6 TINY Ways To Take Better Care Of Yourself in 2022 | Self Care Habits

6 TINY Ways To Take Better Care Of Yourself in 2022 | Self Care Habits

Today I want to share with you six tiny ways that you can begin to take better care of yourself in 2022. And these are all small, easy steps that you can begin to take to better nourish your mind, body, and soul going into the new year. And I'm a big believer that more often than not, it's the small changes that we make in our daily lives that have the biggest and most lasting impact.

So let's dive right into this now and start looking at each of these seven small, achievable changes that you can begin making today.

Prioritize Sleep

The first way that you can begin taking better care of yourself in 2022 is to prioritize sleep. Studies show that about one in three adults doesn’t get enough sleep each night. I think a lot of us If we're honest with ourselves, would admit that we should make sleep more of a priority. And I think what's lacking for most people isn't the desire to sleep more. We all know that we could benefit from it, but we lack a plan.

And so in order to prioritize sleep and get the rest you need one of the best things that you can do for yourself is to create routines. Try putting yourself on a schedule where you go to bed and wake up at the exact same time every night with no exceptions. That going to help your body create very natural rhythms of waking and resting.

And that's a great place to get started but then to build on that, you want to create an environment around you that invites rest. This is especially important if you find that you have difficulty in getting to sleep, or staying asleep at night. Make sure that you're not using your phone or watching TV right up until the minute that you go to bed. That's actually one big reason why I recommend it, never having a TV physically in your bedroom.

Then consider what other factors might be at play here too. Maybe you need to stop having caffeine so late in the day. I know personally, I need to stop having caffeine by 2 pm. Otherwise, it's going to keep me up too late at night. Or maybe your pillows weren't out, and you need a new pillow. Perhaps you should try drinking a cozy caffeine-free tea before bed.

There are a lot of different things that you can do to create a restful relaxing environment as you kind of wind down for the evening. Those can all improve your sleep. Whatever you choose to do, though, try to create a routine that's going to help you to prioritize rest and help you get the sleep that you need.

Limit Sugar

Another amazing way that you can take care of yourself this year is to limit sugar. And I think especially in the past few months, most of us have been consuming weight more heavily processed foods and added sugars and we should be. And at the end of the day, added sugars provide very little nutritional value to us. But what they do instead is, set us up for this sugar high and then crash high and then crash high and then crash.

And that's really just not a good way for us to be a good steward of our body and to nourish ourselves.  And so if you found yourself recently consuming a lot more added sugars than you'd like to, I'd encourage you to try a limiting, or even cutting out all added sugars for thirty days.

And instead because where we create a void, we want to also fill it, focus on nourishing your body with nutrient, dense foods. And this is just a really simple way that you can enhance your overall health and improve your energy levels.

Schedule Quiet Time

The third habit that you can begin to implement this year is to schedule quiet time. And I think it's safe to say that most of us live at a frenetic Pace. We're always busy. Although we might say that we want peace and quiet, we never seem to find time in our busy schedules to actually make it happen. And the thing is, quiet time and time to slow down don’t happen naturally.

So instead we need to create a space to really make it happen. You're not a machine. And so you shouldn't treat yourself like one. As humans, we need time to work, and also time to rest. Time to do, and also time to be.

And so instead of always going going going, what we want to work towards is to create space in our schedule, to where we can go and then rest and go and then rest. And then we can build that habit of cooperating times of rest into our lives that's going to help us recharge and to enjoy life more.

Read More

The fourth thing that you can do is plain and simple and that's just to read more. And books really are just such an incredible tool to help us learn and grow. They really can completely transform our lives or transport us to new and exciting worlds. I think that most of us would agree with that, but we still fail to prioritize it.

Instead, we get distracted by watching TV and scrolling social media. Because yeah, it is a lot easier just to take in a show. But that's part of the reason why reading is so much more powerful than just watching TV. When we read books, our brains are far more actively engaged in processing and taking in information, mulling it over and letting it sink in than when we're consuming content, whether that's on the TV or through social media.

And so reading really is just an unparalleled way to really help us to learn and to grow. And I feel like during the new year, a lot of people, often myself included honestly, will set out these crazy goals for how many books they want to read in a year. I have several friends who said they're going to read 50 books this year, and that's impressive.

But I think that for a lot of us, that is something that feels really unachievable. And instead, I'd recommend just to try setting aside 15 minutes for yourself every single day to read. Start there and just see where it takes you. Maybe you'll completely fall in love with reading. I'd encourage you just to start small and begin incorporating it into your daily life.

Declutter Your Home

The fifth thing that you can do to take better care of yourself in 2022 is to declutter your home. I think it's a very underrated fact that how we feel internally is often heavily influenced by our surroundings. When our homes feel cluttered and messy our minds feel the same. And that often manifests itself in stress and anxiety for us.

And so a great way to take care of yourself this year is to take care of your space. And this is not me saying, you need to go out and completely declutter your life in a day that's not achievable or realistic. But I would encourage you to start small and to slowly begin simplifying your life. Try to clutter one small problem area in your home a day, and do that for a week. And I think you'll be amazed at the end of the week how much more refreshed your home feels.

So maybe on the first day, you go through your bag or your purse and declutter the contents of that. And then the next day, do the inside of your car, get rid of all of the junk in there. The next day you can do your closet, maybe the next day after that, your junk drawer, and just go on until you really begin to feel confident and comfortable in your space.

Think through if there are any areas of your home where you feel a sense of stress, overwhelm of annoyance, or even of anxiety, those feelings are all different ways of your brain saying, hey, it's something that isn't quite right here, and by simplifying and decluttering in those areas, it really can help bring a lot more peace and tranquility to your home.

Make Appointments

The number 6 is a quick one, and that's just to make appointments. If you've been saying that you want to prioritize your well-being going into the new year, now's your time to prove it. Set aside a few minutes and get the appointments that you've been talking about or putting off on the calendar.

If you've been experiencing sore muscles, maybe it's time to book a massage. If you have back pain, maybe you need to go see a chiropractor. Maybe if you're just wanting to be more physically fit this year, you need to sign up for a few sessions with a personal trainer. This could look like a lot of different things, but I think sometimes we feel like once we have a problem, we need to fix it on our own. But that's just simply not true. 

Often other people, whether that's a doctor or a therapist, a trainer, or anyone else, can really help be catalysts and help us to make the change that we want to see in our lives. And so whatever you might be struggling with, or wanting to improve going into 2022, my encouragement to you is to stop putting off getting help. That can be one of the best things that you do to take care of yourself this year.

All right, well, those are 7 ways that you can begin to take better care of yourself in 2022. And we really hope that they motivate and inspire you to really focus on nourishing your body and soul as we go into the new year.

And I'd love to know what's one small thing that you want to start doing to take better care of yourself this year. Be sure to let me know in the comments. I would love to hear about it, And I'll see you in the next one.