3 Self-Love/Self-Care Activities

February 13^th is self-love day, so this month I thought I’d share 3 Self-Love/Self-Care activities that I’ve personally been incorporating into my life recently.

 

1. Rest

Rest is by far the kindest thing you can do for your mind and body. And by rest, I mean guilt-free rest, where you simply let yourself relax. This can mean going to sleep on time or even early to ensure you get enough sleep. Other times it means saying no to plans or events so you dedicate time to rest and recharge.

Rest in this form is intentional and is about ensuring that you don’t burn out or stretch yourself too thin. I personally struggle with resting because I’m always trying to be productive and cross things off my list.

But I’m working on allowing myself to rest and not be productive without feeling bad about myself. From cycle syncing, I know that there are times where I can get a lot more done so I try to plan my super productive days when I think I’m going to have the energy to do them instead of trying to push myself unhealthily when I don’t have as much energy.

(If you cycle sync, late stage luteal and menstrual phases are the best times to simply rest without guilt or worry since your body is quite literally demanding that rest of you.)

Each day will be different though and your capacity will also differ day to day. It’s important to not compare your productivity between the days and allow yourself to rest often.

 

2. Weekly Reset

This might seem counter-intuitive to rest, but there should always be a balance between resting and doing things that you know will help you moving forward.

For me it’s doing a weekly reset. In some ways I’ve always done this, but to actually write out a little list of the 5-6 things that I want to make sure I get to before the next week starts has really helped me feel more cool, calm and collected going into the new week.

My weekly reset list is pretty simple:

• set up new week in planner
• migrate/update all trackers into my bullet journal
• update my reflective calendar
• clean my room
• plan out my outfits for the week 
• skincare Sunday (more on this later)

The first three of those are all planning/journal related which I’ve always done. But it’s nice to formally write a little checkmark next to them.

For me, a clean room brings a sense of peace and joy that really calms me. I love the feeling of sitting in my freshly dusted or vacuumed room. That itself feels like an act of self-care.

I also have a clothing rack in my room (because they were all the rage and I had to get one) but I use mine functionally and put all the outfits I’m going to wear to work in the coming week on it.

Your weekly reset list will look different or maybe it won’t even be a weekly reset list. The point of this is to do something that helps get your mind in order. Maybe that’s a weekly meditation, or run, or whatever other way that manifests for you.

Part of self-love and self-care is doing the things that you know you need to do to feel better even if you don’t feel like doing them. Because those are the things that are necessary and important for your overall well-being.

And for me, a list girlie though and though, that’s my weekly reset that has me feeling put together for the week to come.

 

3. Skincare Sundays

This is something I started a few months ago and it’s exactly how it sounds! Every Sunday I try to do some element of skincare (something I haven’t consistently focused on.) This is not as fancy as it sounds. Some days the skincare in question is just double cleansing my face and doing a lip scrub. Other days it’s a face mask, or using a jade roller, or taking a bath with a bath bomb. (The last of those not even particularly pertaining to skincare but feels luxurious nonetheless.)

The point, once again, is intention. Intentionally focusing on a small skincare activity just to break out of my normal routine and do something nice and/or healthy for myself.

Skincare Sundays has become a highlight for my weekly reset list and I enjoy finding new ways to incorporate it. (Last Sunday it was a shower bomb from Lush.)

 -.-

These are the 3 self-love and self-care activities I’ve been doing lately. The main theme throughout all of these is intention. If you do things with intention, they inherently become a self-care or self-love activity.

I hope this inspired some of you, and if you try any of them out, please share your experience in the comments! Thanks for reading!