66 Self Care Activities For the Mind, Body, and Spirit
If you’re feeling run down, overwhelmed, or stressed, self care activities will soothe the mind, body, and spirit.
Your happiness and well being come from taking loving care of yourself!
And, the best self care plan honors the mind, body, and spirit.
Self care activities for the soul
To practice self care and promote overall well being, care for the soul.
Because part of self care, believe it or not, involves growing the potential within you.
A soulful life is one where you practice self care regularly.
Go soul searching
Soul searching is a great way to take care of yourself. It’s the way to discover who you are at your core.
Self-care is asking: What am I here to do? What am I here to give to make the world better?
Conversely, what must you learn so that you can show up fully? We all have lessons to learn as we better understand our self care routine. It’s all part of the human experience.
Befriend yourself
Be kind, compassionate, and caring toward yourself. Shoot, be your own best friend! That’s the ultimate in self care and well being.
Pema Chodron says, “When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.”
Think about it for a moment. You come into the world alone and leave the world alone, shouldn’t you practice self compassion and befriend yourself along the way?
Self-honesty
Self-honesty is part of self care because we’re here to learn. It’s taking an honest look and seeing past mistakes as a compassionate friend would and making the necessary changes.
Self-rejection is criticizing yourself, being intolerant of yourself, and telling yourself you’re not good enough in some way. Here’s the truth, as you befriend yourself, you will find the world friendlier. It’s strange how that works, but it is very true.
As we are true to ourselves, we feel a greater sense of belonging and connection to the world around us. This is a wonderful gift of self-discovery and self care.
Stay in your lane
As you stay in your lane, self care and well being is your focus.
Don’t rely on what is happening externally or in other people’s lives. Instead, create your life based on what the soul is here to do.
We get distracted by comparing ourselves or feeling like we’re behind in life and this sucks our energy and makes life more difficult.
Instead, self care practices are trying new things and expanding your perspective of what’s possible!
So, it’s best to stay in your lane and live YOUR life, the one that’s designed for you.
Self care that serves the soul is a journey, so be patient as you walk this fantastic, exciting life.
Heal grief and loss
I wrote The Butterfly Silhouette after I lost my husband, leaving me and our two young sons. Grief is very personal.
Self care is grieving in your own way, going through each stage at your pace, because it’s certainly a hard time.
Loss is unfortunately a natural part of life. We lose relationships, people we love, our youth, our health, etc. After significant losses, we’re different, and we need to find ourselves again.
Grieving is such an important aspect of personal discovery and finding your joy again, because the weight of grief can bury us for a very long time.
It can also be an important part of self care… grieving as long as you need to and having self care practices like: plenty of down time, expressing your feelings honestly, etc.
As we feel it to heal it, we leave the past, move into the present moment, and it’s in the present that we create the future we desire. Our self care routine must include feeling all of our negative emotions.
And as we learn to live in the moment, a major shift occurs in our lives.
Care of the Soul
Keep the needs of your soul at the center of life is part of self care and caring for the soul. Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life is one of the most beautiful and informative books on this subject and my favorite book of all time.
And it’s so awesome because we’re given the talents, strength, perseverance, and power to grow self-confidence and follow our soul’s path.
Self care includes being true to one’s self.
DIY Staycations
Another great way to connect with yourself, and focus on self care and well being, is to stay home and treat your home and yourself like you’re on a vacation.
Be intentional.
No work or To Do lists! No obligatory phone calls or social responsibilities. Self care means… do whatever you want that will feed your mind, body, and soul and promote well being!
You can call it a Soulful Staycation!
DIY Retreat
A great self care activity is a personal retreat. It’s much like a staycation, but in the retreat, you organize each day as though you’re on a retreat in a faraway tropical place.
Like Fiji perhaps?
Self care is more fun in Fiji! But, you’re not! Your retreat is at home. With family or without family… this self care activity is designed by you!
The point of the retreat is to put prioritize self care practices and overall well being.
On a retreat you may be silent, you may take a soulful salt bath, you may eat only organic, healthy food, or you might walk a labyrinth each day.
In the retreat, you’re intentionally doing helpful tasks for self-discovery. While on the staycation your focus is rest and recharging.
Meditation
The best-selling book, Wherever you Go, There You Are is one of the best books on the subject of meditation.
For the novice or more advanced meditator, Jon Kabat-Zinn gives great ideas for how to get started. His initial advice is: Just stop and breathe. We can do that right? It’s a great starting place to begin self care.
Whether you can quiet the mind for 5 minutes or two hours, quiet or meditation is an essential part of any human being’s tool kit. The term is human BEING… not human THINKING!
And yet, we think 24/7! Part of you work in life is slowly developing the ability to quiet your mind in any way that works for you. I emphasize for you because we’re all different and there’s no right way to do it!
