313 Holly Worton ~ How to Practice Self Care Even When You Think You're Too Busy

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Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! Today I’m talking about self care, which is a super important topic that I haven’t covered in ages: the only episode that specifically covered self care was number 12, with Jayne Ifeacho. I feel like I’ve skirted around the topic from time to time, like with my two episodes on burnout (episode 22 with Jayne Morris and solo episode 293), but I think it’s high time that I did a full show on this. It’s been on my mind lately because, as you might have guessed, I’m feeling like I need a bit of self care myself.

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What You’ll Learn

What exactly is self care + why is it so important
How can you tell if you need some + how do you do it
What types of people need to pay special attention to self care
How often is it necessary to practice self care
Where to go + what to do
What self care doesn’t look like
How to plan self care on a low budget + how to make it free

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

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Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 313. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode. Today I am going to talk about self-care, which is a super-important topic that I haven’t covered in ages. The only episode, in 312 previous episodes that I have done that covered self-care, was number 12 with Jane Ifeacho. Now I feel like I have skirted around the topic from time-to time, I did two episodes on burnout, including episode 22 with Jayne Morris and a solo episode not too long ago, 293; but I think it is time I did a full show on this, so here we are. This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately because, as you may have guessed, I feel like I am needing a bit more self-care myself and I have been trying to pay more attention to that.

So, what are we going to talk about today? We are going to talk about what is self-care and what isn’t it? Why it is so important? How can you tell if you need some? How do you do it? How not to do it? What types of people need to pay special attention to self-care — I think this is important for everyone but I think some people need to really pay extra attention to this. We are going to talk about how often is it necessary to practice self-care? Where to go? What to do? How to plan self-care on a low budget and how to make it free, it does not have to be expensive. So, hope you find this episode interesting and useful and I hope that it inspires you to take better care of yourself.

So here we are, self-care, what is it? So you can find different definitions online but, for me, self-care is taking action to care for your own personal, mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health and well-being. So I think a lot of us, especially people who are parents, tend to be really good about taking care of other people. You know helping our friends, helping our family, doing people favours, of course if you have kids you take care of them, and a lot of us aren’t so good at taking care of ourselves and that can lead to us being out of balance, stressed, unhappy. We talk about the oxygen-mask-analogy a lot, but this is the perfect time to use that. So how they say on the flight, if there is a problem and the oxygen mask comes down, you put your own mask on before helping someone else, because if you pass out no one is going to be able to help them. And this is kind of like that, so in order for you to be able to care for your children, your friends, your family; in order for you to be productive in your business, at your job; you need to be in good shape; you need to be in good mental, physical, emotional and spiritual shape. You need to be in balance, and you need to be good to yourself, you need to be just in a good place. Because if you are not in a good place, you are not going to be able to help anyone else, you are going to be, as I said, really stressed, you are not going to be focussed, it is going to be hard for you to get things done and you are going to be exhausted all the time. So self-care is super, super, important to stay balanced and be happy and do the things that we want to do in life.

So, how can you tell if you need self-care? You might be feeling tired, either sleepy-tired or just physically tired. Tired, exhausted, stressed, you might notice that you have been working too hard, or you have been working longer hours. Maybe people have been saying you look bad, maybe people at the office or friends have been saying: oh, have you been getting enough sleep lately? Or, “are you doing okay, you are not looking so good.” If you have been hearing comments like that that’s another good sign that you might need some self-care. Or it could be be that you are not getting your work done, you are really distracted, you are not able to concentrate or focus on getting your work done; it takes you a long time to get things done because you are constantly playing games on your phone or checking social media. You can’t focus on the task in hand, that is a sign of burnout and it is also a sign that you need self-care.

