Learning to fall in love with taking care of yourself means learning to put the focus on you and how you feel about yourself and the way you function in the world. Taking care means thinking about doing it physically, psychologically and intellectually.
Physically
Taking care of your body is the first step in taking care of yourself.
Regular Exercise
In many ways, exercise is the key to feeling better about yourself. When you exercise, you don’t have time to think about much except what you are doing. This can help you to unwind and even relax. Exercise also releases endorphins in your body, making you feel happier and more positive.
Exercise is also very important in any weight control programme, which means that it can have a direct and positive effect on your body and the way you see yourself. Regular exercise helps to build healthy bones, which means you will always have a strong base on which to build your sense of self.
Hydration
Something like 60% of the human body is made up of water, so it stands to reason that keeping the body hydrated is important. This means drinking enough water throughout the day, which translates to at least 6 to 8 glasses.
Drinking any liquid will help with hydration, but some drinks contain a lot of sugar and some are diuretics that will encourage water to pass quickly through your body. Water remains the best choice of drink. If you spend a lot of time in the sun on a particular day, you will need to consume more water because your body will lose more liquid more quickly, and you will need to replace it.
Diet
We need food to live, but to stay healthy we need to eat a balanced diet of certain foods. The key to eating healthily is balance.
You should balance the types of food you eat so that you take in enough of the correct nutrients for your body to remain healthy. This means eating from all the basic food groups: protein, fruit and vegetables, carbohydrates, fats and oils, and sugars.
If you only eat carbohydrates and sugars, you are likely to have an enormous amount of energy but are also likely to put on weight, which will make it difficult to be happy about the way you look. On the other hand, putting on some weight may be what you need to feel better about yourself.
For the health of your body, you do need to eat proteins, fruit, and vegetables.
Don’t focus too much on eating from one food group. They are all important.
Health Practitioners
One way to look after yourself physically is to consult your health practitioners regularly. Not only will this help you to keep tabs on your appearance, you will monitor your own fitness and health.
The Dentist
From very young, you will visit the dentist regularly, because you value the health of your teeth and their appearance too. The key to keeping your teeth strong is to practice good dental health.
As you get older, your teeth will begin to discolor and may become weaker. You may lose some teeth. Don’t let this get you down, though. If you visit your dentist, she may advise you about getting teeth implants to feel happier about your beautiful teeth.
Teeth don’t always grow straight, which can affect the way you see yourself. To give yourself an advantage and have an orthodontic exam. The specialist will advise you about possible treatments to help your teeth to grow straighter and be more attractive.
One of the most common techniques for guiding teeth that is practiced by all the best orthodontists is to put braces on the teeth. These have always been made of metal, but Invisalign has changed all that.
Invisalign is a less obvious alternative to braces. It is a new innovation in orthodontic treatments: a clear plastic aligner that helps to adjust teeth and will help you to feel more attractive than metal braces on your teeth.
The Chiropractor
If you think about it, your back is a really important part of your body, not only because that is where your spine is located. Your back helps you stand upright, and your back is central to your posture. A strong back helps you to face the world with strength and determination, which adds to your sense of self. Looking after your back means taking care of yourself.
The spinal cord is the path via which the brain ‘speaks’ to the rest of the body. A healthy back means that your spine is strong and the cord is protected. It also means that the muscles that run from the spinal cord to your limbs and other parts of the body are kept strong and pain-free.
The spine and the back are the center of the nerves, muscles, and skeleton in your body. Sometimes you do exercises that put a strain on some of your muscles. Or you may suffer an injury or get a stiff neck that affects your posture and the nerves in your back.
The health professionals who deal with this type of pain and related problems are chiropractors, who work on the neuromusculoskeletal system in the body. Chiropractic practices are some of the most effective ways of keeping your body healthy and ‘aligned’. The chiropractor will manipulate your body in particular ways that relieve pain, help to heal strains and other injuries and keep your back strong.
The Gynecologist
As a woman, part of falling in love with taking care of yourself is to make sure that your body is healthy, which means going to your ob-gyn for regular check-ups. As you get older, it is necessary to do this more often.
