How to Self-Nurture You!
Learn new ways to self-nurture yourself without food. I am excited about starting a New Year! A time of renewal and self-improvement. A time of goal setting and reflection. And for some of us, a time for restriction and overdoing it. This year, I hope you think about a kinder, gentler way to take care of yourself!
When thinking about health changes, most of us tend to focus on what we eat, and exercise and we often neglect our sleep and managing stress which also play a big part in helping us feeling our best. I hope that by reflecting more inward that this helps move the wellness from inside out! I hope that some of these self-nurturing ideas will inspire you to renew and rejuvenate.
Self-Nurture Where We Are Often Neglected
These are areas that many of us neglect when it comes to nurturing ourselves.
- Getting Adequate Sleep
- Limiting Negative Self-Talk
- Reducing Stress
- Finding Out What Makes You Happy
Ways How to Nurture Yourself
1. Getting Adequate Sleep
Confession time: I have a difficult time sleeping. Whether it is my middle age hormones, the fact that I have a difficult time turning off my brain before bed or that I am a “worry wort” who thinks of “all the what ifs” when I hit the pillow. I work hard on my sleep hygiene habits, and it has improved a lot but there are things that can get me off track. The important thing is I continue to work on it without a pharmaceutical sleep aid and most of the time it is effective!
Here are some tips to get a better night’s sleep:
http://www.vineripenutrition.com/5-ways-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-improve-your-health/
2. Limiting the Negative Self-Talk
Many times, at the beginning of the new year, we tend to want to wipe that slate clean whether it be nutrition and fitness or financial freedom ect. Black and white thinking or all or nothing otherwise known as dichotomous thinking is when we categorize ourselves or our food choices as good or bad. Or when we exercise or do anything to take care of ourselves, we tend to think of it as all or nothing with no in between.
Make a new resolution to make kinder, gentler and more reasonable goals that you can keep and feel more love for yourself than ever! We often want a quick fix and not a long-term commitment to permanent life-style change.
Take a look at some of these ideas for setting goals that you can live with to help you be successful:
http://www.vineripenutrition.com/reaching-your-new-years-health-goals/
3. Stress and Its Effects on Our Health
Stress: we all have it but many of us don’t focus much on healthy ways to manage it. Some of us may even use self-destruction coping mechanisms that can harm us over the long term.
One of these is overeating. Check out two books that I just love by Susan Albers a psychologist who has 100 ways to soothe ourselves that don’t revolve food. How many times have most of us popped in a bite of food instead of nurturing ourselves in other ways.
Here are the Five Main Focus Areas for Self-Nurture Yourself According to Dr. Albers
- Social-Support
- Distraction
- Relaxing
- Positive Thinking
- Minfulness/Meditation
Dr. Albers 50 More Ways to Self-Soothe Yourself
In this book Dr. Albers discusses the ways to become more mindful to reduce the amount of emotional eating that someone is doing. Here are the main areas where you can be more mindful:
- Meditation
- Mindful Breathing
- Alternative Therapies
- Mindful Movement
- Yoga for Emotional Eating
- Expressive Arts Therapy
- Soothing Your Senses
Make Your Own Self-Soothing Kit
I love the idea that Dr. Albers shares to make an emergency self-care kit so it is all ready when you need it! I put together one that has overflowed with some of my favorite things to help reduce my stress.
Everyone’s self-care kits will be filled with different things that help each of us! I look forward to hearing what helps reduce your stress and self-nurtures you! Here are some of the things that I love to have in my emergency self-nurture kit:
- knitting needles and yarn
- herbal tea
- enjoyable reading
- essential oil
- hand lotion
- cozy socks
- handmade tea mug
If you have not heard about the damage stress can do to our health, here is one of my previous blog posts that I want to share. There are also a lot of other ways to fight inflammation in our bodies.
http://www.vineripenutrition.com/7-ways-to-help-fight-inflammation/
4. Find Out and Do What Makes You Happy
I am one of those people who tends to need sunlight and during the winter months unfortunately, I sometimes get the winter blahs.
I have tried to turn this challenge into something positive. I love to knit, embroider, write, cook, create, ect. so, the darker winter months give me some quiet reflective time to set goals to finish projects. dress warm and cozy, light some essential oil fragrant candles and grow some amaryllis and other bulbs.
I was thrilled to learn that there was a Danish term known as hygge that defines this warm and loving feeling! Check out this blog post from last year to learn more!
http://www.vineripenutrition.com/finding-the-joy-this-winter/
Make a Reverse Bucket List
Be grateful for all the things that you have.
Don’t spend time fretting and regretting, think of all the good things that you have done in your life. Focus on the good that you have done for others and you. I love the idea from Kate Scarlata to make a Reverse Bucket List to reflect on where all we have been not just what we hope to do! I am going to start me one of these!
http://blog.katescarlata.com/2018/01/01/reverse-bucket-list-new-year/
Implement Your Own Self-Nurturing Yourself Plan
If you need some support and encouragement to get started on how to nurture yourself, I would love to work with you to help you create your own self-nurturing yourself plan.
If you want to improve your eating habits and your relationship with food and yourself, you might be interested in jump starting your health journey with one of Vine Ripe Nutrition’s Fresh Approach to Health Programs. In these programs, you will learn how to provide yourself more love and more self-care!
Implementing Ways to Self-Nurture Yourself
I hope that this year is the year, that you include some self-nurturing in your wellness program! It is important to take care of our inside needs and not only the outward physical health. As an Asheville, registered dietitian nutritionist, I love to share ideas to help improve peoples’ lives.
If you need a collaborative member on your health care team, I would love to work with you. Find out some of the ways that I can help here. I am so glad that you stopped by and hope that you come by again soon! I have lots of great ways to take care of yourself coming up!
If you are looking for a Women’s Nutrition Program, you can find out more about it here.