You might not be getting enough sleep, or exercise, or you might not be eating good food, maybe you have been eating out a lot, or getting takeaways, or just not eating, maybe you have been so busy you have been skipping lunches or, I am a big fan of fasting so I want to kind of frame this by saying skipping lunches is not a bad thing, skipping breakfast is not a bad thing necessarily. I don’t eat lunch or breakfast because I eat one meal a day because I do intermittent fasting, but I do a very conscious form of intermittent fasting, I make sure I get enough water, I make sure I get enough electrolytes, and my one meal a day has enough calories for my lifestyle. So if you are consciously fasting, that’s great, if it works for you, but the whole skipping meals because you have been focussing on something else, that’s a sign that you are not taking care of yourself. Or maybe you have been getting sick a lot, maybe you just come down with every cold that everyone has, maybe you have got allergies that are worse this year and you are not feeling well, maybe you have not been feeling like your health is good. So basically general unwell-ness, those are the signs.

If any of those things rang a bell as I was reading them out or discussing them take note, maybe you are not getting enough self-care. So, I think there are certain types of people that need to pay special attention to self-care, and I think this is something that is absolutely important for everyone and I think it is a very important part of a balanced life-style, but I think people that have mental illness of any kind, need to take special attention to care for themselves. People that have autism/Asperger’s, that would be me, I know that I easily burnout, I easily get stressed, so I need to take care of myself. I need to really manage my energy levels and I need to make sure that I am getting enough downtime. People who consider themselves to be highly sensitive people, or HSPs, you will probably need to pay special attention to self-care. If you are in a high-stress career, or you are running a start-up, or you are self-employed ,this is something that you need to pay attention to because it is easy to put too much attention on work or business and not pay attention to ourselves. And sometimes, when we are self-employed, we make a conscious decision to ignore our health and wellbeing to focus on the business, because we think that’s what we need to do when in reality that might just be a ticket to burnout. Parents also need to pay attention to self-care because they are caring for children; also people who are caring for a family member, or parents, or special needs people. If you are a carer or a parent you also need to pay attention to self-care, because your focus is often going to be on caring for someone else, rather than caring for yourself. But again, if your glass isn’t full, if your batteries aren’t charged, it is going to be extra hard for you to care for someone else.

I can hear myself talking and I am sure some people who are listening to this are probably thinking: but self-care is a luxury. I really don’t think it is and I am probably going to say this a thousand times on this episode, if we are not in a good place ourselves, we can’t take care of other people, we can fulfil our responsibilities and we can’t live the lives that we want to live. And oftentimes we can’t even survive the basic stuff that we have to do, forget ideal lifestyle stuff, if we are not in a good place and if we are not paying attention to self-care, it can make everything so much more difficult. So, self-care is not a luxury, it is absolutely not a luxury in my opinion.

And, it is also not selfish, and I think this is another fear that a lot of people have, by putting themselves first, by taking care of their needs first, by making sure that they are well, first, that that is being selfish. And again it is not, because if we are not in a good place, we can’t help anyone else. And I am not saying that our only functions in life are to help other people, but I think that is a really good argument to people who worry that they are being selfish by practicing self-care. It is absolutely not selfish, it is not a luxury, and it something that we need to learn to make a priority in our lives, because if we are not well then we can’t function in all the things that we need to do in life. Life is getting so busy, there are so many responsibilities, so many things that we have to do, so many things that we want to do, and if we are not in good shape we are not going to be able to do any of those things; or if we are going to be able to do them we are not going to do them well and it is just not worth going through life when you are a stressed frazzled ball of chaos. So, I think that self-care is one of the ways that we can kind of come back to our centre, come back to balance, and start getting our lives back in order.

How much self-care is needed?

So, I think an important thing to cover is how often is it necessary to practice self-care? And I think there are three types of self-care, or three categories, so there is emergency self-care, which if you have been feeling frazzled, or burnt out, or just not in a good place, what you probably need is emergency self-care. So doing things and fitting things into your schedule now, a little bit every day, so that you can start feeling a little bit better and get back to that balanced, centred, place – so there is emergency self-care. I think the other categories might be lumped into two, so I came up with maintenance and preventative. So, preventative self-care is of course regular self-care that is going to prevent you from getting in that emergency state and it is also really maintenance. So let’s call it two categories: emergency and then maintenance/preventative, maintenance is once you have got into that balanced place, maintaining that.

