Waking up should feel like something to look forward to and an experience all its own. Besides the obvious of getting a good night’s rest, there is a sense of awareness that many people skip upon waking. The big deal here is that it only takes a couple of seconds to shift the mind into awareness, and it takes no extra time away from what you already do to rise out of bed.
If I told you that incorporating simple self-care is as easy as doing what you already do daily, you’d wonder how that’s possible… I’ll tell you how. It takes only the practice of “Awareness.” Now there are plenty of lessons on awareness, and to go into the topic more deeply, lessons on mindfulness are also available everywhere, from articles to books online and hardcopy. However, here you will discover how to apply it most simplistically.
When Waking Up:
Set a phone alarm where you include a reminder to take a moment for awareness in the title. Before you jump out of bed, stretch from your core and smile in gratitude, then set your feet on the floor with a sense of purpose. The purpose should simply be ritualistic and not reminders of the usual stressors of the day. Rituals get you through the day and build towards your daily goals.
Stress only comes from overwhelming your mind with everything you must do that day or year. This is no way to tackle your day. Taking care of yourself means preparing your body, mind, and soul instantly with the treatment of understanding that each thing that you are doing in your hygiene ritual, for example, is all in credit to your benefit and overall health. This is being aware. This is practicing awareness.
When Going About your Day:
Like in the morning routine, throughout your day, you must break away from each thing you do because you move on to the next thing, or you need to go to the restroom, or you need to eat, or are good about giving yourself a mental break. Each one of these takes just as much energy as the other. And keeping things simple, on one of those brakes, or switchouts, take simply one page of a book or guide that teaches you about stress-reducing rituals. Little by little, you will figure out how to incorporate these into what you already do. And again there are many books on these subjects.
When Finishing Your Day:
Closing out your day with self-care is simply giving yourself credit for the things you accomplished today. That’s it! It’s as simple as that. However, not taking note that you’ve given yourself that credit well just takes away from the magic of incorporating simple daily self-care about your day/s.
Want more easy self-care:
Going beyond the mind-shift switch of awareness is to then dive into mindfulness. Mindfully doing anything throughout your day means you’ve achieved complete integrated self-care! Yup! You don’t need extra time for a bubble bath or a massage appointment, but when you find yourself doing all of the above, including scheduling those appointments, that means you’ve arrived at expert-level self-care!
No wonder we crave to wake up and deserve to feel confident that we take good care of ourselves and our lives beyond the usual hygiene, beauty tasks, and jobs. It makes us feel independently cared for and ultimately causes us to be most productive!
Hello, my name is Elizabeth Morales. I have been a Self-Care advisor for over 10 years and a Talent Acquisition professional for over 20 years. I derived people’s performance to match them with their most incredible life opportunities. Now I enjoy combining my talents and experience with practicing self-love and establishing healthy boundaries while incorporating self-respect and self-care into even the busiest of schedules and demanding lifestyles.