Self-care in 2022
Happy New Year! Every holiday, beginning with Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas, to ringing in the New Year can seem like a blur. Maybe it’s all the sweets, candies, sugar, desserts, snacks, and so forth. Maybe it’s all the commercialism. Either way, one’s head might still be spinning from all the activity.
Getting through the holiday season can be a bit overwhelming, and time-consuming, and sometimes dizzying. It can be a time of the year when one tends to engage in a little too much self-neglect. With all the planning, shopping, preparing, cleaning, traveling, visiting, overeating, and (for some) drinking too much — who has the extra time for self-care?
Did you get enough sleep during the holidays? Did you eat healthy meals? Did you get some physical exercise? If not, you are not alone. Most people report being just a little too busy and a little too preoccupied and a little too tired or stressed out to stay on their regular routines. During the holidays, there is just not enough time and energy to do everything.
It’s easy to spend too much attention on everything else, and not enough attention on taking better care of oneself. Now that we are into 2022, one can see the need for rest, relaxation, recuperation, diet, and exercise. Now is the perfect time for a little tender-loving self-care. Now is the perfect time to stop and take stock in one’s physical health, one’s mental/emotional health, and one’s happiness.
Before 2022 gets too busy and before we start filling up our schedules with appointments and meetings and too many “things to do,” why not take a day or two to meet a few of your own needs first? Why not do your own head-to-toe assessment? Why not pamper yourself for a change?
The beginning of a new year is always a great time to examine, to brainstorm, and to plan. Here are a few simple suggestions to help get you started.
• Get a physical exam.
• Have your teeth cleaned.
• Everyone relax.
• Regain a sense of personal self-control.
• Eat healthy today.
• How about some moderate exercise?
• Practice anger management.
• Forgive someone.
• Picture one thing in your life that is positive.
• Let go of one unrealistic expectation.
Make a point to begin this New Year seeking out more fun and creative ways to be good to yourself. Avoid the temptation to allow self-neglect to get the better of you. And as one author puts it, “You are not only as young as you feel, you are also as young as you do and think.”
Be well, and best wishes for 2022!
