Check out these 18 habits for Self Love and Self Care that will change your life immediately
According to the dictionary of Merriam – Webster Self Love is the appreciation of your own self and virtue. It is often confused with selfishness and narcissism. But it has nothing to do with that.
Self Love and Self Care are necessary to establish healthy habits and to take care of yourself first. It is not selfish. On the contrary. The greatest gift that you can offer to others is when you take care of yourself. This way you can give even more love and care to others.
A mom – for example – who is oftentimes too busy and tired to take some time for herself, will not have much energy left for her kids or her husband. Which leads to even more stress for the whole family and the mental health of the children as well.
In this self-love Article, you will learn what self-love habits are, how to implement them into your daily routine, and lastly, what self-love techniques you can try for yourself.
What are self-love habits?
Making it a habit and implementing self-love and self-care techniques into your daily or weekly routine is really the first step towards establishing a healthy relationship with yourself.
A habit is a routine that you implement to make it a daily practice. At first, you will have to take the time and plan out your self-care activities in advance. But once you made it a habit, it will be very easy to follow along with the steps that are right for you.
In this article, you will find 18 Ideas to practice and implement more self-love for yourself. You can simply implement some of the ideas and test out what is right for you.
What does self-love mean?
As mentioned above, self-love and self-care are necessary to be able to love and take care of others. It means that you come first. Often we get too caught up and are too stressed to even take the time to do something for ourselves.
How you want to love yourself and take care of yourself is up to you and depends on your needs and wants. Do you need some time to relax more? Do you want to go out more and meet up with friends?
All of the things are absolutely fine and your own self-love practice depends on your own desires and what you want to achieve.
How to implement habits into a daily routine?
You should plan and make time for yourself. This can be in the morning – with a nice morning routine. You could simply get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning and start your day right by taking the first minutes of the day for yourself and your own needs.
This could also be during the day when you have some alone time when you have the chance to go for a walk or in the evening after work.
You can also make it a habit to take care of yourself right before you go to bed. You could implement a nighttime routine by taking a bath for example. This will also help with better sleep.
Having good time management goes along with establishing healthy self-love and self-care habits. This means planing your week and what you really have to do in advance helps a long way to make some free time for yourself.
You can get the free Really ToDo Planner PDF file here.
18 Self Love Habits to Change your Life
Now let´s get into it and check out these easy ideas for more self-love:
1. Establishing a morning routine
As mentioned before, establishing a morning or a nighttime routine is a very good way to take care of yourself first thing in the morning -or last thing at night for better sleep.
This could mean getting up 10 or 15 minutes earlier and do some stretching or go for a walk. You could also meditate and start your day relaxed and with good intentions.
You could even have a cup of coffee and read a few pages of a good book that you enjoy. You should be creative and find out what works best for you.
2. Eating healthy
You should eat healthily and fuel your body with the right nutrients. This means to cook for yourself instead of eating out. There are so many options for nice, quick, and healthy meals that you can enjoy.
Even the cooking itself could be a relaxing job. Taking care of yourself will give you a good and nice feeling. The food will taste better and when your body gets the right nutrients, it can function a lot better and provide you with those happy hormones.
3. Working out
Working out and moving your body is hands down one of the best ways to take care of yourself. It has so many benefits and is so healthy for your mind, body, and soul.
You should get sweaty at least two times a week. You could also work out in the morning as part of your morning routine or you could go to a fitness center after work or simply go jogging.
The internet is also filled with so many free workouts that you can enjoy. Just go to youtube.com and search for: workouts, yoga, or pilates. Even 10 minutes a day will make a huge difference.
There are so many opportunities out there and really no excuses.
4. Take time for yourself
Taking time for yourself needs to be planned. Instead of making it a habit to take care of yourself through a daily routine, you could also plan a whole day for some alone time.
During that time you could take a bath, relax a little, watch a nice movie or even just listen to some nice music.
5. Read a good book
Reading a nice and entertaining book is always relaxing and a very good method to do something for yourself.
There are so many nice books that you can enjoy. Reading a book about personal development is also a great method to take care of your mental health and your emotions.
6. Listen to audiobooks
If you don´t have much time to actually sit down and read a book, then perhaps listening to an audiobook can be a very nice alternative to enjoy.
I always listen to an audiobook while I do the laundry or the kitchen. This way they work is not so boring and I will often learn something new along the way.
You can go to Audible.com and choose out of millions of options. They even offer a monthly subscription on which you can enjoy one new book every month.
7. Drawing
Drawing can also be very relaxing. There are so many drawing techniques that you can enjoy.
