If you want to live a long and happy life, it’s crucial you look after your health and wellbeing. Self-care is how you ensure your mind and body are functioning as well as they can.

Some of the main benefits of self-care include:

• Improved physical and mental health
• You’ll feel more energized
• Improvement in self-esteem
• It helps to fight off disease
• You’ll be better able to help others

When you ensure your body has everything it needs, you’ll see a drastic improvement in your physical and mental health. It really helps to boost the immune system, fighting off illness and disease. Studies have revealed that self-care activities stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. This basically means your body goes into rest mode, helping it to recharge and relax.

As it helps you to sleep better, this also leads to you feel more energized throughout the day. It also combats stress, which in turn can have all kinds of awesome benefits such as improvements in your relationships.

Those who don’t take care of themselves, often suffer with lower self-esteem. So, if you’re looking to feel more confident, taking care of your needs is a good place to start.

These are just some of the reasons why taking care of yourself is so important. Remember, it’s hard to be there to help others when you aren’t taking care of yourself first.

Common Self-Care Obstacles

If taking care of ourselves is so important, why is it so hard for people to fit it into their daily lives? The truth is, there are a lot of self-care obstacles you need to contend with. By understanding the challenges, you can work out ways to overcome them and make self-care a habit.

Below, you’ll discover some of the most common self-care obstacles.

#1: You’re too busy

Most people live busy lives these days, which can make it harder to focus on their needs. When you have a lot of responsibilities, taking care of yourself often takes a backseat. It can already feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, so how are you supposed to fit self-care in too?

While it can be challenging to add a self-care routine into your daily life, there are ways to do it. It can help to switch your mindset on self-care. Instead of seeing it as a chore, view it as an essential part of your wellbeing. Look forward to it and make carving out time for yourself a priority.

You can wake up earlier or focus on self-care when the kids have gone to bed. There are always ways to fit self-care into our routines, no matter how busy we are.

#2: A lack of motivation

Another common challenge is having a lack of motivation. It could be that creating a routine to take care of you is overwhelming. If it seems like a huge task, it can really zap your motivation. You may also have issues with motivation if you are suffering with depression.

The key here is to focus on making small changes at a time. Don’t try and create a full routine. Just think of the main area you want to improve, then set yourself small goals. As you reach each goal, it’s going to boost your motivation to continue.

#3: You feel it’s selfish

Viewing self-care as a selfish act is unfortunately a common barrier. These days, we are made to feel like we should be able to do everything ourselves. Taking care of others is viewed as much more important than taking care of ourselves. However, the truth is that self-care isn’t selfish, it is necessary for our wellbeing.

Think about it, you can’t help others if you aren’t taking care of yourself first. There is a well-known saying that you can’t pour from an empty cup. If you feel constantly tired, stressed out and physically or mentally unwell, you’re going to struggle to take care of others.

So, stop thinking self-care is selfish and start realizing that it is necessary for a healthy, happy, and balanced individual.

#4: Failing to understand what self-care involves

Do you feel like self-care just isn’t for you? Many people mistakenly think self-care isn’t their thing because they fail to understand what it is.

When you are searching for self-care information, you’ll often find it mentions things such as taking a bubble bath or meditating. We are all different and these types of activities aren’t enjoyable for everyone. However, self-care is so much more than taking time out to relax.

The truth is self-care incorporates anything that you personally enjoy. If you’d much rather get out on a hike than take a bubble bath, do that instead. Self-care obtained when you identify the needs of your mind and body and do what’s required to fulfill them. Enjoying hobbies is a form of self-care.

#5: Creating a self-care routine is overwhelming

Finally, another common obstacle to self-care is that it can feel overwhelming. There are different types of self-care and you are told you need to focus on all of them. This means creating a whole new routine you can follow.

The thought of trying to fit in lots of new activities and tasks into your day can be overwhelming. This means people often tend to put off focusing on self-care as they just can’t deal with that overwhelming feeling.

To make it easier, you can start off by focusing on just one area of self-care. It could be improving your fitness, getting a better night’s sleep, or eating a little healthier. Pick one area you are lacking in and start with that. This way, you won’t find it so overwhelming.

These are some of the most common challenges to self-care most people experience. Identifying what’s holding you back is the first step to making a change. However, if you want to truly get the benefits of self-care, it’s worth looking into the full stages of change. That is, the steps you need to take to go from thinking about changing your lifestyle, to changing it. Look for the next blog post where I’ll talk about these stages of change.

In the meantime why not sign up for our Love Thyself 21 Day Self Care Challenge. It’s an email challenge so there’s no groups to join or check ins, plus you get journals, trackers and printables.

 

All the best,
Patti