10 free and easy ways to make time for self-care (without any of the guilt)
Are you feeling overwhelmed with all the advice about the importance of self-care during midlife, perimenopause, and menopause?
Do you see the social media posts and magazine articles about it and think ‘If only I had the time’?
Does it feel like just another load of tasks to add to your already overloaded to-do list!
Do you feel guilty if you take time for self-care, and guilty that you’re not doing all the self-care things you think you ‘should’ be doing?
If that’s the case, then read on for practical ways that you can find time for self-care without any of the guilt.
Firstly though, let’s clear one thing up: self-care is not about being self-indulgent or being selfish.
It is about taking care of yourself so that you are healthy, well and can do all the things that you need and want to do in your life. It is also about being able to cope with the challenges of life that arise.
So, what does ‘self-care’ actually involve?
It involves taking care of your physical and emotional needs. This can include anything from getting cancer screening when required or taking medication as directed, to taking a bath or going for a walk.
It can also include taking steps to educate yourself about your health and wellbeing and what you can do to support it.
During midlife, the need to engage in regular self-care becomes more pressing to help counteract some of the ageing, stress-related, and menopausal symptoms that we may be experiencing.
But with so much going on in midlife, it can seem like there just isn’t time to fit in all the exercise, healthy eating, meditation practices, etc. and many people end up not bothering.
However, there are many ways that you can free up time for self-care and support your health and wellbeing now and for the future.
Say ‘no’. What things take up your time that you could stop doing? What are you agreeing to do because you don’t like to say ‘no’? Do the things that you spend your time on align with your values and goals? Do you have boundaries in place, for example with work, to prevent work creeping into non-work time? Notice any tendency you have to think ‘I should do this,’ and challenge yourself as to why.
Delegate. Whether in your professional or personal life, what things could you delegate? Perhaps there are things you are doing just because you’ve always done them? Perhaps your children, if you have them, are a little older and could help more around the house? Be challenging on whether it really has to be you that does something.
Make a self-care activity a family event or something you do with friends. Could you try out practicing some mindfulness with your child, take a walk in nature with your partner, or go to an exercise class with a friend? Building social connection is a self-care activity in and of itself. By combining it with another type of self-care, you get two for the price of one, and don’t have to feel like you’re sacrificing time with your family or friends.
Batch prepare food. Eating a well-balanced and varied diet becomes more important for our physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing during midlife. Save time on preparing healthy food by doubling-up on recipes so that you get several meals out of one lot of effort.
Fit movement into your daily routine. Keeping active is also incredibly important during midlife, but this doesn’t have to mean long sessions in the gym or taking up running marathons. Look at your daily routine and see where you could slot in some extra movement:
Take the stairs rather than the lift whenever you can.
Park in the car park at the furthest point from the door.
Do some squats or lunges while the kettle is boiling.
Challenge yourself to clean your house faster than usual.
Regularly get up from your desk, stretch, walk around the office or up and down a flight of stairs.
Be creative – I recently saw someone sitting in a yogic squat while they brushed their teeth!
Use mindful moments. Mindfulness doesn’t have to involve sitting cross-legged on the floor for half an hour. Regularly pausing for a minute or two throughout the day and focusing your attention on your breathing can be very effective for calming the nervous system. Identify natural pauses throughout the day where you could take a mindful moment – while waiting for your lunch to cook in the microwave, while waiting for a web page to load, while waiting in a queue at the shops. And mindfulness can be applied to many activities, such as eating, walking, showering, even cleaning!
Review your social media/TV time. Scrolling social media may seem like a harmless way to kill a few spare minutes, but often it can leave us feeling more stressed or self-critical. Plus a few minutes can easily turn into half an hour. If you’ve got a few spare moments, rather than turning to your phone, try using the time to practice some mindfulness or a breathing exercise.
Listen to podcasts and audio books. These can be a great way to educate yourself to help support your health and wellbeing and you can listen whilst doing something else such as cleaning, gardening, driving, or exercising. (Be sure to use trusted, knowledgeable sources who draw on evidence-based research).
Schedule time for self-care. Show your commitment to your own self-care by planning the time in for it. Put it on your calendar. The time is less likely to get eaten up by something else that way.
If you’re still struggling to take time for self-care, check in with your beliefs as often it is these that prevent people engaging in self-care, rather than a true lack of time. Do you believe that self-care is self-indulgent? Do you believe you don’t deserve to look after yourself? Do you believe that taking time for self-care will make you less productive, or ‘lazy’? If you do, re-read the start of this article and remind yourself that if you don’t start taking time for self-care, you may end up suffering burnout or falling ill.
Time is finite though and accepting that you can’t do everything is crucial. Knowing your values – what matters most to you – will help you to prioritise the time you have available most effectively.
If you’d like to make changes to better support yourself through midlife and beyond, I often help clients to:
get clear on their values and goals so that they can prioritise their time most effectively;
overcome the limiting beliefs and low self-esteem that is often holding them back from caring for themselves;
stop unwanted habits and build new habits that support their health and wellbeing.
If you’d like a chat to find out more, click here and book your FREE Discovery call.
