Self-care is caring for your body including your mind and spirit. It is about creating a daily manageable routine and sticking to it.
Establishing daily routines is about reclaiming your days. By allocating time each day for these practices will help keep you balanced by aligning your body with nature’s rhythms and ensuring that you give yourself some ‘me time” every day.
This is a simple routine I use to starting and finishing the day. However, the routine you create for yourself can be easily modified for changing conditions. Start where you are at rather than setting up something that is unattainable and likely to be difficult to maintain. You can always add to or modify overtime to fit the demands of your life. Just keep it simple!
☼ SELF-CARE MORNING ROUTINE ☼
- Try and wake as naturally as possible, without an alarm clock if possible, and before the sun is up as there is special energy in the air before the sun rises.
- Upon rising empty your bladder.
- The bowels must also be emptied every morning as this is an essential part of the natural process of detoxification each day.
- Within three minutes of rising brush your teeth and then scape your tongue with a tongue scraper (copper is preferred). Scrape your tongue gently three times down the middle and once down each side of your tongue - rinse between each stroke. This helps to stimulate the internal organs, improve digestion by increasing your sense of taste and cleanse the body by removing toxins and bacteria from your oral cavity.
- Depending on how much time you have jumpstart your day with some yoga stretches. Anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes.
- After your yoga stretches allow 5 minutes to sit quietly before your day starts. This is invaluable in helping you go into the day feeling calmer and more grounded.
- Drink a glass of warm water with a half teaspoon of grated ginger, a half teaspoon of manuka honey and a teaspoon of lemon juice to rehydrate and loosen any toxins in the digestive tract.
- Shower.
- Eat a good quality protein breakfast as this is the most important meal of the day.
- Never check your emails in the first hour of the day - this is your sacred time.
☾ SELF-CARE EVENING ROUTINE ☽
To counteract the chaos of the day and prepare your mind to go into a state of relaxation start by:
- Tuning down the electronic usage. Computers, iPhones, social media these all stimulate the mind and cause stress. Cortisol is the stress hormone and is incompatible with melatonin, which is your relaxation hormone and the hormone associated with sleep. When cortisol goes up, melatonin goes down, and that affects your sleep.
- This is a time for the more mundane tasks around the home as this allows you to digest the day that has just passed, quietly.
- Prepare and eat an easy-to-digest dinner at least three hours before bedtime. Your sleep can be disturbed by your body trying to digest a meal that you ate too late.
- Keep a journal or diary to help get thoughts out of your head to bring peace to mind before bed.
- To support a good night’s sleep drink a cup of warm milk (goats, almond or Bonsoy) with a pinch of nutmeg powder and a little ghee added. Nutmeg has a mild sedative effect. Or drink a cup of relaxing herbal tea.
- Too much artificial light in the evening disrupts your body’s circadian rhythm and affects the production of melatonin. Dim the lights, mimic nature as much as possible.
- Take a warm shower to wash off the accumulated energies of your working day. If you have a bath add calming and relaxing essential oils like dōTERRA Lavender Peace Calming Blend that supports restful sleep.
- Establish a consistent bedtime. Having predictable sleep and wake times helps your body naturally attune to a daily rhythm. Ideally before 10:00 pm.
- Keeping the bedroom cool while sleeping.
Your body, mind and spirit will thank you ღ