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[selfcare4teens]

How to stay on track with self-care?

The most challenging part of self-care for me was keeping a routine. I used to start off fine, but eventually I didn’t continue with the routine. Things I do now to try and prevent this from happening is to not place a lot of pressure on myself. Keeping this in mind has made it significantly easier to practise self-care by removing any judgments I can make. It is important to remember that we shouldn’t strive for perfection! It’s unrealistic and only hurts ourselves. I also learned that I can’t necessarily stay on track without looking at the routine itself. Is it set up for success? After asking myself this question I realized I made the mistake of overloading myself, I struggle with wanting to do too much at one time. My routine was overwhelming me and was unrealistic to try and accomplish it all in one day.

It's important to know as a beginner, starting off small is the best way to begin the self-care journey. Moving one step at a time will be much more achievable and will allow you to feel a lot better as well. Remember that the best way to stay on track with self-care is to have a routine that is manageable for you!

[selfcare4teens]

Mood Trackers

One way to check in with yourself is through mood tracking! It’s a way to take time for some inner reflection. Checking how you felt is nice as you can see what factors may have impacted your emotions. For me, it allowed me to see what I did on a day where I felt great and if I can incorporate it into my daily life!

Some ways to mood track are:

Journals → drawing a small chart and filling in how you felt could be a mood tracker, the best part of making your own mood tracker is that you can personalize it to suit your own taste!

Calendars → It could be as simple as writing or drawing the emotions you felt on that particular day!

Spreadsheet → If you want a more concise way to track your mood, try making an online spreadsheet where you ask yourself questions revolving your mood and even self-care!

Self-care apps → There are lots of apps that ask you about your mood daily and this better suits people who have tighter schedules and want to track their moods in a quick and easy way.

Sources:

Borchard, Therese J. “5 Reasons to Track Your Mood: James Bishop.” Psych Central, 14 Aug. 2009, https://psychcentral.com/blog/5-good-reasons-to-track-your-mood-an-interview-with-james-bishop.

“Tracking Your Mood Using Google Sheets.” Spreadsheet Dev, https://spreadsheet.dev/mood-tracker-app-using-google-sheets. Accessed 5 May 2021.

[selfcare4teens]

Apps for Meditation

Headspace and Calm are apps that are mainly centred around meditation. The basic meditations are great for beginners. They really helped me improve on how I meditate. I especially enjoyed the timed meditation from Calm because it had very soothing background noises. The range of times you can choose from is quite large, starting from 1 minute to 8 hours! Headspace has a really nice guided meditation. It didn’t feel too long which is great for beginners!

These are two apps that would be great for anyone trying out meditation for the first time.

Sources:

Acton Smith, Michael, and Alex Tew. “Experience Calm.” Calm, https://calm.com. Accessed 8 May 2021.

Puddicombe, Andy. “Meditation and Sleep Made Simple - Headspace.” Headspace, https://www.headspace.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjws-OEBhCkARIsAPhOkIYnkNn4sHK1ywRzpJhK3ghIewq2_SJyy9AtylEMx7QtqsROt0RZDzQaAptWEALw_wcB. Accessed 8 May 2021.

[selfcare4teens]

Stoic App Review

Stoic is an app catered towards self-care! It has many free features to enjoy. The exercises on there are amazing. It contains journaling, meditation, and different types of focussed breathing.

My overall experience with this app was great! It was easy for me to keep up with and use it daily, which I always struggle with these kinds of apps. The focussed breathing was my favourite feature as well as the journalling. It gives a prompt which usually helps me write more and always involves self-reflection. I also loved its mood tracker. It always asks you to rate how you are feeling by picking a certain emotion. The app will then show you weekly charts showing how you felt and any trends with your emotions. I used this feature to see what I did in particular when I felt the happiest and see if I can apply it to the days I did not feel as great.

It's a nice app to have on your phone! I recommend it to anyone who wants to incorporate some more self-care into their lives without too much effort. It helps me start my day on a good start and I will continue to use it!

Sources:

Lobodzinski, Marviej. “Stoic. Mental Health Tracking App.” Stoic., https://www.stoicroutine.com/. Accessed 29 January 2021.

[selfcare4teens]

What are some self-care activities?

