Essential Self-Care, Vol. 1: The Hard Stuff

Before we get into all the little things we can do to treat ourselves well each day, we’ve got to get into the three biggies: rest, exercise and sustenance.

These elements of self-care are so essential, all the self-help in the world can’t help if we’re not attending to these critical components.

Entire books have been written on each, so I’m just going to start with the basics here.

Even before that, though, before you have a chance to doubt yourself on incorporating any of these central elements of self-care, remember: You are the only one who thinks inside your head. Thought patterns are hard to change, and a lot of weird shit may have gone into creating your own personal thought diet, but you are the only one thinking inside your head, which means you and only you can change what you think about. You. Dig it. You got this.

Rest

Nightly sleep is essential, not some perk only for those who’ve finished their to-do lists. (Like that ever happens.) Myriad studies show that adult humans need seven to nine hours of sleep nightly for optimal physical and mental health.

My tendency was always to cut into sleep to make room for more stuff in life — usually more work, but sometimes more socializing, more reading, more TV, more late-night internet, more wine. It’s a common bad habit. So many of us treat sleep like it interferes with our productivity instead of supporting it.

Arianna Huffington became a sleep zealot after skimping on rest so severely that she collapsed in her office midday and cracked her cheekbone on her desk.

“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” she says.

Doctors have told me the same. When I first went to my GP to complain of stress and ennui, she was as straightforward and no-nonsense as a 911 operator. “Sleep eight hours a night, eat three meals a day and exercise three times a week,” she said. “If you don’t feel better in a few weeks, we’ll put you on antidepressants.”

Because I wanted desperately to avoid taking medication (which ended up happening anyway, a story for another time), I made sleep a priority. It was a lot of effort at first. I had to put myself to bed instead of going out or staying up late being a cool night owl. But it did make me feel better, not only like I had more energy, but more patience.

Sleep is vital to health. If you only do one thing for the sake of your overall wellness, make it getting enough sleep. It may not happen every night, of course, because life. But treat your body and mind to proper rest as often as possible so it can restore itself. Because life.

Some strategies for getting more sleep:

Splurge on a good mattress and nice sheets. Mattresses are expensive but such a worthy investment: you use it nightly and it lasts for 10 years. Buy the best one you can afford. Ditto your bed linens: Having one super-soft, luxuriously cozy set of sheets is worth more than all the scratchy, pill-y, not-quite-right bargain linens in the world. Get a set of good-quality sheets that feel nice against your skin. They don’t have to cost a fortune or be a million thread count. Just something you like the look and feel of that will feel welcoming to crawl into at night.

Prepare your room for rest. Along with your comfy bed and linens, make your bedroom sleep-inducing by making it as dark as possible (we put in blackout shades) and comfortably cool.

Create a nighttime ritual. It doesn’t have to be anything major, just something you do that tells your body and mind it’s bedtime. I like to read before bed, so once I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth at night, cracking a book means sleep is coming soon. Experts say the blue light from digital screens inhibits the body’s natural production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep, so it’s consider shutting down your electronics as part of your nighttime ritual.

Set an alarm for bedtime. Gretchen Rubin, another sleep zealot, has suggested this on her podcast. Say you have to wake up at 7 a.m. To get a full eight hours, you need to be asleep by 11 p.m. So set an alarm for 10 p.m. to remind you that it’s time to start winding down and practicing your nighttime ritual.

Exercise

Exercise is as non-negotiable as eating or brushing your teeth. Seriously. Our bodies were built to move, and when we don’t get enough physical activity, things get stagnant. There are a bazillion benefits to exercise. It’s the best thing on Earth you can do to keep your brain healthy and stave off dementia. It oxygenates your organs and helps your body’s systems run more smoothly. It strengthens your heart and lungs, wards off heart disease and diabetes, and helps fight sarcopenia, or the natural wasting away of muscle with age. WHAT? That’s right. Without exercise, our muscles naturally start wasting away around middle age and continue on a downward decline. By the time we’re 80 (god willing), we’ve lost 1/3 to 1/2 of our muscle mass. That is just not OK. Especially when we can exercise right now.

Exercise is also a huge mood and energy booster. Studies show it can be as effective as medication for some people with depression, and whether you’re depressed or not, exercise is proven to stimulate the release of endorphins, which naturally make you feel good.

Strategies for incorporating exercise into your life:

Force yourself. Let’s be honest, you may just have to force yourself at first. You definitely don’t want to get up any earlier in the morning, and you don’t want to do it after work, either. You already worked all day and made dinner and you’re on the couch and you’re exhausted and you don’t want to get up and walk around the block even though it will only take five minutes and you totally know you should. Force yourself. Force your damn self. Spend the 60 seconds it will take to put on your sneakers and a jacket and get your ass outside and around the block. Enjoy the brisk air against your annoyed face. Feel your body moving down the block. That’s your blessed body, the one that’s always carrying you through life with hardly any thanks. Thank it. Don’t make it sit in the same shape all day.

Walk around the block every day. This is non-negotiable if you have a dog, and even if you don’t. As long as we’re not injured or disabled, we all need to at least walk around for a few minutes every day. It’s free and easy and provides an instant energy boost. Even though I regularly jog a few days a week, some days when I’m inside writing, I feel like it’s too much effort to even walk around the block. Even though there was a time when I was severely injured and unable to walk at all and swore then that I would always appreciate how lucky I am just to be able to walk, I can still feel too lazy to go. We can do this. We can walk around the fucking block. If necessary, force yourself (see above).

Park further away from your destination; get off the train/bus one stop early; take the stairs instead of the elevator. You’ve heard these before. Today’s the day to try one.

Stretch during commercials. I’m working this one into my nightly “Jeopardy” habit. When the commercial comes on, I remind myself to stand up and stretch, roll my shoulders, bend my knees, remind my body that there are other positions in life besides seated. Even at your desk at work, even if you don’t stand up periodically (though you should), you can stretch your arms above your head, roll out your wrists and shoulders, stretch your neck.

Sustenance

This subject is so vast I’ll only ever scratch the surface, but the boil-down basics are: What you put in is what you get out. Your body can only build new cells based on what you feed it, in terms of both food and information. Consume a bunch of junk and it’s impossible to have thriving cells.

Food-wise, we already know what to do: Don’t eat too much. Avoid processed crap. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer animal products. Knowing it and doing are miles apart sometimes. But knowing is half the battle, right? (G.I. Joe!!)

Information-wise: this might be even more challenging because it’s more insidious. Information comes at us constantly, and we consume it automatically. When you see a headline, you read it without “deciding” to read it. It’s just information coming in. And we’re exposed to way more information each day than ever before — at least 34 gigabytes worth (sounds like a lot), and that’s just in our leisure time.

So watch your information intake, and like your food choices, strive for balance — not too much news, reality TV or social media; a healthy balance of intellectual stimulation and playful entertainment and a generous amount of time unplugged.