Self-Care: How to Finally Make More Time for Yourself

Have you often set out to finally make more time for yourself and take care of your own needs? Take a relaxing full bath, read a book in the evening, meditate regularly, or maybe start a diary? But then everyday life overwhelms you, all the postponed to-dos, the endless obligations, and the stress at work. Your motivation to change habits sustainably drops faster than you can say "self-care."

But this is precisely where the key to your long-term well-being lies. Regular self-care is the greatest gift you can give yourself. How to change your habits permanently so that more space is created for "self-care," how you can learn self-care and establish it in the long term – you will find out in this post. There is also a podcast episode on the topic.

Ready to start your self-care routine that is one hundred percent right for you and your needs? Then enjoy reading and listening!

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde

Learning self-care: a little story

Learning self-care is a real challenge for most people. So, don't worry, you are not alone. Why it is worth it to overcome the initial hurdles is told by the following story, which also begins the podcast episode.

A lumberjack started his new job at a logging company and made a lasting impression on the very first day. After all, he felled a whole 18 trees. Of course, his foreman was thrilled with this result. He started the next workday with just as much motivation, but despite his efforts, he only felled 15 trees. Determined to improve his performance, he got up at dawn the next day to start work earlier. But to his disappointment, he managed to fell just seven trees.

The situation became increasingly depressing for the so ambitious lumberjack: The next day he felled five trees, and the day after that, only 2. Uncertain and worried about his rapidly declining performance, he feared to face his foreman. When they finally spoke, he assured him that he had worked until exhaustion. The foreman then asked him a crucial question: "When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" The lumberjack replied in astonishment: "Sharpen the axe? I didn't have time for that. I was too busy felling trees."

Do you recognise the powerful metaphor of the Argentine psychiatrist Jorge Bucay behind it?

There is always a lot to do, something constantly gets in the way. There is hardly any time to pause and for self-care. After all, bills have to be paid, and neither the kitchen nor the children's bottoms clean themselves. So instead of regularly sharpening your "blade" or simply leaving the axe lying around, you prefer to keep working. And working. And working. Until your performance rapidly declines.

The biggest problem with this is that such a gradual process usually goes unnoticed – like with the lumberjack in the story – until total exhaustion. You no longer notice that you are becoming a little less energetic and motivated every day. Often unconsciously, you go around with a blunt axe, even though you are still chopping off branches.

What do you feel when you read or hear this? Caught? Confirmed? Guilty? You don't have to. Because you have already taken the first, important step: Recognizing it. The second step: Sharpen your axe. How? The answer lies, as it should, in self-care.

Not new, but really innovative: Self-care in positive psychology

Self-care encompasses far more than me-time, a bubble bath, scented candles, and incense sticks. For many decades now, self-care has been the focus of empirical-pedagogical research. In psychology, self-care is defined as "treating yourself lovingly and appreciatively, taking your own well-being and your own needs seriously, and actively contributing to your own well-being."

By now, it has been scientifically proven multiple times that the right form of self-care not only significantly improves mental well-being, but also physical well-being.

Okay, sounds great, but how can you learn self-care now? How can you regularly sharpen your own axe through mindful routines and thus actively contribute to your own well-being?

Of course, there is no podcast episode or blog post without suitable practical tips. Self-care only becomes a lasting part of you by gradually integrating it into your life – despite all resistance.

According to a meta-study, "only" two, but very persistent factors prevent people from practising regular self-care:

• Perceiving it as too exhausting to build new habits – and thus change our behaviour in the long term, meaning more than just a few days.
• In stressful situations – when the child is crying, the stomach is protesting, the deadline is looming – thinking of everything except self-care.

Ready to change your mindset and bravely overcome the distractions? With the following three solution approaches, you pave the way to a more loving way of dealing with yourself.

Self-care: 3 Self-Care Exercises

With the following three self-care exercises, you can change your habits step by step and consciously take time for yourself.

Start small

Start with a tiny self-care routine. The more manageable, the more likely you are to stick with it. So instead of immediately going for walks for hours three times a week or meditating for 30 minutes every day, start with small steps.

• Just walk around the block for five minutes.
• Meditate for only one minute.
• Take a foot bath instead of a full bath.
• Listen to a short podcast instead of an entire audiobook right away

Sure, these few minutes obviously won't have huge effects on your well-being, but the associated feeling of success – similar to tipping over the first domino – creates momentum that nudges something in you and gets new forces going.

And boom: The desire for more self-care increases all by itself. This is partly why the 6-Minute-Journals, such as the Mindfulness Journal, the Gratitude Journal, or the Success Journal, but also the podcast you should listen to for self-care or our many other topics, are based on the 6-Minute-Principle.

Less is more

Starting small with your new habit is great, but if you do this approach with five things at once, meaning meditating, reading, walking, and so on for five minutes each day, experience shows that in the long run, none of it sticks. Therefore: Move away from multi-tasking towards single-tasking.

Bring exactly one great new self-care routine into your life first, and wait until it has become a permanent part of your life. Then you can start thinking about the next one.

Make a self-care list

First of all, ask yourself which pleasant self-care practice you want to start with. Maybe none comes to mind, or ten things immediately pop into your head. And this leads to the third solution approach – your personal self-care list, where you completely trust your feeling. To do this, write down at the beginning all the things that you know or think will do you good in everyday life and give you strength.

For example:

• Reading
• Keeping a diary
• a relaxing bath
• Going for walks
• Healthy cooking
• Digital Detox
• Breathing exercises
• Self-talk
• Fitness
• Power naps
• Meditating
• Stretching exercises

What is it for you? The coffee break or the good conversation with a good friend? Maybe even keeping a Sleep Diary? Be open, listen and hear what your intuition writes for you as a self-care list.

How-to Self-Care List

To find the ideal self-care routine that really suits you based on your list, you can use the following step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Feel your anchor

• Look at your previously created list. Take time to carefully consider each listed self-care measure and feel into yourself.

Step 2: Evaluate the activities

• Think about each activity: Does it put me under pressure just by reading it? Does it even feel like me?

Example: If your colleague completely switches off during the yoga class, but you only look at the clock during downward-facing dog, yoga might not be the right practice for you. Be honest. There are the right self-care exercises for everyone. The "self" should just not come up short.

Step 3: Select by feeling

• Start by crossing off everything from your list that doesn't feel good or doesn't feel like "you". Trust your feeling in doing so.

Step 4: Realization that individual approaches vary

• Keep in mind that according to research, there is no single self-care routine that suits everyone. Self-care is a very personal matter. Trust the process. Experiment if you are not sure.

Step 5: Trying it out

• By crossing out the less suitable activities and feeling into the points that feel right, you are approaching the practices that best suit you. Now start trying them out. Start small to see if these activities sharpen your inner "axe".

And don't forget one thing: Self-care can be a lot of fun!

Sources:

Dahl C, Dlugosch GE (2020) Besser leben! - A seminar on strengthening the self-care of psychosocial professionals. Prevention and health promotion 15(1): 27–35 10.1007/s11553-019-00735-2 via Center for Empirical Pedagogical Research. https://www.zepf.eu/selbstfuersorge/

Glowiak, Matt (2024): What is Self-Care and Why is it Important For You? Southern New Hampshire University https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/health/what-is-self-care

Riegel, Barbara / Dubbar, Sandra B.. / Fitzsimons, Donna et. al. (2019): Self-care research: Where are we now? Where are we going? International Journal of Nursing Studies, Volume 116, April 2021, 103402 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103402 Heal Berlin