Daily Self-Care Routines to Help Boost Your Mental and Emotional Health

It may not be the most helpful analogy out there, but one way to think of us is as a highly complex machine with lots of moving parts. After a certain amount of use, we need to be taken in for some maintenance to keep functioning well. If you wait too long, damage might accumulate that will take a lot more work and expense to fix, so it makes sense to keep a short maintenance schedule.

Now, people aren’t machines, and it can be problematic to treat them as such. But the point of the analogy above is to remind us of a fundamental truth – we need to take care of ourselves just as much as, if not more than, we take care of the machines that make our lives easier. Just as you take your car in for a routine service, or just as you oil a squeaky hinge, or take your phone in for repairs when it’s acting up, you need to take care of yourself.

People are quite complex. Our minds, bodies, and emotions all interact with each other in highly complex ways, and those interactions can result in either our well-being or poor overall health. That makes it of paramount importance to have routines that allow us to address any niggles or concerns before they become full-blown problems that may lead to deeper and more extensive interventions.

The Benefits Of Self-Care For Your Health

Taking the time to meet your own needs is a practice that can make a huge difference in your overall health. As you go through your day, when you encounter stressful situations, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol.

This can help your body to deal with the exertion required to overcome the stressful situation, but if you remain stressed and don’t deal with it, that can affect your body by putting strain on your organs and weakening your immune response.

Similarly, when you’re feeling anxious, it acts on your body as the fight-or-flight response is activated. Your heart races, your muscles prepare for action, your focus narrows, and you sweat, among other things. This too puts strain on your body and mind, and you need to unwind to allow your body time to recover.

When you take time to care for yourself, you’re allowing yourself room to recover from the strain you put your body under every day. You’re giving yourself room to reset so that you can face tomorrow’s challenges with a fresh mind and healthy body.

Have you ever noticed how on some days you have the capacity to deal with difficult people, but on other days you simply don’t? Depending on how you’ve cared for yourself, you can give yourself that much-needed margin.

Self-care thus helps you invest in your overall well-being and health, and it allows you to function at your best each day.

Self-Care Routines For Good Overall Health

Your self-care routines do not have to be extensive or complicated. In many cases, self-care is just about being intentional to create space for yourself. One reason why people hesitate to invest in their self-care is that it can feel selfish to take time out for yourself instead of using it to serve others. A busy mom or dad might feel that taking time for themselves instead of helping their spouse with chores or childcare is putting pressure on others to pick up the slack.

However, being more intentional about self-care may require a shift in mindset. Think of it this way – if you keep pushing yourself past your limits to be present for others, you can render yourself less and less useful for that task. If you get sick, that takes even more time to recover. Or if you’re dog-tired, you’re more likely to snap or deal unwisely with other people than you would if you were better rested.

As such, you should think of self-care as taking care of yourself, but in order for you to be more present in the lives of those you care about, and so that you can be the most effective version of yourself that you can be.

Some of the self-care routines you can adopt include the following:

Get enough sleep
Most of us do not get the amount of sleep we ought to be getting. And when we do sleep, it’s not always quality sleep. Go to bed and wake up at a consistent time, and make sure that your room is set up to allow you to sleep well. Dark curtains, a cool room or mattress, limiting both screen time and caffeine before bed – these are just a few of the things you can do to help yourself sleep better.

When you sleep, your body gets rid of excess cortisol in your system, as well as adrenaline. Your body is essentially healing itself and allowing you to reset when you sleep deeply and well.

Eat well

There is a reason why the word hangry has made it into our working vocabulary. When you’re hungry, you’re likely going to be irritable and prickly. Eat a healthy and balanced diet regularly so that you’re getting the right nutrient balance. Fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat, whole grains, and fish like salmon which are rich in omega-3 fats, nuts, and legumes are just some of the things you can make part of your diet.

Maintaining healthy eating habits can also help you avoid health conditions that may result from eating fatty, refined, and sugary foods.

Move and keep moving

Taking exercise daily can help keep your heart, bones, and muscles healthy. Exercise can elevate your mood and is helpful in getting rid of cortisol as well as keeping your anxiety at bay. Whatever form of exercise your doctor has cleared you for, it can help your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

Exercise can also help you to socialize with others and meet new people. We are social and deeply relational beings and positive interactions with others help promote our well-being.

Be with other people

On that note, one aspect of self-care is being with other people. Take time to just hang out with others, play games, talk, share hobbies, and otherwise interact in ways that get you to form meaningful connections with them.

Rest

Apart from getting rest at night, you also need to build in breaks during your day, week, month, and year. Resting from whatever work you do is a healthy reminder that your work doesn’t define you, and from a Christian perspective it’s a reminder that it’s God who provides you with the capacity and opportunity to work and be productive (Deuteronomy 8).

Rest can be combined with pausing to meditate on Scripture so that you center yourself, regain your strength, and remind yourself about what’s of eternal significance. You can rest by taking a warm bath, getting a massage, or just unwinding by yourself with a good book.

Practice gratitude

There are so many biblical injunctions to give praise and thanks to God (Psalms 100, 150; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Ephesians 5:4; Hebrews 13:15). Practicing gratitude allows us to be content with what God has given us. Practicing gratitude can help us overcome anxiety by grounding us in the present, and it can help us have a general sense of well-being about our current circumstances.

Seek help

It may be helpful to speak with someone like a professional counselor to address certain concerns such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, or autism spectrum disorder, to name a few. Getting the help you need from a mental health professional will position you to thrive and live your life to the fullest.

Next Steps

As you go about creating your self-care routine, remember that you don’t have to go big or have a routine that takes up lots of time. Self-care is really about making small but consistent changes in your life. Your routine can be as simple or as complex as you can manage. Additionally, you can be flexible and adjust things as you go along, adding things that work for you and taking away what doesn’t. The key thing is to feel rested and healthy.

Taking care of yourself is a way of loving yourself so that you’re better placed to love others with the empathy and compassion they need. Just as we are called to show compassion to others, we should show ourselves compassion and tend to our needs, too. If you need help with crafting a self-care routine that meets your needs, you can talk with a Christian life coach, or with a counselor who can help you with your priorities and with follow through.