Feeling "healthy" also requires some form of self-care. This can come in many forms and can be different for everyone. Spending quality time with family, yoga, enjoying nature, reading a good book, finally cleaning that one spot in your house that's been driving you insane, knitting, exercising, swimming, spending time with friends, ... all ways of achieving self-care.
As I get older I find that what used to bring me peace has changed to a degree. Though I still enjoy time reading, I now find that having quality time in nature with my family is generally just as healing (as long as my boys aren't pestering each other incessantly).
Finding these times to decompress, unplug, and achieve some fleeting peace can impact our mental health, how we carry our weight, and impact how well we sleep.
So this weekend I cleaned bookcases, organized papers, helped clean the garage and helped torch our kids old fort. It felt incredible to make such progress on areas of the house and yard that have been nagging me for most of the summer.
Today, I brought my kids to our family camp to have some quality time swimming, boating and fishing with Nana and Grampa before school starts. As a way to have more of that quality self care time, instead of working, I took the time to join the family on a boat ride around the lake. It's amazing how refreshed I now feel after sharing this adventure with my kids.
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| On Cobbossee Lake. |
I want to encourage all of you to find, recapture, or discover what self-care activities help bring you that sense of peace, calm and fulfillment. Take the time this week to enjoy that sensation for a minimum of 20 minutes and examine how you feel after such an activity. Then, work towards achieving that 20 minutes each week, then each day, and you may feel a sense of peace pervading your work day as well.
In peace and wellness.
Shelley Allen
Health Coach, MS OTR/L
or follow me on Instagram @shelley_allen24
or Twitter @shelleyhealth1
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