You could also go to etsy.com, there are plenty of templates available for very little money that you could enjoy.
8. Affirmations
Affirmations are positive sentences that you can read to yourself or that you could meditate about.
They are supposed to help you to shift your beliefs into positive ones. You can affirm to yourself everything that you want or need. It is very effective to do your affirmations right before you go to bed.
9. Meditation
Meditation means sitting or lay down and try to calm your mind. You could meditate over a story or a nice affirmation that you want to believe.
Meditation needs some practice. So it is recommended to make this a habit. You could start with 5 minutes per day.
10. Forgiveness and letting go
Forgiving and letting go instead of holding a grudge are very important when it comes to your mental health.
No matter what it is, holding a grudge is not healthy and costs too much energy. Forgive yourself first because you probably had also your part in whatever happened.
Then forgive the other person and move on. You will see that this feeling will be very incredible and freeing.
11. Look at your friends
… and I tell you who you are.
Having good friends and be with positive people in your life is very important when it comes to establishing a healthy lifestyle and practicing self-love.
But how do you know that the people that you have are actually a good influence?
Here are some indicators that you might want to keep in mind:
- Good friends are always there for you when you need to talk to someone
- They are listening to what you have to say, instead of telling another story about themselves straight away
- They don´t compare themselves to others or you
- Good friends are truly happy for you when you achieved something or when you are successful at something
- They are not gossiping – when they do, you can be sure that they talk bad about you too with someone else – stay far away from those kinds of people
Of course, not everybody is perfect. And sometimes even the best friends have problems themselves or are not feeling well.
But, when you read those indicators and you can sadly say that every aspect is true for your friend, then you probably want to think about how much time you want to spend with that person in the future.
12. Stop comparison to others
Comparing yourself to others is something that oftentimes especially women do. It comes from a place of insecurity and almost everybody has done that from time to time.
With social media these days and all the opportunities and pictures out there, it is truly easy to get caught up in comparison to others.
Be aware of that and when you catch yourself next time you do that, then stop it. It is doing you no good and causes feelings of lack, jealousy, and insecurity.
13. Journaling
Journaling is a very healthy and easy way to take care of yourself and practice some self-love. With journaling, you take time for yourself and pay attention to your feelings and your desires.
You can go all out on paper and write about anything that comes into your mind. Just make sure, that nobody you don´t want to has access to your journal.
You can use a little book or even your smartphone to write some notes down. You can also buy a really nice notebook if you like or use a bullet journal.
For journaling, you essentially just write down everything that comes to your mind or what happened that day.
14. Gratitude
The feeling of gratitude and being thankful for what you already have makes you instantly feel good. Gratitude is one of the best ways to be happier and feels more satisfied.
It is a positive way of thinking instead of thinking about what you need or what you don´t have.
When you decide to journal any way you could make it a habit and use a separate section for three things every day that you are grateful for and write them down.
15. Live now
The reality is now. Yesterday is just your thought and how you perceived it and tomorrow is also only in your mind and what you expect of it.
Living in the now helps you to truly accept the moment and enjoy life more. It takes practice though.
There is a really good book called “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. I encourage you to read it. It is really an eye-opener. It is safe to say that this is one of the books that changed my life.
16. Think Positive
Thinking positively and having a positive attitude towards life and everything it has to offer is really a good way to practice even more self-care.
It helps you to experience more joy every day. Studies have shown that it can actually lead to better mental and even physical health.
You can check out my articles about positive thinking here:
17. Digital Detox
To have a look over your social media consumption and giving yourself a break from time to time is a really good idea when it comes to taking care of yourself.
Not only will you have more time for other and more important things, but it also clears your mind of sometimes negative thinking.
Digital detox is a very easy and good way to practice more living in the now and enjoying even more quality time with friends and family.
18. Say “yes” to yourself
…and “no” to others more often.
Setting boundaries is very important for self-love and self-care. Choose you. If you yourself are not looking out for yourself, then who will?
There are always things we don´t want to do but we do it anyway. That is of course necessary otherwise we would live in chaos, right?
But saying “no” to things you really don´t want to do is also a very good habit that I encourage you to do from time to time. As long as you are not hurting anyone with it, it´s totally fine to say “no”.
Conclusion
Practicing self-love and self-care and actually implementing small habits into your daily routine can really impact your overall well-being.
It doesn´t have to be everything at once, but trying out several things can make a big impact on your mental and physical health. Just pick something from the list above and try out what works best for you.
Self-care and self-love are often confused with selfishness or narcissism. But on the contrary, when you take care of yourself first, you can automatically take care of others more.
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