Self Care From Head to Toe

by juliamemphis · Published September 18, 2019 · Updated September 18, 2019

Let’s face it. You’re exhausted and stressed out. There’s never enough time to go around. You’re on an endless hamster wheel of items to do. You need a comprehensive plan of self care from head to toe. Your plan needs to address your mental and physical health.

Mental and Physical Health Can Benefit Each Other

It can sometimes be difficult to properly manage your time in such a way that you’re able to work on both your mental and physical health. It seems that sometimes they don’t really work well with one another.

However, they’re more similar than you might think, and by working on one, you can actually greatly improve the other at the same time. Everything in your body is connected, and that includes your brain.

Your mental health can have a direct effect on the rest of your body, and your physical health can have a direct effect on your mind and mental well-being. If you let one deteriorate, the other will follow suit.

However, this also applies to improvements, meaning that if you’re able to develop better physical health, you can easily develop better mental health. As you improve your mental health, you’re likely relieving stress and relaxing quite a bit.

This can have a ton of positive physical effects on your body. By ridding yourself of stress, you’re far more likely to lose weight, eat healthier, and stop experiencing things like aches and pains.

Stress can have a ton of negative effects on your physical health, so by controlling that mentally, you’ll see improvements in both categories. Similarly, as you eat better and become healthier, your body will release endorphins that can make you have a better, more positive outlook on life and help you feel better in general.

Exercise and physical fitness can also make you happy by seeing progress and results, releasing dopamine knowing that you’re making positive strides towards a better physical appearance.

While you can’t always try to work on both your mental health and physical health every single day, you’re doing a bit of good for both by just taking the time you need to do one.

Don’t worry too much about trying to get everything balanced and spending more time on your health and less time doing the things you like, because you’ll just end up getting stressed out and undoing all of your hard work.

It’s okay to miss a workout, and it’s okay to take an extra mental health day. You’re not going to fall behind by taking a bit more time for yourself or some more time to do other things that you want or need to do. As long as you don’t stop your efforts altogether, you’re going to be just fine.

Above the Shoulder Self Care Tips

Your head is one of the most important parts of your body for many reasons. It’s the part of your body that allows you to think and process emotions, and because of this, it’s important to maintain a good sense of mental health and emotional self-care.

Your head is also important because it’s the part of you that people most often see – your face, ears, eyes, mouth, and so on. Maintaining good physical care of your head is just as important for you as the mental self-care and it actually contributes to you feeling confident and happier when you look in the mirror and present yourself in society.

Facial skin care is a very delicate thing. Many people hate getting pimples or red spots on their face, so it’s important to be able to properly nourish your face to avoid getting any blemishes.

It tends to be more difficult than the rest of your body to maintain in terms of skin care, but it shouldn’t be too difficult in the long run. The first important step to good facial skin care is cleanliness.

You should be washing your face fairly regularly, at least whenever you wake up and whenever you go to bed. You can buy cleansing scrubs to use that will help get rid of any unwanted oils and contaminates that might lead to blemishes.

You can also use a face mask every now and then to help deep clean your pores and keep your face looking clear and clean. Another aspect of this would be taking good care of your hair.

Some people suffer from greasy hair, dry hair, split ends, and even dandruff. You should be using a shampoo that not only helps with your particular issue, but also conforms to your level of sensitivity.

Some people are fine with harsher shampoos, but others might need something softer and more delicate for their heads. You should also not forget to properly condition and dry your hair, which can make it much smoother and nicer.

Finally, you should be taking good care of your brain through mental self-care. Work something into your daily routine that allows you to sit back and relax to take your mind off of any stress factors that you might encounter throughout the day. This can be key to maintaining a positive mindset and outlook.

No matter what it is that you choose to focus on, you shouldn’t abandon the other aspects at any point in time. Just because you’re able to focus on one part of your self-care doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give the other parts a little attention as well.

Treat Your Torso Right with a Strategic Self Care Routine

Your torso is an extremely important part of your body. So much important stuff is harbored here: your heart, your lungs, your digestive organs, your arms, and so on. There’s a lot going on in this part of the body, so you really need to treat it right in order to maintain a long, healthy life.

This includes internal organs as well as things like muscles and bones. First, you need to take care of your heart and everything involved with it, also known as your cardiovascular system.

When you exercise this part of your body to keep it functioning, this is simply known as cardio. If you’re not already aware, cardio involves getting your blood pumping and heart rate up, usually by running.

Cardio can be absolutely necessary to maintaining a good and healthy heart. It can help you avoid running out of breath as easily and can also help your lungs. Another important component of the torso is your digestive system.

This includes your stomach, intestines, and more. In general, we tend not to think about our digestive systems, but you should certainly be paying attention to yours. Without proper diet, not only will you gain weight excessively, but you’ll also end up having trouble with bowel movements, also known simply as constipation.

This can be a minor annoyance when you’re a young adult, but as time goes on, it can be a serious complication. One part of your body that you might be prone to having problems with is your back.

Your back is one of the more sensitive, but also important parts of your body. A bad back can completely immobilize someone, so maintaining a healthy back is very important.

Most notably, you should be maintaining good posture and stretching regularly to avoid the chance of any potential injuries. Of course, there are a lot of muscles in your upper body.

Your chest, biceps, triceps, deltoids, laterals, and more are all housed here. While it’s not expected for everyone to be all bulky like a bodybuilder, working these muscles out definitely helps maintain your body in the long run.

If they don’t go to use, then before you know it you might be struggling with things like lifting up slightly heavy objects. In general, it’s just a good rule of thumb to use parts of your body regularly to help them avoid getting stale and out of shape.

Your Legs Support You So Return the Favor

You might often go through life underestimating just how important your legs are for you, up until a certain point. Usually, this is when your joints start to hurt, and moving around isn’t as nice or easy as it used to be.

Depending on how well you take care of your legs, they will last you a lot longer in life than if you neglect their care and put a lot of stress and wear and tear on them. First, you need to understand how to take care of your joints.

Your joints are typically the first parts of your legs that will fail you, such as your ankles, knees, and your hips or pelvis. To maintain good care of your joints, you want to have a more active lifestyle.

Sedentary lifestyles can lead to your joints becoming weak due to a lack of use. You’re definitely going to want to remain active if you want your joints to stay strong. Another important aspect of taking care of your legs is, of course, regular exercise.

Not only does this keep your joints strong, but it also increases blood flow and circulation in your legs, ensuring that they stay healthy. Running and jogging will keep good circulation running through your legs, decreasing the chances of any possible injuries or anything like that in the future.

Working out your legs can also help increase their longevity, but you have to be careful. If you work out with your legs incorrectly or push them too hard, you can actually end up damaging your joints or muscles.

But as long as everything is done correctly, you’ll be fine. There are tons of exercises that you can do to make your legs stronger and more toned. For example, many people like to do squats.

This develops a ton of muscle around your quadriceps and glutes, making it a very efficient method of building muscle on your legs. There are also a ton of machines that you can find at gyms to help you work out your calves, hamstrings, and even your hip abductors and adductors.

Whatever you choose to do, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re regularly taking care of your legs by rolling them out after an exercise using a foam roller, and even possibly getting leg massages. This helps decrease the amount of soreness you feel afterwards.