Take Care of Yourself

​It seems like I’ve taken some serious time off between blogs and newsletters. I’ve even taken a break in my regular writing time for books. Quite a bit of time actually. A little of that was misplaced priorities, to be honest with you. Most of it was to dust myself off and take care of me though. All too often, we don’t take the time to put aside what we’re doing to take care of ourselves.

If I took time to take care of myself, was I doing ok? Yes. Great, as a matter of fact. I think there is a misconception that we need to start taking care of ourselves when we are way out of balance or sync. For many, it takes the classic “giant wakeup call”. You hear about them all the time. The heart attack, crumbling relationship, deep depression, or financial ruin. The truth is, we should be taking care of ourselves long before that, when we actually feel good. At the very least, we should act better on taking care of ourselves when we are beginning to teeter on the edge of not feeling good. What do I mean by that? The warning signs are usually there if you look closely enough. Here’s some that trigger me off: when you’re more tired than usual, your appetite either increases or decreases, or you find yourself isolating more. You don’t do the things you enjoy, ignore meaningful relationships, find you never have enough hours in the day, or even if you’ve found that you haven’t had a good laugh in a while. Those are usually the red flags that tell us we’re on a path that isn’t correct for us at the moment. When those symptoms occur, it’s an indication we need to start nurturing our balance. We need to start taking care of ourselves better.

This subject comes up, because I’ve been working hard on finishing some hiking goals. Some of the parts of this goal have helped me to gain confidence, self-discipline, and an overall better understanding of my physical limits. Many days I’ve forced myself to get up early, drive 3-4 hours, hike 10 or 11 miles, then drive back home the 3-4 hours again. This Sunday I was due to do the same thing, and recognized that my time was better off sleeping late, spending time with family, and re-assessing some things that needed it. I will hike another day. There is indeed a fine line as to walking away from our goals too easily, and accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, but if we listen carefully, we can usually separate the two to come up with a logical reasoning that is the best thing for us in the long run.

We can start to correct that balance using a number of different tools, and changing a few habits. Let’s look at a few:
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• Get out of bed and find a purpose for the day.

I’ve talked about this in a previous blog, but sometimes just getting out of bed is the key to a better start to not only the day, but better balance. The night before, come up with a valuable purpose you can do or accomplish for the next day. It makes getting up much easier.

• Stay in bed and clear your schedule

I know. I just said get out of bed in the last paragraph. But when talking about balance, everyone is different. If you’ve been too busy, too stressed, burned out, and taxing your mind too much, chances are you’re taxing your body too much as well. Take a day soon and schedule a “do nothing day”. Have you had one in the last year? That’s a good indication you may need one. Read, meditate, shut your phone and computer off. Go for a pleasant walk, call an old friend, or have coffee with them. Listen to a babbling brook, or just indulge in some movies and popcorn and stay in your robe all day. Once a year, it’s allowed. Every day, it’s not.

• Exercise and eat well.

Everyone tells you that. It’s pretty common knowledge, but the fact remains that these small, often easy habits alone would cure almost half the pre-mature deaths America faces every year. The health benefits from some simple but important life changes are staggering. Just by elevating your heart rate a bit for about 30 minutes a day, doing some strength exercises, and eating a heavier plant based diet we all could lower stress, lose weight, increase our energy, elevate moods, improve heart health, sleep better, alleviate arthritis, reduce overall pain and swelling, lessen constipation, control diabetes, and virtually eliminate headaches. Enough said.

• Don’t take yourself (or life) too seriously

 If we could just have an old-fashioned belly laugh now and again, we could really increase our mood, attitude, and drastically improve the lives of others around us. Get around an old friend that can really make you feel young at heart again, look up some great stand-up comedy on YouTube (or better yet, see a live comedy show), ask some friends to tell you some of their favorite jokes, or just rent a really funny movie.
 
An old rule for me, that I forget to use all too often, is to ask yourself the simple question,
Is this a good use of my time, energy, and resources?

Another shortened version I’ve used more recently is:
Is this a good thing for me?

You’d be surprised in asking yourself that simple question how many detrimental habits or activities we could avoid.
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As for the future? I always ask myself the question
What’s the next right thing to do?  
Again, I’m often surprised and well guided by the answer.