Pushing away meetings and appointments and putting aside the endless to-do list, you are finally ready to have your self-care day. What should you do then?
You need the pampering; you crave for some alone-time; you dream of that slow walk in the park, and it would be amazing to catch up with a good friend…
When it comes to having a self-care day, I always feel like the day isn’t long enough to fit everything I want to do on that day. Luckily, there is a way around that, and it’s closely related to the type of self-care I need on that day. Allow me to explain and then give you tons of self-care day ideas to try for yourself.
The 8 Pillars of Self-Care
Self-care is just the overall name of the 8 different ways we need to attend to ourselves and our life.
- Physical self-care – This type of self-care is probably the most popular, and it’s about nourishing your body, getting enough sleep, exercising, and so on.
- Social self-care – It includes your social life, your relationships with friends, family, even strangers.
- Mental self-care – It is related to nourishing and attending to your mind and brain, sharpening the thought, and gaining knowledge.
- Emotional self-care – Yes, you guessed it right. This is self-care for our inner self, our relationship with our emotions, and our mindset.
- Professional self-care – A little bit more external type of self-care, yet very important. Professional self-care touches on our goals and professional dreams. It includes our job, our business, and all the dreams we have.
- Spiritual self-care – This branch of self-care is all about our relationship with our spirituality and our beliefs. It is an essential aspect as it connects us to our core Self.
- Financial self-care – Sure, we care about our money, but what about money self-care? We will dig deeper into this one a little bit later.
- Environmental self-care might be a pillar of self-care overall, but most people don’t know it exists, yet they work on it. Environmental self-care is about the space we live in, our home, and even our city or town.
How to Have a Themed Self-Care Day?
With time, I’ve found out that the reason most self-care days feel like a chaotic rush to fit everything into just a few hours isn’t that I don’t have any other day to do those things. It’s because I try to do a little bit of everything at once and end up enjoying it less.
Of course, a bubble bath, a book, or a glass of wine is the classic of me-and-myself-moment, but self-care is far more than that.
Self-care is understanding your needs and attending to them. In fact, it is also seeing to them before reaching the critical point of exhaustion and poor mental health. It’s nourishing not only the body but the mind, the spirit, our living space, our family and friends, and more…
Therefore, trying to fit it all in one day could result in having another stressful day where you blame yourself for not doing anything properly.
Don’t you worry. I’ve got an idea for you and a few gorgeous infographics that will get you on the right path.
Now, imagine you could focus on one pillar of self-care at a day and take your time to nourish it, brush the stress off it and enjoy it fully.
This is what a themed self-care day would give you.
Below, I will go again over the 8 pillars of self-care, but this time will give you clear ideas on how to turn that pillar into a themed self-care day. I’ve also created infographics for you to save on your device and use when The Day comes.
Yes, these are 8 self-care days you could have, and nothing will overlap with the others, yet you will attend to your most important needs without the chaos. Enjoy!
Physical Self-Care Day Ideas
Physical self-care is honoring your body and its needs. You know you should pay more attention to your physical health, and these are 8 ideas to try next time you have a self-care day.
- Wake up and have a healthy, nourishing breakfast that will give your body much-needed protein and nutrition.
- Drink plenty of water. That shouldn’t happen on a self-care day only, but you get the point.
- Go for a walk or a hike.
- Grocery shop for fruits and veggies. Yes, include this task in your self-care day, as you will feel way more inspired to stock on healthy greens than any other day of the week when your only goal is to get home faster.
- Take a long nap. You know you want to.
- Skincare routine. Now is the perfect time to pamper your skin, dry brush it, hydrate it and make it smooth and soft.
- Prepare smoothie bags and refrigerate them so they will be ready when you need an energy boost.
- Enjoy a cup of green tea. It’s detoxicating and nourishing both your body and soul.
Social Self-Care Day Ideas
No, I don’t mean that you should spend your day on social media. In fact, the less social media, the better with this one. There are so many things you could do on a social self-care day, but here are 8 of them to inspire you to start:
- Call or meet your best friend.
- Reach out to someone you forgot, even if it’s just through a text message.
- Tell someone you love them.
- Hug someone and hold the hug for a minute.
- Make time for family and forget about everything else whilst with them.
- Distance yourself from toxic people. Now, that’s proper self-care, trust me.
- Cuddle with your pet.
- Clean your social media accounts from toxic people, posts, leave groups that don’t make you smile or give you any positive vibes. Join our group on Facebook, through this link here.
Mental Self-Care Day Ideas
- Read a new book that actually teaches you something new about this world. Here are some of my recommendations.
- Visit a historical place. Learn more about the city you live in and your country.
- Solve riddles. Stimulate your brain to solve problems (just not yours) through games or puzzles. Make it fun yet educating.
- Watch TED Talks that will teach you something new. Here are some of my favorite TED Talks.
- Listen to educational podcasts. And I’m not talking about the inspirational podcasts you already listen to. I mean something educational that will teach new stuff.
- Learn new facts, even if it’s just through simple browsing or getting this book here.
- Sign up for a course. Skillshare offers thousands of classes for a minimal amount of money. Check them out here.