Spiritual guidance
Ask for spiritual guidance.
Rebecca Rosen, a spiritual medium, advises us to ask our spirit guides for clarity and guidance. If this belief resonates with you, then you can ask all day if you really want to.
There is literally TONS of spiritual guidance for self care… especially from your spirit guides.
Your spirit guides want you to practice self care.
Surrender
Surrender is acknowledging that we don’t have to control everything, nor would we want to. In surrender, we acknowledge that we’re co-creators of our lives. We can turn over to a higher power what feels like too much, and when we need help. We can surrender our fear, our helplessness, our anxiety, etc.
Self care activity for the mind
Self care includes thinking high quality. High-vibe thinking™ is thinking that is supportive, empowering, and self-loving.
High vibe thinking™ helps emotional well being.
First, the mind isn’t only the brain. You may picture it that way, but that’s inaccurate. As the psychologist, Dr. Dan Siegel from UCLA tells us, the mind is throughout the body.
Use positive vibes to help you feel better
It’s no secret that we need positive vibes when we’re having a rough time. The question becomes… how do we get them?
My post on 5 fantastic positive vibes gives you 5 different things you can do to bring positive vibes into your life.
An important part of self care is being about to raise your vibration!
Ultimately, we need to do the work on finding ourselves to keep the high-vibes flowing.
Affirm self love
Affirmations for self love are a consistent reminder to your brain that you are worthy of love, and confidence, and you deserve to have good things come to you.
Is there anything more important than keeping your thoughts supportive and self-loving? Self care includes reminding YOU that you deserve love!
However, sometimes the self-love journey is a long one, so be extra gentle with yourself along the way.
Minimize social media
You already know this… but it’s a time sucker and proper self care is about focusing on you, not social stuff.
It’s so easy to go there to let the mind relax, but do we? Maybe for a minute or two, but social media is a distraction from the moment and can easily consume more time than we realize.
Self-acceptance
The basis for self care is self-acceptance and self-love. Accepting all of who you are with the desire to learn and grow. Any self-discovery journey includes allowing the gifts, skills, talents, challenges, imperfections, and points of growth.
For strong mental health, we must learn to accept ourselves.
Avoid negative self talk
Self-talk is what we say when we talk to ourselves… Obviously, self care means that you’ll want to be kind and patient in how you talk to yourself.
In my humble opinion, the absolute best book on positive and negative self-talk is What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter.
It was first published in 1986 and gives thorough and easy to understand guidance about positive self talk and how to talk to yourself in a way that’s self-loving, supportive, and honors that you’re a whole human being, not a robot!
This book is a game changer. Positive self talk is essential for good mental health.
Live in the moment
As we learn to live in the moment, you access a new level of consciousness.
In A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, he writes beautifully about this unfolding. The ego, the part of us that is attached to our thoughts and emotions, is robbing us of the present moment.
The present moment is where we connect with higher intelligence.
An good self care routine includes slowly letting go of the ego and living in the present moment.
As we increase our awareness of our attachment to ego, the ego slowly loses it’s strength in our lives.
Emotional release
Since emotional energy stays in the body until it’s felt and released, we need emotional release techniques to use as a regular part of our emotional health and mental health regime.
To practice self care, use some of the many techniques available so you can do this on your own. However, if you’re struggling and you’re not ready to feel like you’re sad, or hurt, or afraid, then seek out the help of a qualified therapist or counselor.
Emotional release is BIG part of self care because part of our purpose is to heal our lives.
There’s usually more going on beneath the surface than we realize in life and as we feel and let go, ultimately over time, we can be free.
Emotional Freedom Technique
The emotional Freedom Technique or Tapping is a form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, but without the invasiveness of needles.
Emotional Freedom Technique You Tube demonstration with Julie Schiffman.
Breathe
When you are stressed, it’s a sign that you need to breathe. Proper breathing is essential for Self care. Here’s an easy one that I like: Inhale 4 counts, exhale for 8 counts.
Breathing slowly and gently when you’re anxious or feeling confused helps clear the mind. Breathing helps reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Plus, breath work is a part of holistic health.
Mashhur Anam Holographic meditation.
The very special meditation happens at about 30:00 minutes in and lasts about 10 minutes. It’s one of my favorite guided meditations for the soul.
Think high-vibration
One KEY concept right out of the gate is this: Your high-vibe thoughts are powerful. Self care includes how you think!!
For further reading, the power of thought and how negative thinking is literally killing people is the main theme in my futuristic, self-help book, The Thought Store. This is a great gift for any negative thinkers out there. And hey, I was one of them, so I understand!
Here’s a great infographic of my 8 Simple Thinking Habits from The Thought Store.
Self love habits
One of my favorite self care ideas is self-love habits.
