How you Can Incorporate Self-Care Into Your Holiday Season

By Jody Bell

Self-care is more important than ever this holiday season. Many people are unable to see their extended families, have adopted tight budgets due to financial strain, or in general aren’t feeling very merry. With a pandemic, economic crisis, and political unrest, it’s normal to feel a bit deprived of the holiday spirit.

That being said, it’s more important than ever that we are taking time to support ourselves and prioritize self-care during the holidays.

Jennifer Openshaw, CEO of Girls With Impact, sat down with model, self-care activist, and CEO, Danika Brysha to discuss this. Brysha has devoted her life to adopting and sharing self-care tips that can be incorporated into your daily schedule and mentality.

Over the holiday season, try to follow her advice to have a healthy, relaxing, and reflection-filled break.

What is Self-Care?

In short, self-care is a deliberate action that is intended to help our mental, emotional, or physical well-being.

While the concept is simple, a lot of people don’t actively invest their time into self-care. They’ll sleep a full 7–8 hours at night and pat themselves on the back believing that was their self-care activity of the day. In reality, basic human functions like a good sleep schedule and balanced diet are the absolute bare minimum of self-care.

You must actively be making time for yourself to engage in self-care. Whether that’s scheduling time to reflect on the day, writing a letter of gratitude each morning, or giving yourself an extra few minutes in the shower to put on a face mask and pamper — these are all self-care activities.

The key is a schedule. Once you have a schedule that incorporates self-care, you are going to be forced to make time for yourself — even on a busy day. This is crucial, as self-care must be consistent and a schedule is the best way to achieve that consistency.

Doesn’t Self-Care Take a Lot of Time?

While scheduling self-care into your day may feel like a waste of time, it’s actually the opposite.

As Brysha says, “Self care doesn’t take time it makes time.”

In fact, self-care has been proven to boost productivity. Once our emotional, mental, and physical needs are met, we are able to stay on task much easier. Not to mention, the actual time devoted to self-care is fully customizable. You don’t have to spend hours meditating each day — an hour of self-care is more than enough to see the positive benefits!

Making a Schedule That Incorporates Self-Care

Brysha recommends incorporating small acts of self-care throughout the day.

For example, right when you wake up try to go on a quick walk and reflect on how much you accomplished yesterday, and what you need to do today. Then, around mid-day, practice some gratitude, or say affirmations to yourself in the mirror. At night, try journaling or writing down how you felt throughout the day. Each of these actions takes only about 10–15 minutes, and targets different aspects of self-care (productivity, self-esteem, and emotional consciousness). In the long run, this commitment of less than an hour a day could lead to you being a happier, more confident, and more productive, person.

Check out the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL3QyQZKhC11UHmlnjibnLf-t2XVf1zC8T&v=hXyByRZ0o5A&feature=emb_logo

Jody Bell, 19, is Girls With Impact’s Chief Editor and a program graduate. Girls With Impact is the nation’s only online, after-school, entrepreneurship program for teen girls, turning them into tomorrow’s business leaders and innovators.