The pandemic has affected our schedules dramatically, with many of us working from home while juggling household and family duties. It has also meant that many of us no longer have our daily in-person connections with friends and colleagues, which may leave us feeling isolated. I am starting a Challenge Series that will help you (and me!) achieve our goals. The first in this series is the Self Care Challenge because if you are not engaging in enough daily self care, you won’t have the energy to accomplish other goals, right?
Skincare Routine
The best way to address self care is to begin the day with a skincare routine. It doesn’t have to be extensive. In fact, I have a quick morning skincare routine that involves a one-minute face brushing to stimulate and release toxins from the lymphatic system, cleansing, applying toner and applying moisturizer.
Challenge: Cleanse, tone and moisturize your face each morning.
Healthy Eating
Healthy eating doesn’t just mean abstaining from eating potato chips or ice cream. It means eating regularly and eating balanced meals with protein, vegetables and some carbs. Whether you’re following a Keto, Paleo, dairy-free, gluten-free diet, a Vegan lifestyle, or even intermittent fasting, you’ll want to make sure you are eating balanced meals at the same time each day.
Challenge: Ensure that each of your meals is balanced with protein, vegetables (or fruit) and carbs.
Delegate/Ask for Help
You might wonder why asking for help is part of this self care challenge? In Kate Northrup’s book, Do Less, she advises that women, especially working mothers, feel they have to do everything, otherwise, they feel guilty. But this philosophy is resulting in many women feeling burnt out. Northrup encourages women to pare down their to-do lists to three or four essential items each day. If there is something on your list that someone else could be doing, ask for help, delegate the task or pay someone else to do it.
I am terrible at asking for help! I am one of the women who believe she can do it all. During the pandemic, especially early on, I started paying for grocery delivery service when I just didn’t feel like lining up to do groceries. That made a huge difference to me and reduced my stress level so that I could focus on other important things.
Challenge: Ask for help (from your spouse, parent, friend, colleague or subordinate) or pay someone else to do one of the items on your to-do list.
Time for Yourself
No matter how busy you are, you should really take some time out for yourself each day. As a Toronto-based influencer, my weeks can get very busy and I have to watch out for a workaholic tendency. If you are a workaholic and don’t take time for yourself, ask yourself, “Why am I doing all of this work?” And if you followed the above tip about delegating or asking for help, that should provide you with a window of time for yourself. You can devote this time to meditating, yoga, going for a walk or run, reading, knitting, crafting, playing a musical instrument, singing…you get the idea. This break will really energize you so that you can continue with your workday.
Challenge: Spend 30 minutes each day pursuing your favourite hobby.
Sleep!
According to experts, adults need approximately 7-9 hours of sleep each night. But now new research is indicating that non-REM sleep is much more restorative than REM sleep. Non-REM sleep occurs during the earlier part of the evening, therefore, it may be beneficial to get to bed by 9:30 or 10 p.m. each night to take advantage of more non-REM sleep.
Of course, there are other factors that affect your sleep including whether you have been on your cell or watching TV just before bed. The blue light emitted by these devices suppresses melatonin, which is needed to help promote sleep.
And if you are not sleeping on comfortable pillows or your duvet is too flat and not providing enough warmth, you’ll want to replace those. You can
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Challenge: Turn off your cellphone, tablet, laptop and TV at least 30 minutes before going to bed. (I have to work on this one myself!)
I hope you enjoyed this self care challenge. Let me know how you are doing with it in the comment section.
Love this! Such a great challenge – I’ll for sure be taking part!
Lily
Thanks! Let me know how you do with the challenge! Cheers, Lori
I struggle so much with going to bed earlier lately. Sleep is really important for me and whenever i don’t get those 8 -9 hours I feel absolutely horrible, mind and body!
I’m the same way. I need at least 9 hours of sleep each night or else I don’t function well! Cheers, Lori
Great challenge. I think it is a proper decision to take time and become a better version of yourself
Yes, I agree that it’s important to take the time for self improvement. Cheers, Lori
Great points here. So easy during this time to stop taking care of ourselves. THe sleep one is super relevant to me as I’ve suffered with intermittent insomnia lately! Need to get a better sleep routine!
This is great advice, with a few points that I know that I should prioritize more! I am REALLY bad for not making time for a good night’s sleep more often than not. That’s something that I am really trying to work on. Thank you for the reminder!
Skincare is one thing that I have really ignored through lockdown! Since I haven’t worked in four months, I’m no longer concerned with my appearance, and my poor skin has really paid the price 😅 Luckily, my work is about to re-open, so I’ve got to start taking care of it again! Nightly face masks are *definitely* going to make a comeback. I think I’m going to keep up the no-wearing-make up thing though; since my face is mostly going to be covered with a mask anyway, so there’s really no point anyway!
Great challenge with a wonderful aim. I am in it with you! It’s wonderful how these simple things, consistently, can really add to our overall health. Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks! Yes, it’s funny how making a few small changes can really improve your life! Cheers, Lori
Happy to join the challenge. I just have to put up a big sign/ reminder so I don’t forget the skincare routine each morning. I also love the idea of spending 30 minutes a day pursuing my favorite hobby. and big yes to getting more SLEEP!!!!
I know about the skincare routine, right? I can’t function without a good night’s sleep! Cheers, Lori
I enjoyed reading your recommendations and it seems that we always have to be reminded to take care of ourselves. For the first time, I started to take more attention to my skin. I would like to be away from my laptop and my phone, but it is so hard 🙁
Thank you. That’s great that you are paying more attention to your skin. I agree that getting away from our tech devices is hard, especially when you work online! Cheers, Lori
Some great ideas in here: A regular routine of skincare is so important, and so is sleep!
I agree. Sleep is the most important for me! Cheers, Lori
yes, the taking time for myself is really what i’d like to focus on for the rest of this year. i don’t do much self care, but i’m really going to need to going into this crazy season
I think many of us need to devote time to self care in order to deal with the stresses of the pandemic! Cheers, Lori
I’ve bee busy for a couple of months now and I tend to forget myself for many times and these are great advice to do something for yourself. Thank you for reminding me about it.
It’s been a challenge for many people over the last several months that it’s easy to forget our personal needs. Cheers, Lori
These are great tips! That’s interesting about the Non-REM vs REM sleep. I will have to keep that in mind!
Yes, I also didn’t realize that non-REM sleep was so valuable! Cheers, Lori
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