The Value of Self-Care & Exercise

The Value of Self-Care & Exercise

There are a lot of great motivational books, TED talks and resources out there to help improve your life but none of them can compete with self-care.

A big part of self-care revolves around your health and fitness and when you focus on taking care of yourself, it will allow you to give your best for your work and the people you care about.

Here are 4 ways to practise self-care.

1.Focus On Exercise To Improve Your Mood & Sense Of Well-Being

Self-care starts with just being able to just feel good about yourself and this can come through exercise. There are a lot of physical benefits that come with being active, but with self-care, they will revolve around your mood.

Exercise releases endorphins which are the happiness chemicals that improve your sense of well-being and give you a serious mood boost. This will have a positive impact on your relationships because as your mood improves it makes people want to be around you more.

If you are feeling too stressed and run down, you may not be the friendliest person to be close to. You can change this however with exercising. It doesn’t even have to be too complicated as just taking a brisk walk can elevate these happiness chemicals and help build better connections in your personal life.

When you feel good about yourself, it’s easier to let others in. It also allows you to feel more productive and this can be important for career development.

2.Being Active & Healthy Helps For Better Time Management

If things are going to develop in your career, then you need to be on top of your scheduling and time management. When you commit to self-care such as health and fitness, and some downtime, you need to commit to planning and arrangement. These things need to fit into your day, and by committing to prioritising them, it will have a carry-over effect to using the rest of your time efficiently.

Even in your personal life, you’ll learn how to set aside more time for the people important to you.
Do you notice how lazy people end up having days that are unstructured and leave them feeling unfulfilled? It’s because of this lack of planning and structure. Over time it can lead to you feeling more run down and worse about yourself and less likely to want to spend time with others.

Your self-care takes some work and developing routines and discipline for health, exercise and self-care will influence you to make better use of your time.

3.Improve Your Health & Improve Your Brain Power

When you want to achieve more, and develop your career, you want your brain working at full capacity. When you focus on self-care — specifically exercise in this case — you will help to enhance it. Engaging in regular exercise will boost your cognitive function and allow for better focus, concentration, critical thinking, and more constant ideas.

I bet those are all things you could use to help in your career development. The best thing about this is things like exercise are free. You don’t have to invest in any in-depth courses or “brain power” books to see these results. It’s right there in your own body and available to you any time.

4.Lower Your Stress Levels

Stress is the bane of our lives. It overwhelms and grabs hold of us and is hard to shake. It affects both our personal and professional lives. You’re never going to eliminate all stress but you can learn to manage it better. When you get better control of your stress, it helps you to function at your best.

Chronic long term stress can turn into some severe issues in the body and will affect your ability to get things done. It will also cause problems
in your personal life as you are not able to give your best.

Stress management can be the key to improving your life and avoiding the pitfalls that come from a rundown body. Exercise is one of the obvious forms of self-care to help manage stress as it will help you better relax thanks to those mood-boosting chemicals. You will also boost your immune system leading to less sick days and time spent run down and overwhelmed.

If you’re laid up in bed because of illness due to stress you’re not going to be much good for anyone.

This is where you also want to make sure you give yourself some self-care in the form of relaxation to recharge your batteries. When times of stress hit, make it a point to get more sleep as this is when your body will burn off those stress hormones. It also is a good idea to focus on deep breathing, or some meditation, to keep your body, and mind, calm and relaxed.

This might not feel like a natural thing for you to do, but you need to pay real attention to it. Don’t feel like you’re being lazy or unproductive as it’s something that needs to be handled properly. When you make it a point to deal with stress head on it’s a true form of self-care that will have payoffs in your personal and professional life.