While there are many self-care activities to start with, the first ones I worked on was getting a better sleep schedule and drinking enough water. They may sound basic but it actually surprised me how better I felt when I was being more conscious about sleeping regular hours and just drinking more water. So I would first look at some basic elements that you already do and improve upon them!

Some other practises besides the basics that I enjoy:

Meditation → I am still not amazing at it but I always will feel calm and centred afterwards

Journalling → It helps do some inner reflection and process everything I may have felt.

Mood tracking → Like journaling, it makes you reflect upon your emotions and can help identify what made a day good or bad.

Going on a walk → It's a nice way to get some physical activity and helps clear my mind.

Taking breaks → Incorporating breaks has actually caused me to be less stressed and I feel more efficient after a break to get back to doing some school work.

Yoga → I don't do it often but it's a nice way to exercise! Whenever I do it, I feel much more relaxed after.

These are all activities that can be built upon! I know it can be hard sometimes to complete a task so we should try to approach it in small steps. I encourage just trying out one of these activities listed here. See what works for you and what doesn’t. This list is only a few of the many self-care practises out there so be sure to explore outside of these activities as well!

Sources:

Francois, Marline. “8 Quick Self-Care Strategies for College Students.” Mindsoother Therapy Center, https://www.mindsoother.com/blog/8-quick-self-care-strategies-for-college-students. Accessed 29 January 2021.

Self-Care: The Complete Guide to Taking Care of Yourself. https://www.tonyrobbins.com/mental-health/self-care-tips/. Accessed 29 January 2021.

[selfcare4teens]

What is not self-care?

Self-care is such a broad term describing so many activities which fit under this umbrella, that it is almost impossible to describe every single thing that is considered self-care. So let’s start with defining what self-care is not.

My own initial understanding of self-care was what I had seen in the media and believed it was something that I needed to spend money on to achieve. I would do things like put on a face mask but still not keep a good sleep schedule. So when I saw no real improvement from all of my purchases, I believed that self-care wasn’t as big of a deal people made it out to be. While I later learned that what I tried doing was not true self-care, I still couldn’t differentiate between what self-care was and what it was not. When I learned more about self-care my eyes were opened to how much the term has strayed from it’s true meaning. It has become a profitable term for businesses to use, resulting in a lot of people being given the wrong information. Businesses and the media make it very convincing that indulgence is the key to self-care. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. While these activities are enjoyable, it is what myself and others are. looking for to improve mental health. When I understood that I needed to differentiate between self-care and indulging myself, I found self-care to actually work!

Sources:

Ali, Shainna. “Why Your Self-Care Isn’t Working | Psychology Today Canada.” Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/modern-mentality/201901/why-your-self-care-isn-t-working. Accessed 20 November 2020.

Chen, Kathleen, and Annie Truuvert. “Capitalizing on the Self-Care Movement – The Strand.” The Strand, https://thestrand.ca/capitalizing-on-the-self-care-movement/. Accessed 20 November 2020.

Mastantuono, Ally. “Don’t Replace Health with Self-Care.” The Journal, https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2019-01-21/editorials/dont-replace-health-with-self-care/. Accessed 20 November 2020.

Michael, Raphailia. “What Self-Care Is -- and What It Isn’t.” Psych Central, 10 Aug. 2016, https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-self-care-is-and-what-it-isnt-2.

Siddiqui, Yusra. “How the Media Made Me ‘Misuse’ Self-Care – and Why We Should Talk About It.” The Lexington Line, https://www.thelexingtonline.com/blog/2019/5/8/a2c3xp1thfgglwfc5yb46exqae0hve. Accessed 20 November 2020.

TEDx Talks. Self Care: What It Really Is | Susannah Winters | TEDxHiltonHeadWomen. 2019. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBn0ETS6XDk.

[selfcare4teens]

What is self-care?

In general self-care is about partaking in activities that are meant to either improve or maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s how you work on yourself to remain healthy, both physically and emotionally! While this may seem self-explanatory, it is a topic that can be difficult to navigate through. This blog is meant to explore the realms of self-care and make it easier to understand!

Source:

Michael, Raphailia. “What Self-Care Is -- and What It Isn’t.” PsychCentral, https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-self-care-is-and-what-it-isnt-2#1. Accessed 5 May 2021.