Self-Care Diary: Healthy Habits

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. —John Maxwell

It’s #WellnessWednesday! Since I haven’t done one of these in awhile, I thought I’d go with a different format for this topic.

Inspired by my favorite news media team, The Newsette, I thought I’d share a different yet fun update on my self-care journey with you guys. I felt like it’s also a way to keep myself accountable.

Interviewing business women on their wellness routines is one of my favorite formats that The Newsette does with their newsletter. I LOVE to get a glimpse of how successful women stay healthy and learning their tips and tricks.

Taking The Newsette’s template from their newsletter today, here are my self-care updates:

List some bad health habits you’ve cut from your routine:

Checking my phone first thing in the morning.
Not putting things back where they belong.
Eating out multiple times during the week.

Please list some good health habits you’ve added:

I’ve been using the SleepCycle app as my alarm for years. I seriously can’t remember when the last time I used a regular alarm. I just open the app, then turn it on airplane mode to reduce the radiation my phone emits, and drift off to ocean waves (you can pick sounds to fall asleep to). It wasn’t until recently that I looked at the data on the quality of sleep I was getting each night. Reviewing that information truly opened my eyes that the last time I had real, quality sleep was about two years ago.
Taking one full rest day once a week. I do nothing work-related or anything related to my calling in life and it’s done me a world of good!
Working out several times a week is a good habit I’ve instilled in myself for the last several years. Now, it feels weird when I don’t/can’t work out. It’s definitely a good thing because I never thought I’d get to a point in life where I feel funny when I miss the gym.

How do you keep yourself balanced during the day?

Since I work an office job during the day, I try to stay as hydrated as possible. If I’m physically feeling tired, I’ll start my day with a cup of coffee which is usually about four ounces with a teaspoon of vanilla creamer.

Regardless, I bring sparkling water to work with me so I can make sure to meet my water intake goal. I haven’t hit my water intake goal yet, but it’s getting better now that I have my Yeti. And in case you’re curious, your weight (using the pounds metric) divided by 2 equals how many ounces of water you should drink a day.

It doesn’t happen often, but I also try to eat lunch away from my desk. And most days, my lunch is either soup or a salad of some kind.

How do you de-stress and relax?

As much as I love yoga and how it makes me feel relaxed, lifting weights and running helps me to de-stress more. I’d love to get back into a routine in the future where I lift weights several times a week and add a yoga session in between to recover from the fun my personal trainer has with me, ha!

How many hours of sleep do you get a night? Is there anything you’d improve?

Right now, my numbers are up and range between 5 1/2 to 7 hours. And that’s pretty good because I used to get anywhere between 3-5 hours a night. I will say that I’ve been improving a lot. For the past three months, I’ve been going to bed earlier than my usual 2am time.

I’d improve on my consistency on going to bed earlier. My plan is to time my evening routine and see how long it takes me to get ready for bed and then go from there. Melatonin is also part of the plan on those “toss-and-turn” nights.

Do you have a favorite wellness trend?

I wouldn’t say that these are “trends” because they are a huge part to health and wellness, but I have two: 1) mental health and 2) saying no. I think it’s great that people of stature like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are focusing on mental health. It’s refreshing to see people like them use their platforms to raise awareness and normalize a topic we all need to discuss. I also love that people around me are learning to say no more so they can say yes to themselves.

Is there a cool food you like to incorporate into your diet?

Good question! Hmm…I’d say kale, but to most people, kale isn’t cool nor tasty, ha! But I genuinely LOVE kale so that’s my answer and I’m sticking to it!

And that’s it for my self-care update!