6 Easy Types of Self Care to Incorporate Daily
Self-care comes in all shapes and sizes. While we don’t always have time for long forms of self-care, there are many shorter types that we may benefit from.
When self-love can be elusive, we practice self-respect. When acts of treating yourself seem tedious, we start small and work our way up!
Keep reading to find out what the top 6 different forms of self-care are and examples of ways you can incorporate it into your daily routine!
6 Different Types of Selfcare
Here are the main 6 types of self-care with examples of each!
1. Emotional Self-care
Emotional self-care is taking note of your emotions and doing things to support and heal. Take a deep breath, and work through your feelings.
We can’t just shove negative emotions aside and hope they go away. Sometimes, we have to confront our fear, anger, or worry, and work through them.
Start journaling, a space where you can write out all your feelings, work through worries, and jot down solutions to problems. Writing it down and sorting through your thoughts can help you clear your mind and focus on solutions instead of problems. At the very least, it’ll feel good to vent!
Sometimes, we are just feeling down and need an emotional pick me up. In these cases, working on your emotional wellbeing can be meditating. Steady meditation can reduce stress significantly and increase mental health.
You can even support emotional wellbeing by going out in nature, doing some positive affirmations, or creating and looking at a vision board.
2. Mental Self-care
Mental self-care is all about stimulating the mind and doing mental activities that you like!
Read a book you enjoy. Bonus points if it is an inspirational book or self-help guide. You also get bonus points for picking a good you just like, such as sci-fi or historical!
Another exercise can be spending time learning a new language or new skill, listening to a podcast, or spending time on a hobby you enjoy!
3. Physical Self-care
Just like it sounds, physical self-care is where you move for you. Fitness can be part of self-care as exercise can reduce stress, decrease anxiety and depression, and increase mental clarity and belief in oneself.
You can even try yoga, otherwise known as moving meditation! Yoga can increase balance, flexibility, and endurance while supporting mental wellbeing. Even just stretching or taking a silly little walk has a great effect on mental health.
Physical self-care can even include eating a healthy meal or making a super nutritious smoothie, as you are doing something that will support you physically!
4. Skincare Self-care
Skincare should not feel like a chore. By making skincare something of a self-care routine, you start to understand how skin health is supported by a skincare routine.
Skincare is about having healthy skin, it’s not about perfection, so you can enjoy the journey. It is a way to treat yourself daily to a positive choice.
Skincare can also include taking a long relaxing bath, giving yourself a manicure or pedicure, or even trying a fun face mask just for giggles!
Trying out new products can be fun too! Try out a new skincare product, new color nail polish, new scrub, or treatment! Make sure to patch test any new product on the inside of the wrist first to make sure you do not have an allergic reaction to it!
5. Sensory Self-care
Sensory self-care pertains to the senses, sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing.
For hearing, listen to your favorite songs, play some soft calming music, or sing a bit! Eat something delicious for taste, just think about what you are craving and make it or order it!
For smell, try to light a candle that has a lovely scent you enjoy, or spray your favorite perfume on and take a moment to appreciate the smell. Some aromatherapy has even been proven to support wellbeing.
You can touch something soft that relaxes you or go get some sunshine to feel the heat and look at nature! Even watching a movie can be a great self-care experience for the senses. An underrated sensory self-care experience would even be to unplug from technology, as this can help calm the mind greatly!
6. Social Self-care
Being a bit social and meeting people can be a form of self-care we do not consider. This includes meeting with a friend, engaging in positive social media, going on a dinner date, planning a getaway trip, or just spending time with family.
Albeit, some of these only count as self-care if you want to spend time with others. Planning a trip is definitely not as calming or relaxing as hanging out with a sibling!
But it is important to note that these everyday interactions, e.g. being with a friend or family, or going on a date, can be a form of self-care if you let it be! Embrace the support in your life and if you need someone, say something and reach out.
The Takeaway
There are many ways to add self-care into your daily life. Emotional self-care involves meditation, affirmations, journaling, or going out in nature.
Physical self-care involves moving your body in a way that supports fitness. Go on a walk, do some yoga, or even try some soft stretches to get you moving. The mental type is all about intellectual activities, like reading a nice book, listening to a cool podcast, or even doing a puzzle or brain teaser.
Skincare self-care is about making skincare a treat and acknowledging it as a way to support your skin health and aesthetics. Sensory self-care is all about the senses. Smell something nice, taste something good, and see something awesome!
Social self-care means spending time with the ones you care about and love. Reach out to friends and family and feel supported.
Self-care is not selfish. It is a way of supporting yourself, being your number one fan. Remember that though self-love is not easy, it is vital to have self-respect, treat yourself with dignity, and acknowledge that you deserve good things in life. Acts of self-care can be an amazing way to show yourself self-respect daily.
It does not have to take hours, nor does it have to feel forced. Just simple gratitude for some of the daily things you do for yourself can increase health exponentially!