- Listen to binaural tones. These are two tones, one in each ear that are with a different frequency. Binaural tones reduce anxiety, lower stress, improve focus, relieve pain, and more. You might also need these headphones to make this one happen, but I bet you won’t regret it. I actually listen to different binaural tones almost every evening, and it helps me fall asleep very fast.
Emotional Self-Care Day Ideas
I bet that this one will be your favorite way to spend your self-care day. Here are my 8 ideas for you.
- Meditate for at least 5 minutes. If you aren’t sure how to do it, choose some of the guided meditations on Youtube.
- Journal on your dreams, goals, emotions, do some gratitude journaling or write down any thoughts and ideas. Whatever you decide, just put pen to paper and start. Lack ideas? Here are 110 of them.
- Talk to your soulmate or your best friend. Yes, this is an emotional self-care activity because it makes you open your heart to someone else.
- Create your most favorite soul-touching playlist on Spotify, Youtube, or even just on your laptop.
- Dance.
- List your best qualities, and don’t be shy. It’s just you and the paper.
- List your best memories. Even better, do your memory board where you stick photos or any ephemera of your best memories on a corkboard. That’s a fun DIY project for a full day that will make you happy and emotional.
- Do some adult coloring. Start with these pages.
Professional Self-Care Day Ideas
It’s time to get some work done. I know most of the time, you would imagine a self-care day to be nothing related to work, but often you’d be surprised how much self-care you could fit into a typical working day. Some of the following ideas are something you could on Monday and hate that day less.
- Redefine your professional goals. Are you where you want to be? Do you work something that gives you pleasure? Would you change it? How? Why? Need a journal for it? Grab this one.
- Plan the week/month. Get this planner to do it the fun way. Want to go full digital with your iPad? This option will fit your needs, and it’s so pretty.
- Sign up for a course to improve your skills. Check what Coursera could offer you for free or paid.
- Find a mentor or just talk to them if you have such.
- Work on a side hustle, especially if you think of creating a business out of it.
- Delegate/Delete tasks. Use the Eisenhower technique to categorize your tasks. Then focus on deleting and delegating as many as possible. Relieve yourself from work that doesn’t need to get done or at least not by you.
- Upgrade your workspace with some flowers. Clean it, disinfect it, organize it and make your time spent there pleasant.
- Go through your work clothes and see if you need to let go of some of them. Are they all clean and smelling fresh? Do you need to get yourself something new? Now is the time to plan/do it.
Spiritual Self-Care Day Ideas
And we came to spirituality and exploring your inner world. Here are my 8 ideas for you:
- Do some yoga and do it the proper way. Even if you are a beginner, there are hundreds of free tutorials online. Get on the mat and stretch yourself.
- Meditate. Yes, I know I already mentioned it in the emotional self-care tips, but it fits perfectly here as it helps you ground yourself and silences your mind and spirit.
- Journal. Yet, again, spirituality and journaling are going together to most parties, so just dig deeper and express yourself, ask yourself questions and see what your spirit has to tell you.
- Go for a walk in nature. There’s no better way to connect with yourself than connecting with nature first. Breathe in and out the beauty of this world.
- Cleanse your space. Here’s the perfect kit to do it.
- Practice deep breathing and silence. It’s different than meditation, although it’s a form of it. You could practice this outdoors, and it’s best if you are just by yourself enjoying every second of it.
- Review your purpose in life. Are you happy with where you at? Do you need to work more on your spirituality? Are you in connection with yourself? Here’s something that will help you.
- Express gratitude. This is my favorite thing to do when I need to connect with my inner Self and redefine my purpose. I even created a Happiness journal that helps me do it every morning and evening. See it here.
Financial Self-Care Day Ideas
Nobody wants to think of money when it comes to self-care, but if you’re genuinely looking after yourself, that would include your bank accounts too. Let’ see if we could actually make it look like a self-care day.
- Review your money habits. Here are 20 ideas for you to incorporate into your money mindset.
- Review your monthly subscriptions. Do you use them all? Do they pay off? Should you give up on something?
- Make a grocery shopping list for the next week or even month. Yes, that’s meal planning.
- Get yourself a budget planner. It’s now or never. Here’s one of the best on the market right now.
- Research for more ways to make money. It’s time to leave behind the idea that the only thing that pays you money is your 9-5 job. It’s the 21st century; opportunities are knocking on your door. Open it.
- Pay the bills. I know I’m losing you somewhere here, but hey, paying off bills is a good thing. You owe nothing now.
- Add money to your savings. Yes, that’s the self-care attitude I talk about!
- Organize a garage sale and see how you declutter and make some extra cash at the same time.
Environmental Self-Care Day Ideas
I knew you’d be curious about this one. Let’s see if my ideas match yours.
- Donate old clothes to those in need.
- Open all the windows in your house and let fresh air and good energy in.
- Clean cluttered areas in your home.
- Purify the air in your bedroom. Here’s one of the best ways to do it regularly.
- Move furniture around the house. Change the way your home looks without having to invest in new stuff.
- Water your plants. They need some love and care too.
- Light up some candles around the house. Keep an eye on them.
- Decorate your favorite space in your home in a different way.
Conclusion
Having a themed self-care day allows you to focus on one area of your life and do your best with it. It removes the chaotic switching between work, physical self-care, cleaning your home, and attending to others’ needs. Which one of these 8 self-care days are you going to start with?
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
