Healthy Employees Make for a Healthy Business
As women, we often wear many hats—professional, wife, mom, cook, caregiver, chauffer—which usually means we don’t have enough time for ourselves. As a result, we often feel frazzled, inadequate, and like we are running on fumes. Sound familiar?
Putting ourselves on our own to-do list is important to help us remain organized, sane, happy, and well. But for many of us, learning to make ourselves a priority is not an easy task. Let me introduce self-care. This concept is slowly gaining traction as many women are now being more intentional about these practices. In fact, #SelfCareSunday is becoming increasingly popular on Instagram and Twitter feeds.
Let’s all take a lesson from the classic pre-flight safety speech and secure our own mask first, because it is only when we are at our best that we can completely care for others.
Including self-care in your daily routine can really pay off when it comes to your overall health and wellness. Self-care is an important component of stress management as, when we are drained physically and mentally, we are less able to handle the stresses in our lives. Chronic stress can be very damaging to physical health, and increases the risk of heart disease, digestive problems, headaches, sleep problems and weight gain. When it comes to mental health, self-care makes helps us feel better about ourselves and helps decrease anxiety and depression. When we neglect our own needs, we are at in danger of becoming unhappy and developing low self-esteem.
How can I practice self-care?
Keep reading for simple, actionable tasks. Choose the activities you think would benefit from the most!
- Get Active: Physical activity releases endorphins and boosts your mood.
- Eat Nourishing Food: Putting good food in your body is a great way to ensure you will feel physiologically your best.
- Journal: Putting this into practice daily will help you feel more calm, centered, and capable.
- Garden: This calming and therapeutic activity can be an indoor or outdoor hobby.
- Go to Bed Early: Getting enough sleep is one of the best things you can do for your health.
- De-clutter: Our home should be our sanctuary. Decluttering can help ease stress and anxiety as well as promote better decision making skills.
- Meal Prep: While this may not sound like fun, it will make weeknight cooking easier and packing lunch a breeze.
- Color: Adult coloring books are the latest trend and coloring allows us to shift our focus to something calming.
Self-care is something we must make a priority. Let’s all take a lesson from the classic pre-flight safety speech and secure our own mask first, because it is only when we are at our best that we can completely care for others.
Original article written for and published by BusinessPeople
