realize a boost in your mood, welfare, and well-being!
With all these self-care check-in activity ideas in mind, whether it be performing a complete body scan, visiting a therapist, or logging your daily life and how you feel day by day, inevitably, you’ll slowly start noticing a boost in your mood.
Try combining multiple self-care activities for even better results and effectiveness! For example, you could increase your social circle by participating in meditation, sports, and even wellness retreats with friends, family, and the people around you! It’s activities like this where you’ll see great results in your mood. Don’t hesitate to begin your self-care today!
