When counseling people, I frequently remind them of the importance of nutrition, exercise, and sleep for emotional well-being.  However, I often excuse myself from following my own advice stating I’m just too busy, I’ll do it later, or  it’s not really all that important.  It is not unusual for me to put in 15 hour days and work through lunch grabbing a soda, candy out of the candy jar and sometimes, closing the day out with a bag of chips and another soda.  Exercise! Where is the time?  I try to take a walk during my lunch hour but rarely does it happen more than once a week. Sleep-well, it’s a great goal!!

It’s like there is a war raging inside of me- I know what I should be doing but I just can’t seem to do it.  I think that I’m probably not alone in my struggle.  Far too many of us take far too little time to care for ourselves.  Before a soldier goes off to war, he/she must prepare by having a clear understanding of the mission (the why) and potential barriers to accomplishing the mission. Following are a few suggestions for preparing for the self-care war.

1.  Increase belief in the importance of practicing positive self-care.  Although, cognitively we recognize the need to take care of self by eating right, exercising, and getting adequate sleep most of us downplay the importance of these basic self-care tasks for ourselves. We are unlikely to invest our time and energy into things we don’t value; therefore, it is important that we educate and/or remind ourselves of the importance of self-care.  Here are some excellent articles for you to review: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Circadian Rhythm and sleep.
2. Value yourself enough to take care of yourself.  Sometimes we just get so busy that we don’t take time to care for ourselves  Some people believe that caring/valuing self is narcissistic or arrogant.  We are generally taught to take care of others, build careers, families, retirement, etc. We are NOT taught to care for ourselves.  We rarely realize that if we aren’t engaging in self-care we won’t be able to give others our best and will struggle to achieve our goals.
3. Recognize barriers to self care.  When it comes to nutrition, exercise and sleep, we often feel defeated from past attempts.  Sometimes we feel that it is out of our control.  I wonder if part of the problem is that our focus is on the wrong goal.  Sometimes when working on these 3 basic self-care items, the goal is not self-care as much as it is about body image or some other goal.  Many times we are defeated because we try to scale the mountain before we’ve learned to scale the wall.  It is important to set realistic goals. Setting a smaller achievable goal such as walking for 30 minutes is more likely to meet success.then a larger goal such as hiking the Presidential Range.  Finding time to prepare healthy food, exercise and even sleep is another problem.  Finding the time may involve scheduling shopping, meal prep, and exercise along with establishing routine bed/awake times.  For some of us, failure to schedule these tasks means something else more pressing will fill in the time.  Finding time to engage in self-care may also mean saying no to non-essential tasks or delegating these tasks to others.
4. Develop a battle plan.  It is difficult to reach any goal without having first developed a plan, even a loose plan. Waking up and telling yourself today is the day when I start to take care of myself, while a great way to wake up, is not likely to produce enough fortitude to sustain the war effort.  Each person is different.  For some focusing on all three at one time will work best.  For others, breaking it down and focusing on one lifestyle change at a time will work best.  Do what works for YOU not what worked for someone else.  Be prepared by purchasing healthy food ahead of time but be careful not to sabotage yourself by forcing yourself to eat food you don’t like.  Also, in developing an exercise plan remember less is often more.  Walking three days a week for 30 minutes is likely to produce more benefits than an hour of hard exercise that produces sore muscles that prevent you from exercising for the next several days.  Work to increase your sleep efficiency to above 85%.

As you develop self-care habits, you may feel like you are at war with yourself.  Remember every war that has been won included a few lost battles along the way.  Pushing through the lost battles by being gentle with yourself and reminding yourself of the battles you have won will bring you closer to winning the war.  I invite you to join me as I take the next several weeks/months to develop better self-care practices.  I’d love to hear about your struggles and successes.