In the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg he says, “A habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD. To re-engineer that formula, we need to begin making choices again. And the easiest way to do this, according to study after study, is to have a plan.”
Read these 3 self-love habits each day and watch yourself create the habit of self-love. Self-love and self care go hand in hand, so focusing on growing self-love is very important.
As you grow in self-love you feel calmer and there are other health benefits.
Prayers and Mantras
Your morning routine can include prayers and mantras.
You can recite calming prayers and mantras as a regular way of calming your mind, body, and soul throughout the day. Find mantras that resonate with YOU or take you to a place you aspire to. Mantras are a great way to fill your mind with thoughts that elevate you and remind you of your personal power.
Gratitude
Gratitude shifts energy quicker than anything, but don’t use it to avoid emotions or your true self.
There are many health benefits of gratitude.
Begin each morning with gratitude before your feet hit the floor. We all know how to say thank you of course, but it’s helpful to know the many and varied ways in which you can be grateful.
Also, you can begin the day with a gratitude prayer. This is very powerful for setting your intention for the day to be in gratitude for all that’s present. This way you’re not starting the day in lack. Be soulful and start the day in abundance.
Self care in nature
One of the advantages of nature is good for self care! When we are out in nature we are closer to our primal instincts, the soul, it’s usually quieter, it’s closer to the stillness within us.
Find ways to escape the suburbs or city and get out on a path or sit in a quiet place and just be quiet. Self-care requires that we get outside and breathe fresh air. Remember, self care includes connecting with the natural beauty around you.
Self compassion
A big part of self-discovery in life is finding self compassion within this human experience.
This audio download, Poems of Self-compassion, by the popular and amazing poet, David Whyte, is tremendously healing as he reminds us of our humanity, the depth of grief, and how to walk through it. It’s one of the most remarkable audios I’ve EVER heard. I listened to this daily on my own soulful, healing journey. If you aren’t into poetry, this may not resonate with you. But, it’s truly one of the most beautiful audios I’ve ever listened to. This audio can be listened to in addition to soulful music.
Affirmations for self love
My blog post 307 Affirmations for Self-Love is one of the most comprehensive blog posts on affirmations that I’ve seen and will move your process along beautifully.
Affirmations are key to self care because thoughts have an energy frequency.
Each and every thought you have either raises or lowers your energy frequency. Therefore, saying affirmations daily can be a great tool for raising your energy and self-confidence. Even write your affirmations and stick them on your refrigerator. Change them each week as you evolve, because you will!
Self care activity for the body
Physical health is as important as emotional health!
While your body may not be the one you’d choose for this journey of life, or there are parts you wouldn’t choose, it’s the one God gave you, or whatever your belief is on this, so self care includes caring for the body.
As you focus on self-care and your core values, and less on how the body looks or losing weight, you’ll see a shift in how you view yourself.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but as you grow self-love you’ll be less outwardly focused.
Think of it this way, you have things you want to accomplish and you need your unique flesh and bones to do so!
Nutrition
This journey includes eating in a way that suits your individual physical requirements. What works for one person, may not work for another.
Gut-brain connection
In a word or three words, experts are telling us that there’s a direct connection between the gut, brain, and overall health in life.
Exercise
Walking
Walking is soulful because it connects you to the ground.
Tai chi
Strength Training
Plank
High-intensity Interval Training
HIIT involves short bursts of intense exercise alternated with low-intensity recovery periods. Interestingly, it is perhaps the most time-efficient way to exercise.
According to Healthline Magazine, there are 7 benefits to high-intensity interval training.
Stretching
Use it or lose it! According to Harvard Health Publishing, as we age, it becomes more important to stretch each day. Stretching keeps the body youthful and flexible. Any soulful self-care routine includes stretching.
Sleep
As we already know, getting a good night’s sleep is important for EVERYTHING! Health, well-being, mood, recovery, soulfulness, self-care… all of it. Yet, sleep can be elusive for many. There’s lots of advice on this subject and here are a few things that have stood out for me.
A pre-sleep routine
Apparently the body loves routine. Going to bed around the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning.
No screens
Avoid screens before bed! Other than TV, I don’t look at a screen for 2 to 3 hours before bedtime. So, no phone, no computer, no laptop, no tablet… so my mind can begin to shut down.
Avoid sugar
And avoid sugar before bedtime because sugar is a stimulant! So obviously, we don’t need to stimulate the body before bed, right?
Yoga
The benefits of yoga are extensive!
Summary
Self care is loving the mind, body, and soul because you need all three to be who you’re meant to be. To fulfill your destiny!
The goal is to FEEL on a deep level that you are a unique soul and there’s a specific reason for your life and your self care includes your commitment to that.
The best self care plan is the one that fits YOU!
