Verified by 
Self-care seems like a straightforward concept, right? Actually, there's a lot people get wrong about self-care (here are five misconceptions).
Pop culture has given us the impression that self-care is all bubble baths, face masks, and massages. When you understand self-care better, it becomes both easier to do and more effective.
1. Make delicious meals easier.
When we're exhausted, we often resort to either eating junk or repetitive meals we're bored with. Healthy, delicious meals provide sustenance and something to look forward to when you're working hard and/or stressed out. But preparing them is often more effort than we've got the energy for.
Find strategies that allow you to prepare interesting meals ahead of time. It's self-care if you allow yourself to prioritize those strategies ahead of other tasks. If you think I only mean cooking, I don't. You can be a little creative and resourceful.
This is a very specific example, but I'll share it to illustrate that your strategies should be specific and personal to you, not generic. A store that's a 17-minute drive from my house makes a dish with a sauce I love. I don't get it very often because a 35-minute round trip for food feels excessive, but it's a real pick-me-up when I do.
Once, I asked them if I could just buy the sauce. I could! Now, I buy a big tub of the sauce that lasts a week in the fridge and is enough for about four meals. The rest of the meal is easy (I put tofu, scallions, and red bell pepper in the toaster oven, along with the sauce.) Having four healthy, delicious meals ahead of me that are already organized is a stress reliever and happiness booster.
I know I could "meal prep" but that doesn't feel appealing or achievable. This other solution does.
2. Take a nagging job off your plate.
When there is a lingering task we haven't done, we often get thought intrusions about it—for example, you're driving down the road and you think, "I still haven't done that thing I need to do." Then the same thing happens two days later when you're sitting waiting for an appointment.
For the last 2-3 weeks, I've had two tasks like this. One was that I needed to order toner because we just put our last toner into our printer. The other task was that I needed to buy filters for our air conditioner vents. These tasks hadn't yet become urgent, and I had several dozen more important tasks on my to-do list, so I kept never getting around to these.
Nagging to-dos and the accompanying thought intrusions can be draining. It can be self-care to get a non-critical task done and off your plate so you can stop thinking about it and reduce your cognitive load. Sometimes you'll need to choose this over seemingly more important things.
3. Relax in a low sensory environment.
This example is the most similar to the stereotypical ones like massages and candle-lit bubble baths. Try relaxing in a low sensory environment. I did this last night. The rest of my family weren't quite ready for bed, but I was, so I took myself off to my bedroom and turned my lightbulb color to dark red (to mimic sunset) and the brightness down to 5 percent. If you're struggling to relax, providing these physical cues can help.
You can just lie there, which is what I mostly do. Or you can listen to something. One option I sometimes do is this five-minute self-compassion meditation. Sometimes I put my legs up the wall, restorative-yoga style. Or, you can just put your hand on your heart and feel your body heat.
Try taking a few slow breaths if you need some further help to relax and unwind once you're in your cool, dark room. When the room is cool, you can surround yourself with pillows and blankets for comfort, without getting overheated.
Having great blackout curtains or shades makes this easier. I live in Las Vegas, and mine are secondhand from when a five-star hotel was remodeled, and they're excellent for light blocking.
Low sensory environments are used in a variety of settings—for example, they're used to help people in labor relax enough that their labor can progress.
4. Five or ten minutes of stretching or strengthening.
When we're stressed out, we often hold tension in our bodies without realizing we're doing it. Yoga, meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation techniques can help us realize that and release the tension. But many forms of those can feel too intimidating or onerous. (I never want to stand in front of my TV and do an online yoga class when I'm feeling in need of self-care!)
Instead, you can find 1-3 movements that relieve tension for you. The banana asana, for example, can be a good one. Find a reliable way to get that physical sense of "ahhh" and instant tension relief.
Doing a few stretching or strengthening exercises can help you slow down for a few minutes, especially if you're not someone who can do absolutely nothing. Try clamshells, a seated forward bend, or a yoga squat. You can use accessories to help you. For example, I have a set of resistance bands that I bought for about $5 online, and I use a bath towel under my heels to help with yoga squats.
Functional strength and functional flexibility are essential for being able to do the activities we enjoy, especially as we age. However, if you put a lot of pressure on yourself to do long, frequent, or intense workouts, you can end up doing nothing. You can combine tips #3 and #4 and do these in your low sensory environment. Sometimes self-care is doing something you "should" do in a way that doesn't make you want to put it off.
5. Ice packs.
Heat and cold are used for relaxation in many cultures. And physical and emotional pain and tension are closely linked. You can reduce emotional tension by reducing physical tension. An easy way to do this is to use an ice pack. For example, you might ice your wrists or your upper back (around your shoulder blades) if you've been working on a computer all day. Or, if you've arrived home overheated from errands or sitting in the sun supervising kids' sports, you can put ice packs under your armpits to cool off.
Note that you don't necessarily need to use these self-care techniques regularly. Some of these I do sporadically. As long as you've got a range of tools in your tool belt, it's fine.
Self-care doesn't need to look like the photos in magazines or on Instagram. You can find your own versions that don't feel too onerous to do when you're already feeling exhausted, stressed out, and low on willpower.
LinkedIn image: takayuki/Shutterstock
Facebook image: Evgeniia Zakharishcheva/Shutterstock