So, how often is it necessary? That is going to be different for everyone. It depends on what is right for you. So, you might need a little bit every day, you might need big chunks once a week, probably a little bit every day, at least one little thing every day is probably a good idea. You need to play around with what works for you in terms of frequency, time.

What’s reasonable? I think five-ten minutes a day is reasonable for everyone, no matter who we are, even if you are a parent, even if you are working full-time and running a business, you have got five minutes or ten minutes. And if you don’t, email me and we will figure it out because there has got to be a way. I think that is enough for maintenance probably for a lot of people but if you are in a bad spot you might need some extra emergency self-care.

I spend more than that every morning, I consider a lot of my morning routine to be self-care because I am doing healing practices, I am doing activities that I like, I am taking care of myself, but I am super-sensitive so every once in a while I need extra stuff and I have really been feeling like I need extra self-care lately which is confusing because I feel like this is something I do on a regular basis. So, pay attention, don’t just assume that because you do a little something every day, that the extra stresses of life haven’t added up. You might need extra self-care, even if you think you are good at self-care, so pay attention to that. Like I said again, if you feel that you haven’t been able to focus, if you feel you have been extra tired, if you are not just feeling right, if you are feeling out of centre, stop and think about what you might do to practice more self-care. And again, just because you ramp up your self-care for a few days, or a few weeks, it doesn’t mean that you have to keep that going, Maybe you just need extra self-care for 5-10 days and then you can go back to your usual.

This is probably something that you are going to have to adjust, as needed, depending on your lifestyle. Obviously if you have a busier lifestyle you are probably going to need more self-care, because you have got more responsibilities, more stresses. So adjust as needed and really check-in with yourself on a regular basis to see what you need.

Is your self-care practice serving you? Is it enough? Is it not enough? Does it need to change? How can you mix things up? There are so many things you can do to practice self-care and I think because we are defining this as mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, health and wellbeing, there are so many things you could do for each category. What I would suggest is, if you can, depending on where you are listening to this, grab your journal, grab a piece of paper, open a file on your computer or on your phone, and start making notes. If I say things that appeal to you write that down, if the things that I say trigger other ideas for you write those things down. And make up a list, a menu of self-cares things, and I think this is really important too, because when we are frazzled, when we are stressed, when we are really in need of emergency self care, a lot of times we can’t think of what to do because we are in such a bad place, so if you have your menu of preferred self-care activities {laughing} you can refer to that menu and just pick something off that and do it and I think that makes it a lot easier. Try to have a variety of things, things that take 5-10 minutes, things that take half-an-hour, things that are like a half-day, a full-day, a weekend, there are so many things you could do.

So I am going to start giving you ideas and, again, write these down so you can make your own self-care menu of things to do. So setting boundaries I think can be a self-care practice, if you are the kind of person who is constantly saying yes to everything and you can never say no, saying no to things that you don’t have time for, or you don’t want to do, that can absolutely be a self-care practice, because that is you taking time, your energy and your schedule and respecting your need for balance. Some more obvious things, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, journalling, all that stuff is really good self-care stuff, and I say journalling because I think it is a good self-care practice, but journalling also leads me into the kind of personal development mindset stuff that I do. And while I do think that healing and mindset work can be a form of self-care, sometimes it can exacerbate the situation and make us feel even worse, because sometimes it takes time to process, or integrate the work that do, if we do this deep inner work. I do think this inner work and inner healing is self-care but also sometimes it generates a need for extra self-care, while you are integrating, because it can be really stressful to integrate, or it might cause sleeplessness, or it might cause problems focussing. So be careful when you are doing healing work and mindset work and that kind of deep change work, that I am always talking about, because yes it is self-care I think, but it can also generate a need for other kinds of self-care to care for yourself while you are recovering or integrating this stuff that you have healed.

