Self Care
Taking Time for Yourself
Self care can be preventative or a method of recovery from distress. Below are some tips from Mental Health America to help guide you on your self care journey. Some choices or changes can be very small, while others larger.
Taking Good Care of Yourself - Mental Health America
Below are some other methods of making time to take care of your body and mind.
Mindfulness Technology
There are a number of mindfulness apps available for the smart phone, apple watch, videos on youtube, and websites that can help you practice mindfulness. Here are some examples:
Guided Imagery or Visualization
Guided Imagery can allow your senses and your minds eye to travel to a time or place that is pleasing and calming to you.
Controlled Breathing
There are many different ways to used controlled breathing to change they way your body and mind feel. One example is shown in the image to the left. Box Breathing involves equal counts of breath for breathing in, out, and holding your breath in between.
In this example, one would breathe in slowly while counting to five. Next, you hold your breath for a count of five with full lungs. Then breathe out while counting to five. Finally, hold your breath after emptying your lungs and count to five. You would repeat this as long as you would like or need.
People can use different numbers to count to, five is just one example.