4 Ways You Can Add Physical Self-Care to Your Daily Self-Care Plan

Use these scientific recommendations to improve your daily self-care routine

Self-care is a fundamental part of our functioning. Without taking proper care of ourselves, we cannot enjoy our lives and do the things we want to be doing.

To know how to take care of ourselves, we could create a daily self-care plan in which we write down the things we should do for ourselves if we want to feel good and stay happy and healthy.

In our self-care plan, we can include practices that nourish our minds, relationships, souls, and bodies. However, if our bodies aren’t in optimum health, we can’t take care of the rest either.

So the first domain that we should pay particular attention to when creating a daily self-care plan, is the physical domain. Our physical bodies endure a lot, and all they are asking in return is a little TLC.

How can we show it some TLC? Keep reading to find out.

The base of everything

According to Butler et al. (2019), physical self-care involves tending to the needs of the physical body in order to achieve or support optimal functioning and to avoid breakdowns or deterioration within systems.

Physical self-care, therefore, helps us achieve great health, while at the same time building up our physical resilience to prevent ailments.

When our bodies aren’t healthy, this can negatively affect all other areas of our lives. So in order to properly take care of our bodies, we should pay attention to and incorporate the following practices in our personal self-care plan.

Get your zzz’s in

Sleep plays a vital role in our health. It helps us restore our bodies and rejuvenate us for yet another day. If you don’t sleep enough, you risk a number of things, such as lower productivity, chronic diseases, and even death.

To reduce the risk of these factors, the CDC recommends for adults to sleep 7 hours or more per 24 hours.

Personally, I sleep between 6–8 hours daily. I try to let my body wake up naturally without an alarm clock, so I know it received the amount of sleep it needed that night. I’ve read many different articles on the best time to sleep, but they all suggest around 6–9 hours.

Of course, this also depends on your age, gender, and other factors. A good way of seeing how much sleep your body needs is to try to wake up naturally for a few days without an alarm clock (perhaps on weekends if you can’t during weekdays).

What you eat is what you are

Nutrition. This is an obvious one, yet still so important. You are what you eat, some even say. I am not going to scare you with the negative effects of eating unhealthy, as they can be quite terrifying.

What I am going to do, however, is focus on how we can make a positive change to get the results that we do want. For this, a well-balanced diet is important, containing nutrient-dense veggies, whole grains and fruits, fat-free or low-fat diary products, varied proteins, and healthy oils. It’s also important to limit sugars, saturated fats, sodium, and highly processed foods.

I used to be an avid meat eater and sugar consumer. And well, it wasn’t the best diet. However, over time, I started feeling like a lighter, sugar and fat-free, vegetarian diet suits me better. I liked how I felt after I’d eaten a vegetarian meal. My belly would feel light, as opposed to the heavy feeling I felt after consuming lots of meat, fats, and sugars.

So currently, my diet is mostly focused on veggies. On most days, I eat a vegetarian diet. Once a week I have some fish, and once a week I might also have some chicken. However, I try to stay away from red meat as much as I can. Sugar, salt, fat, and dairy are things I also generally try to limit.

Of course, once in a while I still have some sugar, some fat, or some meat. But overall I try to focus more on the things that feel good for my body. It’s all about checking what feels good for you and acting upon that.

“Caring for your body, mind, and spirit is your greatest and grandest responsibility. It’s about listening to the needs of your soul and then honoring them.”

— Kristi Ling

Move it!

Exercising is not only good for your physical health, but also for your mental health. However, you don’t need to be sweating it in the gym for hours every day (unless you want to of course). According to the CDC, physical exercise is considered anything that gets your body moving and gets your heart rate elevated.

This can include all sorts of activities, from lighter movements such as stretching in a chair, taking a walk, or sexual activity, to moderate-intense activities such as team sports, running, or lifting weights.

Moderate and regular physical activity has been shown to be great for both physical and mental well-being (this is where overlap in self-care domains already comes in!). Next to improving mental well-being, it improves our sleep, and cognitive performance and helps prevent disease and disorders.

To experience its benefits, it’s suggested that adults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate to intense activity per week. Add to this two or more days to include training muscles with strengthening activities.

Any activity is good of course, but research does show that the mental benefits of exercise appear after the first 30 minutes of exercise, and usually with activities that are more strenuous and combine strength and aerobic training.

Currently, I go for 30–60 minute walks about once or twice a week. I also try to work in some yoga sessions once or twice a week. Every day I also tend to stretch my body and move around by dancing or cleaning. However, sometimes I get lazy (as we all do) and forget to do some things. This is definitely an area I can improve on in my own personal self-care.

Stay up-to-date with your body

We might not always practice everything we set out to. We all have the best intentions, we might make a self-care plan, and we might write down all the things we want to do to take good care of ourselves.

However, sometimes life gets in the way. We get busy, tired, lazy, you name it. So yeah, sometimes we don’t always stick to it.

That’s why the fourth way of taking care of your body is so important. Just like you would do maintenance on your car, so do we need to do maintenance on our bodies.

Going for regular check-ups is vital. These check-ups include annual check-ups and screening with a physician, regular dental, eye, and mental health care. It also means following the recommended and prescribed medication and treatment regimes.

Research shows that 70% of people fail to comply with this. This is alarming because regular check-ups can be lifesaving. Just imagine, you might be eating lots of fats right now. A checkup would show elevated cholesterol values. The doctor recommends you to cut down on some things, but these changes won’t be drastic. You will still be able to enjoy food, and go about your life.

However, if you don’t go for checkups, or if you don’t follow the doctor’s advice to cut back on some things, you might continue eating the way you are eating now. This might lead to incredibly high cholesterol later in your life, which forbids you to eat anything you like, ever again. What’s more, you might start to suffer chronic diseases, such as heart disease, due to high cholesterol levels.

I don’t mean to scare you with this. I don’t. I just want you to be happy and healthy. I just wish for you to be able to live your life and truly enjoy it. But for you to be able to do that, you must do regular check-ups and adjustments so you stay in good health. This will allow you to live your life as healthy and happy as you possibly can, with as minimum lifestyle-related health issues as possible.

If that isn’t enough to motivate you to finally make that doctor’s appointment, ask yourself: do I want to enjoy now and possibly suffer horribly later, or do I want to make some minor adjustments now and enjoy my days throughout my whole life?

“Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account.” — Anne Wilson Schaef

Final thoughts

Physical self-care is the basis of our well-being and functioning. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to eat the foods we like, do meaningful and productive work, meet our friends and have loving relationships, travel, or do anything else we might enjoy.

So, to take good care of our bodies, so they take good care of us, we need to be mindful of how much we sleep, we need to eat a well-balanced and healthy diet, commit to moving our bodies regularly, and do regular maintenance and checkups to keep our bodies up and running.

What areas of physical self-care do you already practice? And which areas can you still add or improve on in your personal self-care plan?

In my next article, we’ll be talking about professional self-care. So if you want to know how you can best manage work stress, and enjoy your work more — subscribe here to get notified.

Hope you got some value out of this article.

Always with love,

Jelena

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