And I have been coming really aware of this lately because of my plant-spirit-healing apprenticeship because we are doing a lot of shamanic journeys and this stuff is really deep work and I just came back from a weekend, last weekend, when we were working with Tulsi and I really liked this plant. I was really, really excited about the kind of work that it does because it is super-deep, and you can work with Tulsi to heal past lives and soul purpose and you can renegotiate soul contracts and do really deep work. And so I came back from this weekend where we had been doing really deep work and I was so excited about Tulsi I spent Monday morning, in my morning routine, I did three more journeys with myself doing really deep past life stuff and healing stuff which was great, but, I was really exhausted from the weekend, still integrating that stuff, and then I created three more things that I needed to heal and integrate. And so Tuesday I was exhausted, I slept in a little bit later which was good, and I was planning to go to kickboxing in the evening and I couldn’t even go, I was so physically tired, because I was integrating all this stuff that I had done for myself. So again with healing and mindset work pay attention because you might need extra self-care to integrate that stuff.

What else? Cooking healthy food for yourself or ordering healthy food or just eating fresh stuff. So a lot of times you can get in the habit of buying takeaway or fast food and that can sometimes not be good for our bodies. So eating healthy things like salads and fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh whole foods can be part of a self-care practice, so if you realise that you have not been eating well, you have not been eating the things that are good for your body, that your body really enjoys, stop and add some stuff that you know your body really likes.

Exercise, exercise is really important, and it can really change your life if you haven’t been doing it. So find something that you like and do it and if you are the kind of person who knows that your body responds well to exercise, you used to like exercise but you have fallen out of the habit, try to get back into making it a habit, because, exercise, I don’t need to say this, but I am going to say it anyway, is super-important. And maybe you are the sort of person who hates going to the gym, maybe you hate running, go for a walk, I don’t know, do something, move your body, dance, yoga, something. If you are the kind of person who has never found an exercise thing that you enjoy try something new, go online and find a class, a lot of different schools the first class will be free, you can go around and do a taster of all the different classes in your area, try something new and see what works for you. Again, walking, going for a walk that is free.

Reading a book can be an act of self-care, especially if you are reading something fiction, or something that will give your brain a rest. For years I got into the habit of thinking that the only books I would read were business and marketing books and that was all that I read and so my brain never got a rest because I was constantly running my business, marketing my business and reading about business and marketing in my leisure time. Then I discovered fiction, or should I say rediscovered fiction, and I realised that was really good for giving my brain a rest. I was just talking to someone about this today, who was saying that they needed to do some task and they were going to listen to a business podcast in the background as they were doing this task. And as they were saying it they realised that that was not going to give them a rest. So if you are going to listen to a podcast, maybe don’t listen to a podcast where you are learning something, maybe listen to a comedy podcast or audio book of something fiction, or read a fiction book, try to consume content that is not learning content. And I think this is really important especially for people who are self-employed and people who are addicted to learning, because we can get so focussed on learning and wanting to learn new things and it is so exciting and learning is fun, I love learning stuff, but it can be exhausting and sometimes our brains need a rest. So if you are going to listen to a podcast again try not to learn something {laughing} give your brain a rest. Creating things, like art, maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to write poetry, maybe you want to paint something, crafts, there is so much stuff you can do to be creative and you can do this on your own if you something you like doing or you could take a class and give something new a try.

So, as part of your physical health and wellbeing and caring for yourself in that way, maybe you have had a chronic health issue, or chronic pain, or something that has been bothering you and you haven’t seen a doctor about it. Go see a doctor, that is also self-care, it is the doctor who is going to be treating you, but the act of you taking yourself to the doctor and making your health a priority is self care. There is a lot of easy stuff you can do like drinking more water, I really pay attention to the water that I drink, especially since I do intermittent fasting, but I think it is safe to say that most people probably don’t drink enough water. I always have a pint glass of water on my desk, I find pint glasses are good because they are big, I don’t have to focus on drinking eight glasses of water a day, I have four pint glasses, sorry I just touched my glass as I said that. I have four pint glasses a day more or less, sometimes three plus herbal teas, I usually have a hot drink on my desk as well, so I will have a herbal tea or a coffee or something, but drinking more water is really, really, important and that is an act of self-care. It is fast, it is easy, it doesn’t take too much time and it is free if you drink tap water.

