Treat Yo'Self - Six Ways to Practice Self-Love this Valentine's Day

[I promise I’m not writing this post just so I can share Parks & Rec Gifs…Ok, maybe I am, but is that really a bad thing?!]

The season of LOVE is nearly upon us so what better time to treat the most important person in your life to a little loving - YOURSELF! Valentine’s Day isn’t just about making sure your nearest and dearest know how much you love them, it’s also a great opportunity to look out for number one, because how can you give love if you’re not looking after yourself?!

Self-love is such a cringe-inducing term, it feels so self-indulgent and bordering on selfish, but making time to show yourself a bit of love can have serious benefits for your wellbeing. What’s more is that you don’t have to spend a lot or give over a lot of time to feel those benefits, there are lots of simple things you can do to TREAT YO’SELF and feel good!

The Benefits of Self-Love

Boosts Your Self Esteem

Taking steps to look after yourself can help boost your self-esteem because it offers an opportunity to challenge negative beliefs about yourself and focus on being kind to yourself and recognising what you’re good at.

Lowers Stress

Self-love is one of the best ways to increase your resilience to stress, it can help you set boundaries and improves your self-awareness and confidence when it comes to deciding when you need to rest. Read more about the relationship between stress and rest here.

Boosts Feel Good Hormones

Practicing self love can trigger all sorts of “feel good'“ chemicals which help support your physical and mental wellbeing including dopamine (a motivating hormone that is responsible for feelings of pleasure, desire, and motivation to learn new thing), oxytocin (which promotes empathy, and also has a relaxing effect on the body which can help us manage stress and supports the sleep cycle) and serotonin (an important neurotransmitter which helps regulate mood and social behaviour, appetite and digestion, along with sleep and memory).

Improves Your Cardiovascular Health

The connection might not seem obvious, but practicing self-love can improve your heart health. It’s been suggested that higher levels of self-esteem might protect the heart by boosting the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) which reduces stress levels and lowers your heart rate.

Boosts Your Immune System

As well as reducing stress level the PNS dampens inflammation which can help improve your immune system.

Six Ways To Practice Self-Love

Practicing self-love doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming, there are so many simple things you can do to give yourself a boost and feel good, and the more you can work them into your routine the better!

Do What You Love

It’s a bit of an obvious one, but when you do things you love you’re probably going to be in a good mood and maybe even enjoy a little energy boost! Whether it’s running, swimming, meditation, reading a good book or just spending time with people you love, making time for what you love is great for your wellbeing.

Know When To Rest

There’s an equation that is central to all the work I do (and how I live my life) - stress plus rest, divided by awareness, equals energy.

Stress is an unavoidable part of life that we need to thrive. However, we don’t have unlimited capacity for stress and if you’re not getting enough rest then you might find that your tolerance for challenging situations can go down.

When you are tired the risk of injury and psychological breakdown increases so you need to rest to allow recovery and growth. When we’re rested we get more done, we’re more creative and we are happier. If you don’t rest you can compound the negative effects of stress and it becomes even more stressful as you feel like you ‘can’t’ do something because you’re burnt out. It can become a vicious cycle. So hear me clearly when I say REST IS NOT A LUXURY, it’s a necessary part of the human experience and a crucial part of loving you’self!

Get Outside and Get Moving

Something I’ve learnt about myself over the last couple of years is is that I’m at my best when I spend time outside in nature. If I’m feeling overwhelmed or anxious then getting outside and being amongst greenery will almost always help me feel more centred and a lot calmer.

Whether it’s a quick walk at lunchtime or a workout in the park, exercise encourages the production of endorphines, chemicals that make us feel good and that counteract the release of the stress hormone cortisol. What’s more exposure to natural light provides a boost of Vitamin D, which supports mood regulation.

Check out this post for lots more on what time outdoors is so amazing for you, and this post for why running is awesome for your mental health.

Get Writing

In their 2010 paper Wood et al. suggest that there’s a strong relationship between gratitude and wellbeing and that this link might be both unique and causal. How cool is that?!

One of the easiest ways to practice gratitude is by journaling or listing what you’re grateful for. It’s quick and easy, you don’t need anything fancy and it can quickly become something really enjoyable that has an amazing impact on your life. Here’s my advice for how to start a gratitude journal. Download my free Week of Gratitude workbook here to get started with your practice.

Sleep Well

My absolute favourite way to treat myself! Did you know that sleep is our emotional regulator? Every moment of every day we’re faced with emotional signals and sleep provides us with the mechanism to understand what those signals mean and helps us process them so that we can regulate the tone of our emotions and our response. If we’re not getting enough sleep then we don’t have the opportunity to process our emotions and that in turn affects our mood. Find out more about the connection between sleep and wellbeing here.

Laugh

When you laugh you get a boost of all those lovely chemicals that help support your physical and mental wellbeing and make you feel good. Watching a funny TV show or film, talking to a friend who makes you laugh or even watching cute videos on Instagram are all great ways to get a little more laughter into your day.