January often brings New Year’s resolutions, colder weather, and more time spent indoors, with friends and family. During the winter months, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is triggered by a reduced exposure to sunlight during short winter days. That’s why staying healthy and self-care are so important not just year-round, but especially during the colder, darker months of the year.
Self-care comes in many different forms. It is tailored to each individual based upon your likes and dislikes. Overall, self-care is any healthy action that maintains a feeling of balance and wellness in your life. Self-care can look like fostering emotional self-care like journaling, meditation, and more, while other forms are rooted in physical self-care, like exercising, maintaining a healthy diet, and getting enough sleep.
Several benefits of self-care and maintaining a healthy lifestyle can include a reduction in stress, an increased well-being, improved health, personal satisfaction, and an increase in healthy relationships.
Here are some helpful reminders on how to
develop a self-care plan and what we can do to ensure self-care takes priority in our lives.
- Discuss self-care techniques with your family and create a family schedule
- Identify areas of self-improvement or a new hobby you may want to start this year and how you can accomplish these goals
- Ensure you have a support system so you can nourish and foster relationships with friends, family, and colleagues
- Maintain your mental and physical health and well-being. During winter, cold and flu season begin to peak. By
maintaining healthy habits, you can prevent you and your family from getting stick and staying healthy.
Self-care looks different from everyone. Some of the self-care reminders that we mentioned above may not work for you. But, by finding self-care actions that work for you, you’re on your way to being your best, healthiest self so you can take charge of the year ahead!