When you go through menopause, your body changes because of the impact of hormones. You will experience symptoms like hot flashes, putting on weight, mood changes, and night sweats. All of these can make you feel unattractive and alter how you see and feel about yourself.
Your ob-gyn can prescribe hormone therapy treatment, which will counter the effects of the changes in your body and can help you to feel more ‘normal’ and happier about yourself.
Psychologically
It is the spirit that influences the way you see yourself.
Sleep
You may have heard the saying that ‘laughter is the best medicine’. Indeed, laughing does help you to feel better about many things and takes the tension out of many situations. Even more importantly than laughing, though, getting enough sleep is even better for your body and spirit.
How do you feel if you don’t get enough sleep? Your body is drained, and you don’t have much energy, but your outlook on life can suffer most. Feeling exhausted can translate into feeling negative about yourself and life. The remedy, then, is to get between 7 and 8 hours of sleep every night, and you will be doing a lot to take care of yourself, psychologically and physically too.
Personal Time
You are the key to taking care of yourself.
That may seem to be a redundant statement, but it is something to think about. If you don’t take care of yourself, you may burn out and be of no use to anyone. What is important is to step away from all your responsibilities to look at yourself for even just a short time and understand that you need to take care of yourself.
Spending personal time can mean doing something you enjoy, visiting family and friends, or simply relaxing.
Relaxation
If you are stressed or feel under pressure, then the last thing you are likely to be interested in is taking time out just to focus on yourself. Sometimes, it is not productive to hear someone tell you to relax and that everything will work out. You don’t want to focus on what you need to do to waste time on yourself.
That is precisely why taking time to relax is a vital part of learning to take care of yourself.
It stands to reason that you may not perform as well as you can if you are exhausted and there is a lot of tension around you. Take this a step further, though, and think about how much better you may perform if you were less stressed.
This is where taking even a short time to relax is very productive. If possible, you should put aside an hour or more once a week or so to do something that will help you simply be and not be sucked into things that make you feel bad about yourself.
Family and Friends
Spending time with family and friends is one of the most enjoyable and simplest ways of unwinding and allowing your spirit to rejuvenate itself. Taking even just a few hours every so often to visit your sister or chat to a friend you haven’t seen for a while will help to focus on what makes you happy, which is a very important part of caring for yourself.
Doing Something You Enjoy
If you want to get away from it all and take some personal time, then go and do something you enjoy. This can be doing some exercise or practicing a craft and will focus on your, which can build your opinion of yourself and contribute to enjoying caring for yourself.
Appearance
Looking good is key to feeling good about yourself. This does not mean you have to focus on the way you dress, wearing make-up, or having shaved recently. Looking good is about feeling comfortable with how you present yourself to the world. This can mean you should pay attention to small, ordinary things that make you feel better about yourself, such as your hair.
It doesn’t matter what length your hair is, or what style you wear it in. What matters is that you are comfortable with it and feel good about the way it looks. If you want to change your hairstyle, you could have it cut or put in extensions. Looking for the best hair extension will be a way to make sure you are taking care of your appearance, which means you are taking care of yourself.
Having healthy skin is also part of feeling good about your appearance. Keeping physically fit and hydrated is key to this and can help to keep your skin from sagging. If it does, then you could explore skin lilting.
Intellectually
Taking care of your mind is as important as taking care of your body and spirit. This may be a simple thing like taking up a hobby, or a bigger commitment, like beginning some studies.
Hobbies
How do you spend your spare time? Do you do anything to build yourself or give yourself a chance to learn something new? Why not take up a hobby that will give you a sense of purpose and help you to split your focus to build
Knowledge
You are never too old to learn something new. Or too young. One way of doing this is to take up some form of study. Do a short course. Learn a language. Or embark on a study program. Learning fills your mind and helps you develop a broader understanding of what you are capable of. This is an important part of caring for yourself.
Conclusion
Working on your body, spirit, and mind is vital in building the way you see yourself. These are also the first steps in learning to take care of yourself. Aiming to love doing this is important to how you look at yourself in the world.
