Hello everyone.
Welcome to the blog. With the new year, I felt it was time to grow closer as a community as I help my readers connect with their minds, body and soul. While I continue to receive exciting responses to the videos and social media posts, I feel that a regular connection through this blog will strengthen our bond and continue to build our circle of positivity.
Those of you who know me or have trained with me, know how passionate I am about the work I do and how strongly I believe in the strength of the relationship between a wellness coach and their community of clients; both individually and collectively.
This blog is also passion driven with the aim to connect with my existing community and an effort to grow this community as we all connect together; first by bringing our minds, bodies and souls in harmony intrinsically and then finding extrinsic connections with the entire community.
Today, let’s talk a little about prioritising yourself. A lot of you may think “Yeah! Easier said than done” or “Been there, done that!” And I agree with that. It’s definitely easier said than done and we’ve all had those failed attempts. But that doesn’t mean we stop caring about our own health and wellness; both physical and mental.
I can only give you my own example. Once I started prioritising my personal well-being, I was able to transform from someone burdened by her weight issues to a healed and balanced woman who was able to transform the lives of thousands around her.
But this does not happen overnight. So I am going to suggest some quick self-care tips and encourage you to apply them to your lives and share with us how they helped you; whether it takes a day, week or month.
Key self-care tips:
- Prioritise sleep and develop a regular sleep pattern: Research suggests that when you get quality sleep, not only will you feel better about yourself but your immunity will also be stronger. This means that if you sleep at least 8 hours at a stretch in the night, at roughly the same time each day, you will be more successful at fighting off infections and diseases.
- Learn to read your stress signals: Develop a degree of self-knowledge that helps you understand your personal triggers or stress signals so that you can pause, take a break from whatever you are doing and just focus on yourself. It can be anything from cancelling plans with friends at the last minute to getting aches and pains without a reason to just feeling overwhelmed with everything.
- Stay active: Whether it is a 30-minute rigorous workout, a 20-minute jog in the park or a 15-minute yoga session; make sure you intentionally allocate some time in your schedule to physical exercise. This will not only help you stay active and in shape but exercise releases endorphins (feel-good hormones in simple terms) that will keep you in a happy mood and help you sleep better.
- Try a Forest Bath: While you don’t actually have to step into a forest for this, you can practice shinrin-yoku, the Japanese term for “forest bathing” by walking in areas surrounded by trees and inhaling the fresh air. Certain chemicals released from the trees will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and send you into a de-stress mode. Whether you are in New York, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Kenya or Hawaii, this article from National Geographic will tell you more about Forest bathing: what it is and where to do it.
I would love to hear about your experiences. So whichever activity you pick (I would suggest a combination of all of them), do share how it made you feel by posting in the comments below.
Sending out positive vibes and intending to grow this circle of positivity.
Love,
Mantahaa
