Necessary Self-Care for Health, Anxiety and Decompression

For years, I ignored the self-care movement. “I’m too busy, and that’s self-absorbed,” I thought. My adult children finally dragged me into self-care via the Finch app. I love connecting with my kids and seeing what they are into. Finch allowed me to keep track of my to-do list as well as bringing some self-care to my attention, so it was a good fit. I’ll admit to you, I just entered my second year of consistent use of this self-care app. This is not a commercial for Finch, but a plea for those of you who are “too busy” to see the sense of self-care. Not the spending-all-day-at-the-spa and thousands of dollars kind of self-care, but enough to improve your life dramatically without taking up much time.

As a nurse, I had levels of guilt whenever I was not eating right, exercising, sleeping well, and not taking care of my skin. I talk a lot in my other blogs about how skin is our first defense against infection, so that’s all I’ll say here. Making sure I’m covering the basics in self-care allows me to be more calm and present for all of the other people and tasks in my life. With the basics covered in nutrition, hydration and sleep, my body has the tools it needs to deal with stress. This must be working because I rarely get sick, even when my family is feverish and coughing in my airspace.

As I age (I’m in my 50’s) I’ve become more stressed about developing wrinkles and other skin problems. My skin isn’t as elastic now. I have finally developed the habit of washing my face daily and moisturizing my face, legs, elbows, etc twice a day. I can’t tell you how many comments I get on my young-looking, clear skin. Nothing like a few compliments to take down your stress level! Even if I’m not getting complimented, which is not actually the goal, I know my skin is healthy and can repair daily damage.

I’ve added a lot of Oak Manour scent therapy to my routine because it doesn’t take any extra time, and it makes me so happy. (I’m very sensitive to smells.) Scented foam soap for hand washing, scented lotion in my travel squeeze tube at work and in my car, scented bar soap in the shower, and we now have Calming Scent Spray (coming to the website as soon as the label is designed). I’ve been using the Calming Scent Spray in the bathroom like an air freshener, which is not what we originally envisioned, but it works. Oh, and we have candles now, so of course I had to test out the Blueberry Cobbler to see if we used the right amount of scent oil (also waiting on the label design for those). Our family had never used wood wick candles until we started making them. Pro tip, do not try to blow out the wood wick, use the metal lid to snuff it. Sarah blew it out with a mighty puff and we had wax everywhere. Digressing.

To sum up, for you Type A’s, or dedicated moms, or whoever has not taken time for a bit of self-care, you’ll find that it’s worth it. Somehow, all the main things get done, and you’ll feel more centered and rational about what you didn’t accomplish on your never-ending list.