Don’t have time for self-care? If you follow these little tips, you can take self-care into action every day, even though you are super busy! These little tips help me change how I do self-care to prevent burnout. 

Here are my tips:

Tips to add more self-care into your busy lifestyle to prevent burnout

1. Wake up a bit earlier 
2. Make it short and sweet
3. Everything count for self-care
4. Set a reminder on your phone
5. Planning
6. Journaling
7. Find a self-care buddy

1. Wake up a bit earlier.

If you are not an early person, waking up at 4 or 5 am could sound terrible. The good news is you don’t have to force yourself to be an early person if you are not ready for it yet; forcing yourself to change to something new in life without a proper plan could stress you out, and it won’t benefit your body-mind.

Starting small, just 5-10 minutes is plenty to get started. Spend your time with a self-care activity that you enjoy to make your body-mind feel good; this way, you will want to do more of it and be willing to wake up early just for it.

For example, you could wake up a bit early to enjoy your favorite cup of coffee alone. When I first began years ago, I woke up 30 minutes earlier to practise yoga and meditate. The morning was fresh air and quiet as no one had woken up. I felt so good. I have truly connected to myself like never before, so I long to have more. I gradually and slowly increased my time to 1 hour, and now a day 2 hours for slowly mooring self-care which I so in love with it. 

2. Make it short and sweet.

The biggest mistake that most busy mothers try to make when starting self-care is looking for hours of free time to go to a luxury spa, exercise, or therapy. So they will never find time because life always happens.

You don’t have to take hours for self-care; making it short, sweet, and frequent can benefit you more than taking hours once a month or years. What can you do in 5 minutes for self-care? Here are some examples;

1) Stretching in bed before getting up or while working,

2) Mindful breathing exercises.

3) Look outside the window and appreciate nature or observe other people’s lives without judgement.

4) Smile for yourself in a mirror an apreciate yourself.

And many more things you can do. You can get more ideas by downloading a free ultimate holistic self-care toolkit.

3. Everything counts for self-care

You will benefit when you can make everything count for self-care throughout the day.

Self-care is about balancing physical, mental, and emotional, and we can do it through daily activities by being mindful. Mindfulness is about being in the present moment, consciously aware of self, physical, mental, and emotional. Whether you are working, walking, speaking, thinking, eating, drinking, and so on in your daily activities, you only have to be present by focusing on what you do one at a time.

Focusing on the present moment will make your mind less busy, reduce stress from overthinking, and make your mind clearer and more concentrated.

One of the simple mindfulness practices I do every morning is mindful drinking. I love drinking tea in the morning; while my children are having breakfast, I will practise mindfulness in a cup. It’s about being mindful while having tea. Use my senses to be in the present, see the cup, taste the tea, hear my children arguing, and feel my breath and body. This practice helped ground my mind before dealing with a chaotic morning. 

4. Set a reminder on your phone

It helps to remind you to take a break during work or while taking care of household stuff. Sometimes focusing on completing our daily tasks could make us forget to take self-care into action. Setting a reminder on your phone is one of the good tips to ensure you will make time for self-care. Every evening, I’ll plan the next day, and if it seems to be another busy day, I’ll break it with 5-10 minutes in between to take self-care into action by setting a reminder on my phone.

5. Planning

Instead of thinking about self-care, make it happen by planning. Writing helps to move your thoughts out of your head, and you will see things clearly in what you need to do for self-care. It helps to reduce stress and overwhelm and activate your willpower. Therefore, planning is only a guide, it’s ok if you can’t follow as planned, and you can keep up for the next day.

6. Journaling

It’s my favourite tool; journaling is one of the first self-care tips and tools I had when I began taking self-care into action many years ago. I write down everything that I have in mind, the change, the insight, and always willing to make my life better every day. You don’t have to buy an expensive journaling book, and I used a normal notebook when I first started and bought a nice one later when it became part of my habit.

7. Find a self-care buddy

Sometimes doing it alone can make you feel lonely and lack motivation. Finding a friend who can support and keep you accountable will motivate you to achieve your self-care goals. 

If you already have all the tips and tools for self-care but struggle with taking action, hiring a self-care coach can quickly get started and result in your dream health and well-being.

Please feel free to chat with me here or download a free ultimate holistic self-care toolkit with the link below to get started.