SELF-CARE: THE PHYSICAL WAY TO CARE FOR YOURSELF

Create a blog post subtitle that summarizes your post in a few short, punchy sentences and entices your audience to continue reading.

Let Our Blog Contributors know your thoughts and feedback on this article. We appreciate our wonderful advocate supporters, our all our amazing site members and last but not least our social media followers. Thank you and don't forget to reach out and/or leave a comment about blog topics you would like to read more about!

Do you have a design in mind for your blog? Whether you prefer a trendy postcard look or you’re going for a more editorial style blog - there’s a stunning layout for everyone.

Self-care is one way of checking in ourselves, making sure that we are doing okay but it is also the most neglected thing to do. We check in on our friends frequently but when it comes to ourselves, we seem to always push it aside, I know that’s exactly what I do. There are four main parts to self-care, and they include our physical, emotional, social and spiritual states. In today’s post I will be mainly focusing on our physical self-care while also talking about which aspects of physical self-care work for me. Physical self-care includes but not limited to rest, exercise, stretching, healthy foods and physical release.

Rest, which is pretty obvious, taking time for yourself giving your body and mind a chance to think, breathe and relax. It’s about reflection but most importantly in the physical sense a chance for your body to heal and overcome any stresses.

Exercise can vary for each individual ranging from walking to running, gym sessions to swimming, it’s up to the individual on what we prefer to do.

Stretching can come from a session in Yoga or Pilates or doing simple stretches at home, once again this is up to the preference of the individual but can create a sense of relaxation and rest.

Healthy foods includes drinks as well but it’s not stating that you must be healthy every day, all day it’s about keeping balance and knowing what your body is telling you, if on days you feel more fatigued than usual use that as a sign to eat healthy and drink water and to be able to feel your best in whichever way.

Physical release is the one aspects of physical self-care that I feel most connected to as it has such a wide range of aspects. Physical release ranges from a hug or a hand hold to intimacy. The feeling of having somebody there to cuddle up to or to just feel their physical presence can be a massive stress reliever.

My journey with self-care took a lot of conscious effort and took a long time to work out which aspects worked best for me. The one I found easiest to notice was rest, I was taking days off where I would either lay on the couch or in bed and binge watch as much Netflix as possible, eating the foods I want and just taking time for my body and mind to catch up with what I was doing. Exercise is one I’m still working on but trying to be out and about as much as I can. Physical release for me is my main way of taking care of myself physically, whether than be a hug from my housemates or even just being in their presence to not feel alone, to intimacy. When I feel over stressed or overwhelmed, I turn to physical release as it helps to manage my stress level and tends to make me relax more effectively. This is just what works best for and this post is a guide of self-care and what has worked best for me as an individual. Some of these forms of self-care may work for you and some may not and that’s totally fine and we should be able to explore what works best for our individual selves. We all need to take time to find out what works for us and what doesn’t as taking this time for our self-care as it is vital for us to be able reach our full potential in everyday life.

With Gratitude & Love

From Our Founder Caroline Mc Guinness