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As the weather continues to heat up, energy levels can tend to lower as you commit to obligations personally and professionally. Finding ways to incorporate self-care into your routine during extreme temperatures is a great way to cool down while still enjoying yourself. It’s important to find ways to decompress to avoid feeling overwhelmed or burnt out. Mainstream media’s popularization of self-care has made many practices feel redundant or taboo.
While self-care is personally defined for each person, here are self methods that may not always come to mind that could be useful to your routine:
Stretching Helps the Body Release Stress
Stretching, while simple in nature, can help you to recenter and reset. Whether it’s before a busy day or at the end of a long day, stretching can be a great energy boost on days when you feel lower in that area. Stretching can also help support someone mentally by helping the body to release tension and, in turn, regulate the nervous system. According to Healthline, stretching can also help improve blood flow to certain parts of the body, which is helpful for those who work remotely or sit for prolonged hours.
Do a Staycation in Your City
The monotony of the day-to-day can make people forget the beauty of their city. Whether it’s visiting a local spa or staying at a bed and breakfast, these experiences can be what help you to truly slow down and take in the world around you. Taking time to explore your hometown outside your daily routine gives you a fresher perspective on your surroundings while helping you embrace change in a healthy way. By adding relaxing activities to this experience, such as meditation or rest, you allow yourself the time and space to be intentional towards your self-care without spending a lot of money.
Add Screen Time Limits to Your Devices
Between showing up for loved ones and doomscrolling on social media, it’s easy to be on your phone for extended periods of time unintentionally. Disconnecting from your device for an extended period allows you to reduce fluctuations in dopamine and cortisol levels from constant notifications and slowly improve your sleep patterns over time. Screen time limits also allow you to connect on a deeper level to those around you versus focusing on more digitized relationships or falling into self-comparison with others you may see on social media.
Solve a Puzzle
The misconception many people hold is that self-care methods have to be elaborate or tied to some form of rest, but sometimes self-care can also be as simple as turning your mind elsewhere. Putting your focus towards a puzzle or board game is a great self-care method because it not only allows you to use other parts of your brain, but also keeps them sharp by using them. Often time doing a puzzle is more physical than digital, which can also help someone to give their body a break from so much screen time.
Intentionally Do Absolutely Nothing
Sometimes your best efforts towards caring for yourself and slowing down are doing absolutely nothing. While some may view just sitting in silence as boring, for others, it can be a space of solace that is refreshing and allows someone to sit with their own thoughts without the hustle and bustle of other responsibilities. The mindset of constantly hustling or feeling obligated to be constantly busy produces more stress on the body. In the African American community in particular, there’s a narrative that presumes that if you are not working, then there’s something wrong, which creates less space to humanize others. This has also created a pretense towards the reality of work-life balance. By intentionally doing nothing, you not only break the status quo but also inspire others to do the same.
