24 Self-Care Activities For Your Wellness Routine

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2020 was rough. 2021 was another adjustment to a “new normal”. 2022 was about living with the new normal. Now as we go into the new year, it’s time for a hard reset, re-focusing on our holistic health. It’s hard work taking care of ourselves. Especially if we have other obligations: family, work, pets, bills, homes—the bare minimum can feel excruciatingly out of reach sometimes. What we need is real self-care. Below, you’ll find 24 Self-Care Activities For Your Wellness Routine on a budget, because so many of us, in our self-care deficit, are short on cash this year, too. As you pick a few of the below practices, remind yourself that they’re specifically meant to be caring and nurturing activities.

Self-Care Activities For Your Wellness Routine – AT HOME

1. Do a brain dump on your most beautiful stationary of all of the tasks that have been weighing on you and get them done, one by one. You can do it!
2. Wash your bedding, towels, robes, and curtains. Once you’ve re-fitted them in their proper places, breathe deeply.
3. Clear off every surface in your home and clean them down. Declutter your closet and clean out your purse or everyday bag. Throw out any expired food, pharmaceuticals, or beauty products. Recycle or donate any books, papers, or objects within your home that no longer serve a purpose. Consider this a practice in clearing away mental and energetic clutter!
4. Create a meditation corner.
5. Light a candle, open an essential oil reeds diffuser, or turn on an electric essential oil diffuser. Surround yourself with scents that evoke a memory or set an uplifting mood.
6. Curl up with a blanket and your favorite beverage of choice – tea, coffee, or hot chocolate on your couch with a good book and turn on some low, soft music like on this playlist.

Self-Care Activities For Your Wellness Routine – Body

1. Make your favorite meal. Set the table with full silverware, and put out a bottle of wine, sparkling water, and crystal glasses. Light a candle. Focus on presentation and remind yourself that you are worthy of beautiful, nourishing, and delicious food!
2. Pause whatever it is that you’re doing and drink a glass of water. Keep a full water bottle with you and stay hydrated!
3. Practice deep-breathing.
4. Practice self-massage. Roll out tension using a foam roller, massage balls, or even a tennis ball.
5. Go outside. Just put on your shoes and get outside; let your body decide on the rest. Maybe you only get so far as standing in the sunlight. That’s enough. Go on a walk, even if it’s just around the block.
6. Surround yourself with sensory experiences—smell, sight, taste, touch, sound, smell, taste, and touch are particularly good at connecting me back with my body.

Self-Care Activities For Your Wellness Routine – Mind

1. Practice good phone hygiene! Clean your phone and update your OS. Turn off all the red notification bubbles that you don’t need. This also means taking a day off from your phone too – a 24-hour digital detox.
2. Spend twenty minutes unfollowing accounts on social media that make you feel less than others. If you can’t unfollow them, consider muting them—they’ll never know! Unsubscribe from unnecessary e-mail newsletters. You’ll feel lighter afterward.
3. Take pictures of everything you’re grateful for, wherever you are in the moment. Maybe start a private photo album of these pictures to revisit on difficult days, or try creating a gratitude Pictionary – picture diary!
4. Snuggle your pets. Seriously, it releases dopamine and relaxes a stressed brain.
5. Develop positive affirmations that work for you, and find visible or memorable ways to use them daily.
6. Track your moods for a day, or for several days. Put names to what you’re feeling every two hours or so, and reflect on the ways your moods fluctuate, and what impacts them positively or negatively.

Self-Care Activities For Your Spirit

1. Find a quiet space to pray; you don’t have to be of a specific religious persuasion to converse with the universe.
2. Learn to meditate, even if it’s only ten minutes a day, even if you’re “bad” at it. Create time and space to just exist.
3. Join a spiritual support and discussion group.
4. Journal. Write down your biggest aspirations and hope for yourself—the BIGGEST ones, this means no holds barred. No one needs to see this.
5. Allow yourself to indulge in a daydream while you’re walking, listening to music, and cleaning the house. When a strange idea or memory comes to mind, don’t push it away. Follow the story.
6. Sketch, write poetry, create something. This is an exercise in presence, where you can let your mind and soul come together to unwind and be present.

In Conclusion,

Self-care isn’t selfish and it doesn’t have to be complicated. This time of year can bring on all of the “feelings”. It’s important to practice taking care of yourself by adding some of these self-care activities for your wellness routine. (And when you’re done, be sure to leave a comment and share what works for you!)

Love,