How to look after yourself: 12 prompts for self-care
How are you setting off into the new year? We know it’s not an easy time for many of you. We hear your stories of anxiety, exhaustion and stress every day. This was one of the reasons to launch a campaign around self-care in the weeks leading up to Christmas last December. Through #12DaysOfNurturing we provided 12 amazing prompts to enhance your self-care. To set you off on a good start in 2022, we are sharing all prompts in this post. You decide how and when you use them.
1. WIDEN YOUR GAZE
For nearly two years life has changed so much for us all, in different ways. In winter, when darker nights draw in, there is often a feeling of pulling inwards. We do this when we have been feeling unsafe for a long time, like little animals curling up somewhere warm and waiting for winter to pass. While at the beginning of the pandemic, we turned to our communities to help us, now people are feeling overburdened, exhausted and maybe a little abandoned.
Which is why we’d like to encourage you to widen your gaze again. Open your eyes a little wider and take in some of the things you’ve been shutting out.
You choose how you want to do this. Go outside and have a look for something you hadn’t noticed. Notice that someone has been trying to be in touch with you. Find a corner of your home and look at the objects in it, and think about the memories associated with them. Just taking us - for a moment - out of head-down, survival mode and into something more expansive.
“It’s when crisis hits - when the bombs fall or the floodwaters rise - that we humans become our best selves”
2. LOOK FOR THE HELPERS
Like we mention in our first prompt, in more recent months many people have lost their sense of being part of a community. We’re worn out, especially if you are an NHS or frontline worker, or caring for children alone, or needing support and not getting it. We have experienced a lot of grief over the pandemic and there has been little support from our wider society and the systems within them.
But still, people are out there trying to help each other. We’d like you to let someone know that they’ve helped you. You choose how you do it - perhaps a note, a small gift, a message or you might just want to bring them into your mind and say a thank you that way.
We at Make Birth Better would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to NHS staff and birth workers who are working so tirelessly and often with not only a lack of support but even criticism. We see you and we appreciate the work you have done for us all, not just now but always. You are what has kept us going.
3. REACH BACK OUT
It can be easy to forget that you’re not alone. Even when you feel you are, there are always people around to offer support and comfort. Sometimes not quite the support you need, but to hold you in their minds or offer a soothing word. People still care about each other.
Often, recently, we are not turning to each other because we are afraid of burdening people. We’re all aware that people are burnt out and tired, and low on capacity. But we also just need to know that we can connect, even if we’re not actively offering practical help and support. We humans are pack animals and knowing even that others are thinking about you can support our mental health.
So send a little message to someone that you haven’t heard from for a while. This might be checking in on a neighbour, maybe someone you helped or who helped you at the beginning of the pandemic. It might be just saying hello to a friend. Or maybe you feel like things have been a bit disconnected within your own family, and you’d like to check in on a child or partner.
4. SET YOUR BOUNDARIES
We don’t always think of boundaries as a form of nurture, but actually having clear boundaries can be a really clear way of protecting yourself, your energy and letting people know what you find acceptable.
We talk a lot about boundaries on social media but not always what they actually mean. Essentially, a boundary is creating a little fence between you and other people (and their behaviour or actions).
We know when someone has stepped on to our property uninvited, but we can be unaware that someone has encroached on our sense of self until too late! We also know when we’ve strayed too far from our own home, but we don’t always know how to get back home again.
Instead of writing a to-do list, think of writing a to-don’t list – this can help you truly decide on what YOU want, and to establish your needs. Think about how you might like to set boundaries with family or friends, or how you might be reducing pressure on yourself by setting boundaries about what you feel prepared to do.
5. THANK YOUR BODY
As we moved out of lockdown in England, one of the things we really noticed at Make Birth Better was that all of a sudden there was a pressure to ‘lose the pandemic weight’ or ‘get back to exercise classes’. So little regard for love and appreciation of our bodies and what they have been through!