Also getting extra sleep, I know this is challenging for a lot of people but if you are tired you need more sleep. I really found that having a Fitbit taught me why I was so tired all the time because time in bed does not necessarily equal time asleep. It was taking me a while to fall asleep and I was not getting eight hours that I thought I was getting. I always used to say that I really needed nine hours of sleep to feel well. I didn’t need nine ours of sleep, I just needed nine hours in bed to get eight hours of sleep. That’s improved since then but having trackers like a Fitbit or other trackers like that, can really help you realise how much exercise you are getting, how much sleep you are getting, and how you can take better care of yourself. If you are feeling tired, get extra sleep, either take a nap or try to go to bed a little bit early, or try to wake up a little bit later. If you are the kind of person who likes to snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze – stop it. Set your alarm for the latest time possible and set two alarms and make yourself get up. That interrupted snooze sleep is not good, give yourself as much time to have deep sleep and REM sleep as you can because that’s the quality sleep and not the snooze sleep. Stop snoozing get more sleep, proper sleep, that is self care.

Asking friends or family for support, that is also self care. If you have got kids maybe ask someone to watch the kids so that you can have some time to yourself, go to a café, go to the beach, go to the park, get help with the things you need to get help with so that you can make self care a priority.

Get out in nature, I talk a lot about nature, I wrote a book about trees and how they can help us. Get out in nature that can be a massive self-care practice, there are so many things you can do in nature, you can walk, you can sit, you can meditate, you could cycle, you can do all kinds of things in nature and nature can be really good for de-stress.

Decluttering can also be a form of self-care, that is not necessarily taking are of your body, but it is definitely taking care of your mental and emotional well-being because if your house if full of clutter, if your desk is full of clutter, if your office is full of clutter, it is really stressful. So go through your house, go through your drawers and declutter, get rid of it and that is also an act of self care because you are taking care of your space so your mental and emotional self can be more relaxed, clear, free.

Going offline is also another thing you can do for self-care, we are so tied to our computers, to our phones, to our tablets, get off that shit and do something else. Go offline, hide that stuff, put it in a drawer, put it somewhere you can’t see it and do something else, go for a walk without your phone, do something without devices.

Stretch, I mentioned yoga earlier but maybe just do a stretch. As part of my morning routine, I have been trying to do different things, one of the things that I want to improve is doing the splits, which I ant do but if I could it would make kickboxing easier because I could kick higher, so I have decided to make it a priority to stretch more. I looked on YouTube and I found videos on how to do the splits, so I did an hour of that this morning, stretching felt really, really good, it is helping me work towards a goal and it is good for my body.

You could take a bath with some essential oils, with some bubbles, with a book, candle, wine, cheese, have a bath however you like. That’s really relaxing, it is great for self-care.

Spending some time with a pet, maybe you have a dog, take the dog for a walk, if you have a cat you could just sit with your cat and pet your cat. Spending some time with a cat can be really nice form of self-care, because it is taking care of them, but it is also taking care of us because pets can be so nourishing and relaxing and really good for distressing.

Do something you love whether it is a hobby or going to a museum, what stuff do you like to do? Doing those things can be self-care because it makes you happy. You could have a spa day or go and get a massage and I know this might sound expensive to a lot of people but a lot of spas will have fairly inexpensive half-day, full-day, you can just go and use the facilities, maybe go to the steam room, the sauna, sit and read a book, that’s something that can be quite affordable and if you think it is not, go online and look at spas in your area or look at a gym in your area, sometimes you can get a day pass which is quite affordable, that can be a really great way to unwind and relax. So, tons of things to do, I think that has really covered where to go and what to do.

