The Benefits of Self-Love: How Self-Care Enhances Mental Health & Wellbeing
If you’ve heard of self-love and self-care, you’ve probably also heard that “self-care is selfish”. But we’re here to tell you that self-care isn’t selfish, it’s essential. Self-care is all about replenishing your resources and restoring your energy - and there is nothing wrong with putting yourself first sometimes.
February is the month of (self)love and for the next 2 weeks, we’ll be sharing just how to prioritize self-love and activities you can do every day to improve your wellbeing and self-esteem. Today, we’re starting with just why you should be prioritizing your self-love. Let’s get into it.
The benefits of self-love: How self-care enhances mental health & how to make it a priority…
What exactly is self-love and how does it benefit mental health?
Self-love can mean different things to different people, but ultimately, it’s giving your body and mind the fuel you need to feel your best. Self-love could come in the form of meditation, a skincare routine, yoga, walking, journaling, breathing exercises… the list is endless. It’s all about spending time for yourself to restore your energy, whatever that looks like.
Practicing self-love every day promotes healthy physical and emotional well-being and allows you to be a better you – which ultimately means you can be at your best for those around you. Research shows that self-care can also:
Relieve stress and anxiety by occupying your mind
Improve your cognitive abilities, especially self-care practices like mindfulness
Provide alone time, which in turn can spark creativity, and increase productivity and empathy
Increase energy
How to make time for self-love and a self-care routine
If you don’t have a self-love routine already, it can be tricky to find the time. Here are our top tips on how to get started:
Let go of mom guilt so you can enjoy your self-care time: One of the major things that can hold you back from self-care is “mom-guilt”. But creating time for yourself is vital and will actually make you a better parent in the long run. You’ll be more energized, more focused, and happier overall.
Choose self-care activities you enjoy: If you want to build a self-care routine that lasts, you need to choose activities that you enjoy. It sounds simple, but we often choose self-care tasks that we think we should be doing, rather than what we enjoy doing.
Start small and be realistic: If you try to go from zero to 100 then you’re going to burn out and your self-love routine will probably only last a day or 2. So try introducing any new self-care tasks to your routine one by one and step by step. For example, start with a 1-minute daily breathing exercise and build that up into 5 minutes!
Use anchor habits: It can be difficult to carve out time for new routines and self-care practices, so try “anchoring” your new task to something you already do every day. For example, journal whilst you have your morning coffee, or after you brush your teeth.
Remain flexible and don’t be hard on yourself: The most important thing is taking some time for yourself whenever you can fit it in - so don’t let a change in routine or a missed opportunity throw you off. It’s better late than never!
Some self-love activities to try out
As we mentioned, there are endless possibilities for what you might want to do for self-love, but if you don’t know where to start, then here are a few suggestions:
Breathing exercises: Our brains only make up about 2% of the body, but they use around 20% of the oxygen in our blood supply every day! Breathing is one of the simplest and quickest ways to get you in a better headspace. Even 1 minute for a guided breathing exercise can help.
Meditation: Think of meditations as recovery sessions for your mind. Just as you need sleep at the end of a long day to recharge, meditations can do the same for your mental state.
Go on a mid-day walk: commit to having no distractions. No phone calls, music, podcasts — just you and the world around you. Take in everything you see, smell, and hear. Be fully present in the moment and the movements of your body.
Journaling: At the end of each week, no matter what you've been through, write down 1-3 things you are grateful for and why. It's so simple as you really only need to do it once a week, and the benefits are profound. In the Baby2Body app, we have a guided journaling session with mindfulness coach Lou Murray to get you started.
Micro-zen tools: If you want to try a variation of mindfulness tools, from different breathing techniques to mindful pelvic floor exercises, then try our series of Micro-Zen tools from mindfulness coach Lou Murray – it’s a great place to get started and each activity takes just a few minutes!
We’ll be diving more deeply into some of these activities over the next few weeks, so follow along here on the blog and on our socials — and remember, everything we’ve suggested here can be found in the Zen Den in the Baby2Body app. Try it for free with a 7 day trial!
What do you do to practice self-love? Let us know in the comments!
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