Caring for yourself is one of the most profound and revolutionary acts of self-love. As the last year has shown us, stress and anxiety often arise from things we can’t control, but learning how to navigate smoothly through this unescapable wilderness is an essential power anyone can tap into for optimal well-being.
Nourishing lifestyle habits and practices create a healthy foundation for day-to-day living that helps you manage stressors better, improve function, and build resilience. You are your best wellness expert, and making a conscious effort to tune into your own needs (and meeting those needs) puts the ability to transform your health and overall life experience into your hands.
As different self-care approaches have become more mainstream, it’s vital to find the strategies that work and resonate with you. You might need a little soul-searching at first, but priming your mind, body, and heart for purposeful self-care will pave the way for living out with a sense of intention, balance, and confidence. Below, a few holistic-inspired tips for weaving more elevated self-care moments into your everyday rhythm:
Fine-tune your morning ritual
Being mindful of how you want to jump-start your day lays the foundation for the day ahead. Well-established morning rituals are at the heart of self-care because they allow you to prioritize the habits that support your mental, emotional, and physical health. Whether it’s rising earlier, gently stretching, or listening to uplifting music, doing what brings you a sense of serenity, joy, and clarity is a much-necessary grounding exercise to perform as the day unfolds.
Nècessitè’s Daily Dose is a beautiful, sacred companion to starting your day with positivity and inspiration. Through self-reflection and intentionality, you’ll pave the way to infusing your day with more love and self-kindness. And remember, it all starts with you. Even a tiny but mighty tweak in your morning regime can have a meaningful impact on how you choose to step into your presence and the world around you.
Move, beautiful
Finding a movement practice that aligns with you is key to keeping yourself glowing from the inside out. But movement doesn’t necessarily translate into a full-body cardio workout; it simply means doing what your body is instinctively meant to do daily: to move! From walking to dancing, movement is one of the most natural, fundamental ways to care for your body and mind while tending to your primal needs — it’s what the human body is designed to do, even from a cellular level.
Pay attention to your body’s inherent cadence, move accordingly, and focus on feeling grateful for the way your body “flows” through life.
Create a “magical parenthesis”
The pause. The act of transformative attention. A magical parenthesis is a space you consciously create to breathe, listen, decompress, and rejuvenate. It’s also the fertile ground to treating yourself with more grace and kindness amid life’s daily challenges, particularly when you’ve lost a sense of connection and affinity with your most authentic self.
Rooted in the present moment, cultivating a magical parenthesis is a powerful tool you can employ multiple times throughout your day to redirect your attention within and live from a broader place of openhearted awareness.
Harness positive synergy
One cornerstone of holistic health is the concept of synergy or the juicy boost you get when the body’s organs and systems are functioning and collaborating optimally. Even a modest shift in your everyday habits (think eating more healthy fats, soaking up the sun, or resetting your sleep patterns) has a catalyzing, ripple effect on your physiology and overall health. The human body is an integrated ecosystem, and viewing it through this functional lens makes it easier to understand and live in line with its synergistic qualities.
Stimulate your senses
Soothing, pleasant stimuli are an effective way to tend to your senses and infuse your day with a little more mindfulness. A glorious departure point for bringing more sensory activity and conscious awareness into your life is nature and its infinite health-giving potential.
Turn to nature (or your lovely garden) to give your five senses — taste, smell, touch, sound, and sight — a well-deserved flare of well-being. You might also consider sipping on your favorite herbal tea, indulging in a chocolate meditation, or lighting on a joy-inducing candle such as nécessité’s Gratitude Candle. This incredible fresh-smelling candle was intentionally created to make both your home and heart feel alive, vibrant, and stimulated—a genuine, sensory gift.
Nourish your brain
While healthy self-care practices abound, taking good care of your brain should be a top priority — from the foods you eat to how you move and sleep, everything you do can significantly impact your brain’s health! Eating right for your brain entails opting for a whole, nutrient-dense diet that gives you all the raw elements to build your brain cells’ structure and keep the communication systems operating coherently.
Balancing your hormones (mainly cortisol, insulin, sex, and thyroid hormones), lowering inflammation, and addressing any underlying gut health issues also play a vital role in fostering long-term brain health.