In terms of where to go, I have mentioned a lot of places but what are places you like visiting? Avebury was my thing for so long, I made so many trips to Avebury and I really considered that to have been part of self-care, because I was walking, I was spending time in nature, I was doing things that I loved, in a place that I love. A couple of years ago I was really into Glastonbury, I think it was two years ago, it was before I started work on the book, I was alternating: one month in Glastonbury, one month in Avebury. And I found both of those places to be places I love but also really deeply relaxing and nourishing. So, go to the places you love and that could be a day trip, a weekend trip, or just five minutes to your local park. You don’t have to make a big deal out of this, you can if you want to, but you can also make it simple which is why I think it is so important, bringing you back to your self-care menu, to have so many different things, short things, long things, far things, expensive things, cheap things, free things. Have a variety of things so that you have no excuses and whenever you realise you need self-care you can just pick something off your menu and find the perfect thing because you have got a variety of things.

So, how to plan self-care on a low budget?

I think that is really, really, easy. A lot of this stuff is free so setting boundaries, saying no, that’s free. If you are saving no to other activities that is probably even going to save you money. Meditation, you can download something online for free and do it. Yoga, there are free YouTube videos with yoga, same for stretching, that is what I did this morning. Mindfulness, you can find stuff free. Journaling is very low cost, get your self a spiral notebook if you want something cheap, or use your computer, or your phone and create a file there, it can be very inexpensive or free. Cooking healthy food for yourself, unfortunately healthy food is usually a bit more expensive than crappy food but cooking for yourself is definitely, probably going to be less expensive than buying food elsewhere. Exercise, you can pay for that or it can be inexpensive. There is lots of stuff you can do at home which I have already mentioned, you can go for a walk, you can go for a run. Yes, sometimes you need gear to do exercise, sometimes you need proper shoes, but if we are talking about just going for a walk you just need a decent pair of shoes, probably you have got shoes that you can go for a walk round the block in.

Reading a book, you can go to a library and get books for free. Podcasts, free. Creating art, doing crafty stuff, you are probably going to have to pay some money for that, but it can be low cost. Seeing a doctor, it depends on where you live in the world, but most developed nations that is free if you have the NHS or something like that. If you live in the United States I am sorry that will cost you, but it is your health so if you feel like you need to see a doctor, absolutely do. Drinking more water, again you can buy a filter or drink tap water, filtered water is probably better for you, but water is not expensive. Getting extra sleep, that is free. Asking friends and family for support, yeah, maybe you will have to help them out sometime, but you can do an exchange and that is probably not going to cost you any money. Getting out into nature that could probably be free depending on how close you live to nature but probably there is a park in your town and that is free. Decluttering that’s free, in fact if you declutter stuff and you have to sell you could even make some money. Going offline, free. Taking a bath, you have got to pay for your water bill but that is pretty much red. Spending time with a pet, if you have already got a pet that is free. Doing something you love like a hobby or museum that could cost money or it could be free, but there is a whole different range of prices for that. Like I said spa day, that’s probably less expensive than you think it is depending on what you go for.

There is something for everyone’s budget, practicing self-care does not need to be expensive, it does not need to break the bank, it does not need to cost even anything there are so many things you can do for free. So, hope you have taken the time to make a list, to make your self-care menu, if you haven’t, please do that now, that is your action plan if you haven’t done it already, make a really robust self care menu so when you need self are you know what to do. And it is not just when you need self-care, fit this stuff into your schedule. You know I am a big fan of google calendar, I block this stuff into my calendar, you should do this too it is really a sure-fire way of making sure that this stuff happens.

So, I hope you find this interesting and useful, I hope you have understood that self-care is super, super important, it is not selfish unless you want to end up in burnout which I think you don’t. I think most of us are burnt out at some point or another and it is not good. And it takes a lot more time to recover from burn out than it does to prevent this stuff. So make sure that on your self-care menu you have stuff for emergency self-care, you have stuff for preventative, you have stuff for maintenance and there you go. If you have any super-exciting ideas for self-care which I haven’t mentioned and you would like to share with me as always you can drop me a line and let me know what you think and let me know what you do, you can email me at: [email protected] and get in touch there I would love to hear what you do for self-care. And thank you for listening, please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen it would really mean the world to me and it would help more people find out about this show.

So next week’s episode is going to be another solo episode and I look forward to speaking with you then. So remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/313 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you so much.

313 Holly Worton ~ How to Practice Self Care Even When You Think You’re Too Busy