Many of us have been unwell, physically and mentally, and if you are also carrying a physical or psychological trauma, it might be really difficult to connect again with your body.
So this prompt is just about saying thank you to your body and what it has got you through. Perhaps it has changed these past months, and maybe it’s OK to notice that and honour what it’s been through.
6. REST YOUR MIND
When we talk about self-care, and rest, we often focus on resting our body. But we can be lying in bed, and scrolling through difficult news stories on our phones. So our nervous system is still activated! Or we might be reading something absorbing which, although acts as a lovely distraction from normal life, still involves our higher executive functioning.
Real, restorative rest is really hard to achieve in our busy lives. So we would like to encourage you to do something completely mindless. You might want to choose to lie down and listen to some soothing music – we’re a big fan of binaural beats to absorb your mind just enough to rest – or you could choose a really relaxed meditation. If you’re someone who finds meditation difficult because your mind is busy telling you you’re meditating wrong, you could go for a mindful walk instead. Each time you notice your mind leading you elsewhere, simply pull it back into the present moment without judgement.
7. DANCE (OR SING) LIKE NOBODY’S WATCHING
Shall we have a little joy? Things have been so heavy lately, it can be easy to forget to bring joy and pleasure into our lives.
What’s your all-time number one favourite song? One to really get a smile on your face or to never fail to get hips wiggling. Get an upbeat song on and have a dance around the kitchen or a top-of-your-voice singalong? Spotify has lyrics for each song now so you could even do some family karaoke…
8. TAKE A MINUTE TO RESET
Our co-founder Dr Emma Svanberg created this video earlier in the year, but it is still relevant to us today. Sometimes we just need to let go of the many things we are holding tight to.
Do you reset during the day? It can be really helpful to add little pauses into your day, perhaps each time you go to the toilet, or every time you go to put on the kettle just stop for a few moments, close your eyes and ask yourself ‘Where am I? What am I doing? How am I feeling?’
It can help to put a sticky note up as a reminder – sticking PAUSE anywhere in your home or workplace.
9. SWITCH OFF
These past few months many of us have zoned out more than ever before, using our phones, laptops and TVs to quiet down stressed out minds.
While this can create a short term switch-off, actually it means that we don’t really get the opportunity to really consider how we are feeling. A lot of screen time can also play havoc with our mood and sleep.
At Make Birth Better we’re big fans of adding, not taking away. So instead of setting yourself strict rules about turning off your screen at 9pm or banning Instagram, how about adding in some screen free activities instead? Taking a walk in nature without your phone, using the radio instead of your phone for music, picking up a book when you’d normally switch on the TV.
10. SAY NO
We’ve said no to so many things during the pandemic, that over these past few months there has been such an urge to say a massive YES to everything. Now times are feeling a little more uncertain again, it can feel so hard to go back to saying no.
But is there anything you need to say no to, to be able to say yes to something just for you?
Maybe that ‘no’ is just to an expectation. What can you say no to, that will allow your shoulders to drop a little?
11. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?
A great form of self-care is taking some time to reflect.
If you’ve been acting on the previous prompts, is there anything that you’d like to remember? Any of our prompts that really stood out to you, that you want to make sure you carry forward into the coming days, weeks, months or year?
You may have only done one or two, but even so these little moments can make a difference.
12. WHAT HAVE YOU GAINED?
We have said it a bunch of times now: it has been a hard couple of years. And, for those of you working in the NHS, parenting with trauma, going through pregnancy and birth during a pandemic – just so tough. Of course, we need to make space for the grief and loss that we inevitably feel in different ways.
But perhaps we can also make a little space to think about what we have gained. Some of these are lessons we really wish we hadn’t learned, but perhaps we know more now about our strength. Our ability to keep standing up when we want to collapse. The solidarity of working in a team under immense pressure. The flexibility of learning we can’t control things. Ask yourself what you have gained and use it as your power!
This content is based on our 2021 Christmas campaign #12DaysOfNurturing which you can see on our Instagram feed here.