8 Wellness & Therapy Pillars to Achieve Self-care

To achieve self-care, you have to think beyond just exercise and nutrition. We often think that to take care of ourselves, we need to exercise consistently and eat properly. Experts will disagree.

Wellness Pillars For Self-care

According to Tanya Etessam, a fitness and wellness expert, there are 8 pillars of wellness that we should focus on to truly take care of ourselves. To each, it’s important to make a commitment that you can stick with to achieve self-care:

Physical

Physical wellness is about healthy nutrition, regular sleep, and exercise. Don’t overcomplicate this. Make sure you move daily, make healthy food choices, prioritize sleep, and schedule your exercise.

Social

Having face-to-face human interactions, effective communication, and the capacity to be intimate. Join a community group, club, or organization to meet new people and make new friends.

Mental

I added this last one because mental self-care is probably the most important to achieving self-care. If you’re seeking the same level of high-level relaxation and recovery that’s available to elite athletes, cancer patients, pilots, stressed executives, veterans suffering from PTSD, and anxious dental patients, NuCalm system brings just that. It has the ability to give the equivalent of a 2-3 hour nap in just 20 minutes.

Recovery is vital to anyone under stress looking to reduce fatigue and improve mental clarity. NuCalm is ideal for treating anxiety, depression, and insomnia and clinically proven to manage stress and improve sleep quality without drugs or side effects. It biochemically helps your brain interrupt adrenaline and cortisol release by mimicking what naturally occurs right before you sleep. It restores balance to the autonomic nervous system, enabling people to better deal with stress management, sleep quality, athletic and cognitive performance, illness and/or injury recovery, and overall health. After 30 minutes of wearing the disc, headphones with a specially-designed music and beat, your body might feel as it would had it just gotten 2-4 hours of restorative sleep, a state hovering between awareness and sleep.

Emotional

Relaxation, healthy thinking, motivation, overall happiness and self love is another wellness pillar. Subscribe to motivational podcasts to listen to each morning, keep a gratitude journal, meditate. Self-care is a crucial element in maintaining excellent mental health. When you’re working on your mental health, it’s important to consider what influences it from the outside and the inside. There are outside influences, such as your environment, and there are inside influences such as your genetics and your temperament. It’s important to eat regularly, get good sleep each night, and learn to set boundaries with people. You’re allowed to take time for yourself and say no when you can’t commit to a project. It’s essential to have a stable support system of friends and family who love you and care about your wellbeing.

Occupational

Recognize your unique combination of gifts, abilities, passion, education, and life experience that makes you who you are. Find your purpose and run with it. What are you good at? How can you improve your job to grow in the company? If you are miserable in your current job, how can you make it better? Figure out what you truly want to accomplish, write it down, and go. Stop settling, start living.

Spiritual

How you treat others matters in your spiritual wellness. Honesty, fairness, compassion, respect, kindness, gratitude should be part of that pillar. Make someone smile each day. Help others feel appreciated and acknowledged. If you have previous counselling experience and are interested in helping others, think of becoming a therapist. A therapist can provide counselling services online. In the increase of mental illness cases reported annually in the US, online counsellor jobs are on the rise. If you’re serious about becoming a counsellor online, you can read more about it at https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/careers/all-about-online-counselor-jobs-making-a-career-of-online-therapy/

Financial

Managing day-to-day finances is hard enough, let alone worrying about planning and saving for the future. Among working Canadians, 75% don’t have a financial plan and 44% expect to be employed full-time at the age of 66. Many believe there is a serious risk they could outlive their retirement savings. Saving, investing, building assets, and planning for the future. Create a budget and stick to it. This includes the basics of day-to-day budgeting and saving for shorter-term goals.

Talk about your financial goals with an advisor is a great first step. Whether it’s travelling the world, paying down a mortgage or entering the years of retirement, a financial plan can help get you on track.

Many people don’t realize their employer offers tools and resources designed to help them achieve lifetime financial security. You can access workplace savings tools such as defined contribution pension plans, retirement plans, and more. Investing early and making contributions when you can will pay off in the long run.

This includes the basics of day-to-day budgeting and saving for shorter-term goals.

Intellectual

Intellectual wellness is strengthened by continually engaging the mind. Learn something new. Write down (x) amount of new things you would like to learn this year. Figure out how you can accomplish them, and do it. There are tons of online learning platforms, books, and podcasts along with community classes. There’s no excuse. Grow the mind.

Environmental

Giving back to the community by volunteering and giving back to those who are less fortunate is part of the environmental pillar. The reciprocal relationship between an individual and the environment such as community service, gardening, recycling is something you can take on.

The Gist of it

These 8 wellness pillars will help you achieve self-care. Over and above following them, embrace the value of advice. Whether that’s through your learning, gut feeling, or those around you. Through holistic planning and seeking advice from an advisor, a therapist, even a friend can get to know you and your unique needs. Take advantage of potential retirement savings, take free exercise classes, join a volunteer group, or hep others through their struggles. Small steps turn into big leaps later.

How do you achieve self-care?

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