8 Ways To Get Back Into A Healthy Self-Care Routine This Fall
There is something about the back-to-school season that can make you long for a fresh start, even for those of us who aren’t students anymore. While we all enjoy the endless fun of beach vacations, cross-country road trips and sunny days by the pool, the summer months can often be accompanied by long travel times, on-the-go diets and a general “GO! GO! GO!” attitude that may leave many of us feeling somewhat depleted and less grounded as the new season rolls around.
That’s why the fresh start that the fall months have to offer can be an amazing opportunity to allow us to slow down and find our own personal self-care rhythm again. If you’re looking to settle back into a routine that supports your physical, mental and emotional health, then look no further because we’ve gathered 8 easy and simple ways for you to do just that!
1. Return to the present moment.
One of the key things that can help us ground ourselves after the summer months is simply being more mindful again. Instead of running from one fun activity to another, try to spend some extra time just sitting with yourself and becoming aware of the present moment.
Watch what kind of emotions you can feel or what sensations you can notice in your body, listen to the sounds that you can hear or the things you can smell. Engaging any of your senses can help you break the thought patterns we get stuck in and return to the present moment.
If you want to sit down and engage in some activities that will actually help you increase your mindfulness, meditation, breathwork and journaling can all be great tools if used regularly.
2. See the opportunity to turn inward.
For many of us, settling back down for fall can come with an overall sense of doom and gloom at the upcoming darker months. Dealing with cold weather, shorter days and things such as seasonal affective disorder (also known as seasonal depression) can make the best of us feel like we have nothing to look forward to until the sun comes back out in spring.
But what if we told you that these darker months didn’t have to be “wasted” time? The slower pace of fall and winter provide us with an opportunity to turn inward, reflect on where we’ve been and where’re going. Just as most trees shed their leaves in the fall and regrow new ones in the spring, we too can use these months to shed any unnecessary emotional or mental weight off our shoulders and emerge on the other side with a new found sense of self.
So instead of dreading the end of summer and the loss of the sense of freedom we feel along with it, use this change as an opportunity to sit down and reflect on what aspects of your mental health journey you’ve always wanted to work on but might have been (unintentionally) putting off.
(Bonus tip: If you feel called to start to your own personal healing journey but have no idea where to even start, then this could also be a great time to start our self-guided healing program that includes week-by-week lessons, materials, mediations, yoga & so much more that you can use to heal and support your mental health in your own time!)
3. Improve the quality and quantity of your sleep
All too often sleep can be one of the first things that suffers from our summer adventures. Vacations in foreign places often come along with sleeping in different beds, staying up later than usual, maybe drinking a little too much or too often … And don’t get us wrong - we’re all about creating those life-long memories so sacrificing a little bit of sleep can totally be worth it - but when fall comes around, we often find ourselves in a place where our sleep routine might not be the most supportive of our overall well-being.
A good night’s rest can help you regulate your emotions, improve your hormone balance (particularly the stress hormone cortisol) and bring some relief to any mental health symptoms you might be experiencing. There’s also growing evidence that a continuous lack of sleep can increase the likelihood of developing depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and even suicidal thoughts and ideations.
So investing some time and energy into improving your sleep can be an incredibly helpful tool to help you feel more grounded. If you’re interested in learning more details about why sleep is such a crucial part of our well-being and what steps you can take to start improving your sleep today, then you can check out our article on the importance of sleep!
4. Set up a daily morning and evening routine.
A huge part of how well we feel on a daily basis is determined by how we start and how we end our day. A good morning routine will help you begin the day with a good mindset and prime you for a successful day - whatever that may look like for you. A little bit of discipline in the morning can make a huge difference to how smoothly our day flows and how well we are able to regulate our moods.
A good nighttime routine on the other hand will not only prime you for better sleep but it will help you reflect on everything that has happened during the day, process your emotions and in turn set the foundation for having another good day tomorrow.
