It's no violation in taking care of yourself and taking preventative measures in staying healthy. Self-care is when you love yourself by giving yourself the attention you need first before requiring or demanding someone else to give you that attention. I witness some folks having high expectations for others to treat them a particular way when they are not doing it for themselves. Why would you expect someone else to love you when your're not giving yourself the love that you need and deserve. We all need self-care to thrive and feel confident about ourselves. I’ve been on my self- care journey for a couple of years. Self-care has become a part of my daily regimen. I have a morning and night routine. My morning routine helps me to stay focused throughout the day to accomplish everything or almost everything on my to do list and my morning routine helps me to improve my attitude and my morning routine helps me to develop a positive sense of self. My night routine helps me to reflect on my day, restrategize and to get relaxed to enjoy a good night's rest. These are a few examples of self-care strategies that can help you live a balanced life.

Establish a Morning and Evening Routine. Having a routine helps break old habits to create better habits. Routines help you to have an organized day and it leads to structure. Being unstructured and all over the place opens up the door to chaos.

Set Boundaries - Understand and know your limitations. Don’t allow others to put responsibilities on you that’s beyond your control. Stop feeling like you have to please and satisfy everybody. People pleasing can lead to burn out. Sometimes the word no can be refreshing.

Spend some time in a quiet environment. Get away somewhere peaceful so you can have time to pray, meditate or think. Getting in a quiet environment allows your brain time to slow down. Sometimes our brain can be over stimulated. Cut off the radio, t.v., put your phone down and unplug for a 30 minutes to an hour.

Get Enough Rest. It’s important that we're getting proper rest. Your body will shut down and you will be susceptible to illnesses if you’re not getting enough rest. It's important to plan the time you wake up and the time you go to bed. Getting rest restores your cells, and getting rest gives your body time to heal.

Getting regular checkups and adhering to your doctor's orders. You should know what is going on with your body so you can make the changes to be healthy.

Exercise. It is recommended that you get 30 minutes of physical activity a day. Moving your body helps improve your mood, exercising moves your blood into different areas in your body and exercising is good for your brain health. Exercising can help decrease depression.

Join clubs, engage in recreational activities, travel. Having a social life is good for your physical health. Your brain releases serotonin and dopamine. When you are happy your brain works better. You are more creative, alert, and engaged when you are in a good mood. When you are happy, you tend to spread positive energy to those around you. Engaging with others and participating in some sort recreation, playing sports, fishing, volunteering just to name a few are great self care activities.

Lastly, practice self care with your family. Get the entire family involved. Having accountability partners makes self care more fun. Modeling self care to your children will give them the tools for them to practice self care on their own

The world of self care is awesome. There are tons of resources out here for you to step up your self care game. You have to be intentional about improving yourself so you can evolve and be the happier and better version of yourself.

I would love for you to comment your ideas of a great self-care activity in the comment section. Thanks for visiting my site.and reading this post. Check out the other stories on this site. Remember self-care isn't selfish.