Self-Care and Wellness - January 2025

Self-Care is anything you do to help restore, maintain, or improve your health and wellness. Self-Care can be any activity that keeps you from worrying about the past or future by helping you to focus on the present moment.

The Dimensions of Wellness

Wellness does not only include physical and emotional wellness, but also financial, social, spiritual, occupational, environmental, and intellectual. These multiple dimensions of wellness are intricately interrelated. Improving wellness in any one dimension helps to strengthen the rest. The negative impacts of a deficit in any one dimension can be minimized by improving wellness in the other dimensions.

Self-care strengthens wellness. Self-Care activities can last a few minutes to many hours. Try out as many self-care activities as you can to identify the activities that you are excited about incorporating into your life on a consistent basis. Be sure to include at least one activity that only takes a few minutes – this will allow you to practice daily self-care no matter how busy your schedule.

Examples of Self-Care

  • Make sleep a priority. Consistently get 7-9 hrs. of sleep each night.
  • Exercise regularly. Walk, dance, clean, garden, etc.
  • Practice Mindfulness. Focus your attention on the present moment - what you are experiencing with your senses (seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, or tasting). Do this while walking to class, enjoying coffee, doing chores, helping others, listening to a lecture, etc.
  • Practice Relaxation. Close your eyes, drop your shoulders, and relax while you:
    • listen to music.
    • take a bath.
    • put your feet up.
    • visualize yourself somewhere calm and relaxing.
    • spend a few minutes in the sun.
    • enjoy deep breathing exercises.
  • Pretend that you enjoy a chore that you normally don’t enjoy.
  • Cut back on processed foods, sugar, and artificial sweeteners.
  • Volunteer time to help others.
  • Create a budget and stick to it. Curb impulse buying by waiting 3 to 7 days before buying any non-necessity items.
  • Learn something new.
  • Watch videos of happy, adorable puppies and/or kittens.
  • Spend quality time with friends, family, pets, and/or your community.
  • Declutter and simplify your environment.
  • Limit interactions with negative people.
  • Practice gratitude – focus on people, things, or situations for which you are grateful.

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