It’s Friday evening and you’re salivating at the idea of a weekend day to recuperate, rejuvenate and relax. Self care Saturday has become a popular catchphrase, and with good reason. A whole free day to devote to caring for yourself? Sounds lovely. But I want to talk about self care at a deeper level- what it really is, what is its purpose and how do you weave it into your life? Here I’m sharing the biggest self-care shift I ever discovered, how I divide self-care into four categories and suggestions for how to use your Saturday to engage in lasting and effective self-care.
What is self care?
At some point, self care was explained to me this way and it stuck:
Self care is not pampering, but parenting.
It’s parenting yourself. Boundaries, guidelines, rhythms, focus, planning, forced breaks, spiritual development, and so much more. The greatest self-care myth, I believe, is that self-care is a time to treat yourself with bubble baths, shopping or a manicure. Those activities sound amazing and I hope you get to do them (if that’s your jam). But a once-a-week self care Saturday is not the way to truly care for yourself on a regular, routine basis.
As an adult, you manage your own life. You may have tiny humans that make demands, dictate the majority of your schedule and use up almost all your energy. But ultimately you are the one who runs the show.
You make the rules. You decide what time you’re going to bed. You decide what apps you’re allowed to have on your phone. You decide what you’re cooking for dinner. You decide if you’re going to that party.
Do you see how taking care of yourself is like parenting yourself?
What if I feel too busy for self-care?
The intention of self-care is not to add more things to an already busy schedule.
Build self-care into your current routines. Self care shouldn’t be a last ditch effort where you feel like you’re about to lose it and need a reprieve. Better routine self care might help prevent you getting to that place.
Lots of the examples of self care that I’m about to share are things that take very little time, will save you time, or can be done at the same time as something else.
Areas of self-care
When it feels overwhelming to try and decide how to care for yourself, or how to take advantage of your one precious Self Care Saturday, you can use these four categories to break it down:
- Sleep
- Stress reduction
- Nourishment & Hydration
- Mental & Emotional Health
Sleep Self Care
One of THE most important parts of your health and general well being is quality and quantity of sleep. Some of you may be in a season of life where you have little control over the quantity (re: the tiny humans). But even then, there might be some things within your power to help improve your sleep.
Here are some ideas: Create a bedtime routine of winding down. Look into your phone’s bedtime setting that will turn off notifications at a certain time. Have a plan for what to do in the middle of the night if you wake up and have trouble falling back asleep. Set a bedtime for yourself and figure out how long before that you need to start getting ready, then stick to it.
What to do on Self Care Saturday: Snag a nap (offer to trade off with your partner, if necessary). Take care of any tasks that might keep you occupied or prevent a good bedtime on upcoming evenings. Take yourself shopping for a new pair of pajamas. Wash your sheets and remake your bed.
Stress Reduction Self Care
Did you know that stress and the related hormonal changes in the body can be a HUGE factor in your health and how you’re feeling?
Make a list of what feels stressful in your life and then make another list of activities that make you feel relaxed, calm and confident.
What to do on Self Care Saturday: Choose one of your stress-reducing activities and DO IT! Some possibilities: a yoga class, a walk, painting, organizing a closet, deep breathing, guided meditation, etc.
Help yourself out for the week to come by using Saturday to schedule out the next 7 days. PLAN when you are going to do a stress reducing activity each day. Remember, 30 seconds of deep breathing is not a huge time commitment and can still have positive benefits. Put it on your calendar for the week and stick to it like you would an important appointment.
Nourishment and Hydration Self Care
Helping your body thrive by feeding it adequate nutrition is a great health goal. Often, living in a world fascinated with the next-best-diet leaves us constantly wondering how to eat perfectly.
You’ll mainly hear me (a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist) suggest focusing on frequent meals and snacks, listening to your body’s internal cues about hunger and fullness, hydrating all day long and trying to build a relationship with food that is neutral and peaceful. Ideally, your kids can grow up without seeing food as a tool used to manipulate bodies and without ever seeing their own bodies as problematic.
What to do on Self Care Saturday: Treat yourself to something delicious- whether it’s an extra special dinner cooked at home or a meal eaten out. Next, think through the week ahead and where your usual weekday nutrition pitfalls may be.
Do you often skip lunch because you’re too busy? Do you feel frazzled at dinner time trying to cook with kids wanting your attention? Do you struggle to eat breakfast because you don’t have a morning appetite? Is it hard to find time to grocery shop?
Making a nutrition plan for the week is self-care that benefits you now and later. Figure out how you might be able to address some of those common obstacles you face and then if you are able to do any prep work on the weekend to give yourself a leg-up, go for it!
Remember, any decision you make NOW is a decision you don’t have to make later in the week. Deciding what you’re cooking this week, which day you’re going to the grocery store, and even what the kids will be eating for breakfast each day can save you mental space for the rest of the week. Making decisions for the week to come is a self-care action you can take on the weekend.
Mental & Emotional Self Care
It may be easy to picture what physical self care looks like (taking care of your body) but imagining mental, emotional and spiritual self care can be a bit more confusing.
There is some overlap here with the stress reducing self care, but this goes beyond just reducing stress. You may need to delete some apps from your phone that aren’t good for your headspace. You may need to set a boundary in a friendship that is emotionally draining. You may need to process a recent experience on the phone with a trusted friend or in person with a therapist.
What to do on Self Care Saturday: Cuddle up in a comfortable spot, maybe at a coffee shop with your favorite drink or maybe in your own bed, with your partner keeping the kids out of the room for an hour. Do a brief self-assessment. Get a sense of where you’re at with your emotions, thoughts, and/or spiritual life. Consider scoring yourself on a spectrum from 1 to 10. Then spend time brainstorming what it is that might move the needle up a bit to a healthier place. Do you want to spend time each morning journaling? Do you think you’d like to find a therapist to work with? Do you feel lonely and need to look for opportunities to connect with peers?
Use your Saturday to make a plan for how to address those needs, then get started!
Self-Care Saturday can be lovely, but let it be a foundation for self-care the rest of the week
I probably sound a bit like a broken record, recommending using Saturday to prep for the rest of the week. You may be feeling confused, wondering, “Wait, that’s self care?” It just sounds like planning and organization.
In my estimation, the best way to spend a day on self-care is by doing something THAT DAY that takes care of you in that moment, and also doing something that sets you up to take care of yourself better during the remainder of the week.
Think back to my initial message of self-care being parenting, not pampering. Think about if you only parented your kids one day of the week, and expected the rest of the days to go smoothly. LOL. Just like your kids, you need boundaries, rhythms, routines and health-promoting structures for every day of the week. Saturday just happens to be a perfect day for devoting some extra attention to figuring out what that looks like and making a plan to execute.
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Xo
Savvy