Practicing self-care is important at any stage of your life. It’s a great way to unwind from the stresses of your work and personal life all while putting your needs front and center. With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting nearly every American, people everywhere are feeling the stress of having to quarantine on top of processing what this crisis means for our society. All of these factors make practicing self-care more important than ever before.
Thankfully, there are plenty of strategies you can use that don’t require you to leave home. Let’s take a look at some of the most helpful self-care strategies that you can do right in the comfort of your own home.
Gardening
When many people think about self-care, they tend to imagine it as only activities that focus on your actual person, such as doing face masks or having your nails done. However, self-care has as much to do with your state of mind as it does your body. One activity that’s been shown to be very beneficial for your state of mind is gardening.
Whether you have an outdoor patch of land that you can garden or you grow plants in pots indoors, this activity has been shown to reduce stress and increase happiness. Doing things with your hands can help take your mind off of your problems and many people find gardening to be therapeutic in this way. The act of gardening also has tangible, visual results for your efforts that can help increase your sense of accomplishments.
If you’re a novice gardener, the best way to get started is with plants that don’t require a lot of care. Beginning gardeners also tend to have luck with easy vegetables like tomatoes and herbs like rosemary and thyme.
Those with sufficient outdoor space can choose a spot in their yard that gets good amounts of both light and shade for their garden. If you’d like to give your garden some structure, try lining the edges with concrete blocks or using these blocks as makeshift planters. Concrete is used more than any other manmade material in the world and gardening is a perfect use for this sturdy material.
If you need to keep your gardening efforts indoors, invest in a few pots and the right soil. To follow social distancing guidelines, be sure to order any materials you need online or get them through curbside pickup at stores in your area.
Chat Virtually with Family and Friends
You may not be able to see your loved ones in person anymore, but you can still spend time with them over video chat. Videoconferencing has become an essential tool during the coronavirus pandemic for employees who now find themselves working from home. You can use this same tool in your personal life during the pandemic.
To start your social life over video, download a video chat service on your computer and/or smartphone. Apple products are all automatically outfitted with Facetime, which allows for multiple people to video chat at once. However, people without Apple products cannot use Facetime. Zoom has become a popular alternative, as it also allows for multiple people to chat at once and any device can use the program.
Once you decide which service you’d like to use, you can get your family or friends together to spend time together virtually. Many people are using video chat to have virtual happy hours, hold family reunions, or even host parties complete with live music. Any of these social activities can do wonders for your mental health by making you feel more connected to the people you love most.
Pamper Yourself
We know that self-care is more than just face masks and spa days, but there’s no doubt that taking time to pamper yourself can improve your wellbeing and self-esteem. Doing anything that you believe makes you look better externally or feel better internally is going to have a real impact on how you feel from one day to the next.
You may have to put aside some more complicated self-care endeavors that require seeing a specialist, such as getting Invisalign aligners that you wear two weeks at a time to improve the look and feel of your teeth, but there are many ways to pamper yourself in your home while you wait out this pandemic.
If you do want to keep your self-care efforts focused on your teeth, order a new electric toothbrush online. It can help make your teeth feel like you just got out of the dentist’s chair. If you’d rather focus on pampering your entire body, take a relaxing bath complete with bubbles, candles, and music.
You can also drink your favorite wine and eat some chocolates to really feel like you’re treating yourself. Even changing up your hair with an at-home dye kit or experimenting with new makeup products can be ways for you to pamper yourself.
Practicing self-care doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Whatever activities you enjoy and make you feel good count as self-care. Whether that’s going for a jog every day or reading your favorite book before you go to bed, these little acts of self-care all add up to help relieve stress and sadness during uncertain times.
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