A few things you might want to incorporate into your routines to:
Stick to the same bedtime and wake up time each day (our bodies LOVE consistency!)
Avoid any screen time for at least 30-60 min before bed and after waking up.
Try to spend your first and last hours doing something that contributes positively towards your overall well-being, such as journaling, reading, meditation or yoga.
Always make sure to hydrate yourself with plenty of water before you go to sleep and especially right after you wake up!
5. Make small improvements to your diet.
Here at The Self Care Space, one of our favorite mottos to live by is this: you feel what you eat. In other words - the foods you put in your body will have a direct impact on your overall mood and well-being as we move into the new season. What does that mean for your diet?
Regardless of what your diet looked like over the course of the summer, try to approach food with a fresh mindset and without any guilt for what has passed. More than anything, food shouldn’t be a source of anxiety or shame but something that you look forward to and that helps you take care of yourself properly.
If you’re looking to make changes to your diet that can help improve your overall mental state, you might start by cutting out as many processed foods and foods with any pesky hidden ingredients as you can. We recommend sticking to about 90% whole foods and then allowing yourself your favorite treats for the other 10%. Increasing the amounts of fruit and vegetables you eat is always a good idea, as is adding potential supplements that are right for your needs.
You can learn more about the nutrition and mental health connection in one of our previous articles here.
6. Incorporate a form of light exercise or movement at least once a week.
After summer break, it can be difficult to find the motivation to get back into our usual exercise routine, especially as the days get colder and darker. We don’t know about you, but we think it’s okay to slow down your exercise routine when everything in nature is slowing down too.
Instead of going for high-intensity workouts or heavy weight lifting all throughout fall and winter, give your body the break it naturally craves during that time. Of course that doesn’t mean you should stop moving all together.
Get outside to enjoy the beautiful fall scenery while you can. Go for a walk/hike or a nice bike ride in the crisp fall air. Think about some indoor classes you could join that will allow you to be active while also socializing a little. Or perhaps just start with a simple stretching or yoga routine that you can do from the comfort of your own home. The most important thing is that you listen to what your body needs!
7. Hold yourself accountable in some way.
As with any new routine, one of the most difficult things about implementing it is having the discipline to stick to it for a long enough time to actually see the positive impact. Whether you’re trying to improve your sleep, learn how to do yoga, start a daily meditation habit or encourage yourself to work through some deeper mental health this fall - one thing you can do to help yourself on your journey is figure out some way of holding yourself accountable.
That might look like setting up a reward system for yourself based on the goals you want to accomplish. Or if that isn’t enough accountability for you, you could try telling your closest friends and family about what you’re doing so that they can regularly ask you about your progress and encourage you to keep on track.
One of our favorite things about The Self Care Space membership is that our members regularly join together with accountability buddies who are working through the same issues or trying to make the same changes they are. Accountability buddies can be a great tool to use because you’ll always have someone to talk to and someone who understands what you are going through because they are going through the exact same thing!
8. Just relax, take a breath and keep it simple.
Last but not least, we want to remind you that the key to getting back into a healthy self-care routine this fall isn’t to implement as many healthy habits as you possibly can. What matters most of all is that you figure out what it is YOU need and that you stick with that consistently.
Stop looking to social media for what other people are doing and instead, look inward to listen to what your body is telling you. And then just start with one or two simple habit changes that you feel you can master. Once you’ve implemented them successfully for a few weeks, you can think about adding something new to the mix but until then just focus on one thing at a time and don’t worry about the rest.
And don’t beat yourself up when you screw up every now and then. This is your official reminder that none of us are perfect and none of us stick to our healthy habits all of the time. Carrying around guilt and shame because you feel like you’re not perfect will do much more harm on your overall well-being than missing a day or two (or even longer) of whatever self-care habit you’re trying to implement.
So on that note, we’ll end this article by encouraging you to just take a breath, relax and enjoy the upcoming seasons as much as you possibly can!
xoxo,
The Self Care Space
Follow the ‘gram
Read More
Start Your Membership
