5 Easy Self-Care Ideas (Sans eating or buying anything)

5 Easy Self-Care Ideas (Sans eating or buying anything)

Valentine gifts and goodies start showing up as soon as the new year rings in. Retail stores and social media get filled up with valentine’s day recipes, gifts, activities, etc. As humans, we love the feeling of being loved and being in love. In any relationship, what matters the most is the way you let other people treat you. Romantic or otherwise, if the love comes attached with abuse, restraint, or repression, then it is wise to detach from such a relationship. Self-love or feeling worthy of our-self can happen only if we take time to care about ourselves. Here, I have listed my top 5 easy self-care ideas sans eating or buying anything.

When we hear the word self-care, few things that come to our mind are – chocolates, cupcakes, retail therapy, visit salons, or bubble bath at home. While all these are a good way to treat ourselves, they sabotage our health and wallet. Self-care should be such that the “future” you should thank you for the time well spent. If you are working towards a goal of losing weight then eating chocolate cake in the name of self-care every now and then would do more harm than good. In the same way, spending money on a regular basis for self-care on retail therapy or at salons give us instant gratification, but they put a huge hole in our wallet. Self-care should be simple and doable without gaining weight or losing money 🙂

While there is nothing wrong with a relaxing bubble bath at home, I personally do not like wasting so much water. I prefer a shower over a bath any day. This is because I come from a town in South Asia with water scarcity.

5 Easy Self-care Ideas (Sans eating or buying anything)

Reading: Spend at least 10 mins on reading. Fiction, non-fiction, magazine, newspaper anything that entices you. Audiobooks count too! Don’t worry about buying books/magazines. If you have a library card, you are all covered! Library’s Overdrive and Libby app has audio, ebooks, and magazines. I love using my library card to its maximum potential 🙂 Reading takes us away from our current worries. Reading is a great way to treat ourselves and give some quiet time without scrolling social media. And hey with the library apps, you don’t have to spend a dime on the books!

Journaling: I’m still new to this journaling world. I started journaling a couple of years ago and set myself a high goal of writing at least a page a day. It went well for few months. Then life happened and I didn’t find time at home to journal. I took my journal to work with the anticipation that I will journal during my lunch break. Well, let’s say it was a flop.

The journal turned into my scribble pad to jot down my to-do list at work. I couldn’t hold the habit of journaling because I set a big target for myself. As James clear says in his book Atomic Habits, I should take it small. So this time, I make sure I write one line a day. Some days I get excited and write more, but this target of writing one line day seems very comfortable and easily doable for me. Journaling my feelings helps me take away the pent up emotions without indulging in food.

Exercise and Rest, 2 sides of a coin

Moving your body: Gentle stretching, a brisk walk or run around the neighborhood, gardening, dancing to your favorite song (relax, no one is watching), you get the idea. Basically, any kind of exercise works, Whenever I feel low, I put on my earphones and take a walk around the block. I feel great every single time.

Nap or Yoga Nidra: There was a time when I yearned for naps. Not so long ago, I had 3 kids under 4. Three young kids, work and 2-3 hours of commute each day kept me tired and begging for sleep. Alas, I couldn’t enjoy it much then. Now, my kids are in school, sleeping well and my commute time has reduced a lot. But years of sleep abuse has made me an insomniac person now 🙂

One thing that helped then and still helping is Yoga Nidra/Guided meditation to fall asleep. I love listening to 20 mins guided meditation. I almost always fall asleep in between and wake up refreshed. Try this and you will see the difference.

Mundane, yet a great self-care

Drinking water and taking multi-vitamins: I know, this sounds cliche, but drinking enough water and taking vitamins are very important self-care act. Keeping hydrated and taking vitamins are the cheapest forms of self-care. If you do not like drinking plain water, try infused water. Lemon & mint infused water is my favorite.

I hope you like the 5 easy self-care ideas listed above. Just remember that whatever self-care you choose that should work with and towards your goal and healthy future. Today’s self-care should not sabotage the “future” you. What are your favorite self-care ideas? Please share in the comments.



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