Strengthening my Foundation #3: Starting with Physical Self-care
/This is the second update in my Strengthening my Foundation Self-Care series. You can check out the introduction post here: https://www.crazycatnerd.com/blog/smf1
Exploring Physical Self-care
Physical self-care is anything you intentionally do to take care of your body. It encompasses many of the activities that first come to mind when you think of self-care. It involves nutrition, sleep, exercise, doctors visits, resting, proper hydration, taking care of yourself when you are sick, showering, brushing your teeth and even skincare. They are the activities that health professionals tell us to engage in on a regular basis. The things we know are good for us.
While I have excellent oral hygiene and I shower daily (it’s my version of coffee, I can’t function until I’ve had a shower), most of the other areas of my physical care could stand to see at least some improvement (if not a lot of improvement). However, a lot of self-care is about finding balance. I could start focusing on a single one of these areas right now and dedicate all my time to it, but then where would I be? For example, let’s take nutrition. Sure, I could start eating amazingly healthy right now, but would that stress me out? What about the joy I get from french fries? What about the time it takes to make healthy food? The time to research those recipes and nutritional science (there is a lot of crap information out there, you have to dig deep)? What about the financial cost? What about focusing on something so intently I don’t consider my emotional self-care or the joy I’m experiencing? In all likelihood, I’d be stressed out and unhappy and I’d quit in a day or two. I think it would be better to undertake smaller goals that are more manageable. I also think balancing small goals in several different areas of self-care would be more beneficial.
If this series carries on into the future, I might do a deeper dive into specific topics related to physical self-care, but for this week I’m just thinking about physical self-care in general. What are some small things I could do right now to improve it?
The immediate things that come to mind for me are better hydration, more sleep and getting back into yoga. I had some personal health concerns a month or so ago that caused me to lose my yoga habit. Recently, I’ve noticed that I'm a bit stiffer than I was and I’ve had a couple of aches and pains that could be alleviated with a stretching routine. While the “8 cups of water” thing isn’t exactly science (it’s more complicated than that), hydration is important. While I actually like drinking water, I have a tendency not to drink until I am quite thirsty, which means I’m already dehydrated. I’d like to be more observant about my hydration needs, drink more often, and earlier in the day. I’ve already discussed the sleep thing. My body likes to have a decent amount of sleep and I definitely feel I don’t get enough. Not only do I not get enough hours, but I also don’t get enough quality sleep. I want to work on getting to bed earlier, but also on having better sleep hygiene.
THIS LITTLE CUTIE IS FROM A COLLECTION OF SELF-CARE KITTIES THAT WILL BE POPPING UP AROUND MY BLOG NOW. I COMMISSIONED THEM FROM A WONDERFUL ARTIST AND FRIEND, TAAJA TUCKER, WHO ALSO DID MY HEADER. I WILL BE DOING A WHOLE POST ON THESE LATER, BUT YOU CAN FIND MORE OF HER WORK HERE: HTTPS://WWW.ETSY.COM/SHOP/CUTESCI .
Self-care activities since my last post
Routine & Tracking- As I have mentioned before, I’m continuing my normal self-care activities as best I can, as well as tracking my mood, energy & productivity.
Bedtime- In my last post, I said I wanted to get to bed by 10:30 pm each night. I made this goal easier as my previous goal was 10 pm. I succeeded in getting to bed by 10:30 about 50% of the time. I found this surprising, I feel like I used to go to bed much earlier. I’m not sure what happened, but it definitely isn’t helping me get more sleep.
Creativity & the Sims- Another goal I set was to spend at least 10 minutes a day working on either writing my Sims stories or playing the Sims. Creative expression is important to my well-being. I’m happy to report that I've been succeeding quite well in this. Almost every day I’ve been able to find just a bit of time to work on my Sims stories. If you follow them, you might have noticed the increase in posts!
Veggies- I’m starting work on teaching myself how to eat broccoli and Brussel sprouts, two veggies I previously have not enjoyed. I’ve tried both a couple times recently with mixed success. In particular, I tried Brussel sprouts at my work’s catered Christmas party and they were amazing! I later tried them from the cafeteria at work, emboldened by my past experience, and promptly spit them into my napkin.
Steps- I was consistently increasing my weekly step count in preparation for Disney and then the holidays happened and messed with my typical routine.
Yoga- Just to slowly get back into things, I’ve been doing 5 minutes of yoga several nights a week.
Recent life events & their impacts
It is worth noting before I get into the results of my tracking for this update that I experienced a few events and situations that are very likely impacting my mood. The holidays definitely impacted my typical routine, but also a power outage at work that caused some additional stress (it created more work for me, and worries about equipment), and the passing of a close relative (and all that that entails). I think I had a bit more stress than normal in the past few weeks.
The stress has also awoken my anxiety and depression beasts. I’ve got pretty good at keeping them in check recently, but they feed on stress. I’m definitely noticing the symptoms of both of those popping up recently.
Mood, Energy and Productivity tracking
I’ve continued tracking since my last update, but not always consistently. Some days I record how I am feeling at least 8 times, but other days I only get in one check.
As a reminder, all of my scales go from 1 to 5 with 1 being the ideal situation and 5 being the worst. Last week, my brain state averaged a 3.3 which is worse than what I saw the week before (2.6) and what I recorded for my last post (2.8). So my mood and stress levels have been trending away from where I would like them to be. My productivity levels seem to be roughly the same going from 3.5 in my last post to 3.29 a couple of weeks ago and finally a 3.45 last week. My energy levels have gone from a 3.6 to a 3.48 to a 3.1. So my reported energy levels have improved some!
As I mentioned, there are extenuating circumstances that have impacted my wellness recently. I also cannot look at monthly trends yet because I haven’t quite been recording things for that long. I look forward to posting screenshots of graphs sometime in the future.
Next Actionable Steps
I’m going to continue tracking and my normal routine as best I can. However, I am headed to Walt Disney World very soon which will definitely disrupt all of my intentions.
I would like to focus on physical self-care for this round, so here are my new goals:
Getting to bed by 10/10:30 pm: I’m going to continue my work towards getting to bed earlier. I’m going to aim for 5 days a week before 10:30 pm and 2 of those days before 10 pm.
Being mindful of my thirst: I already check-in with myself multiple times per day using the Daylio app. It is how I track my mood, productivity and energy. I’m going to add a “hydration” section to the app. Now, when I check-in I’ll need to report my regular stats plus something to do with hydration. The purpose will be to remind myself to be mindful of my thirst and possibly drink water at the time, if possible.
Practicing yoga: I’m going to continue getting back into my yoga routine with 7 minutes of yoga several times a week.
