20 ways to treat yourself

When I went to school, we did assignments on what we would do with all our leisure time when we grew up because computers were going to take over all the time consuming tasks including cooking, cleaning and earning a living for us. I remember distinctly writing about a world where we would only work 3 or 4 days a week and would need to find ways to fill in the rest of the week because our robots would be doing everything. Yes, I am that old!

Where did it all go wrong? Not only do we have less leisure time than ever, but many of us are on call pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The advent of mobile phones, laptops, tablets and the like have made many of us their slaves. We find ourselves running from place to place, appointment to appointment without a second to ourselves!

You know how they say fit your own oxygen mask before you fit the kids when you’re on a plane. That’s for a really good reason. If you can’t breathe, you can’t look after anyone else. How many lives are relying on your oxygen mask? Work, home, friends, family all put pressure on you sometimes, to the point of breaking!

You need to look after yourself! I’ll say that again - YOU NEED TO LOOK AFTER YOURSELF!!!!!!!!! You need to give yourself a treat….. .often!

Everyday I see examples of people - friends, family (mostly women but men too) who have run themselves into the ground, are stressed out of their brain and are suffering. The scary thing is, that all the while we are not looking after ourselves, our stress levels are climbing and our hormones (all of them including insulin and leptin and a whole lot of not so well known ones) are moving more and more out of wack. Because of this, we bring ourselves closer to developing long term chronic disease. It’s true!

One of our main problems is guilt. We feel guilty when we take time out for ourselves. The message here though is that if you don’t take time out now, you’ll be taking a lot of time out later when it really doesn’t suit.

So I’ve created 2 lists to help us to take care of ourselves. One involves a financial investment and maybe a substantial investment of time - maybe even an investment in a babysitter. The other one doesn’t.

The Wish List

Book a holiday to a tropical paradise or somewhere you’ve always wanted to go
Take a weekend away with the girls, the guys or just by yourself
Have a massage, facial, manicure or pedicure.
Take a class in something that’s always interested you - the history of your city or town, how to make mosaics, perfume making, drawing/painting classes,a barista course, another language, a wine education course, whatever turns you on.
Go to the salon and get a new do.
Buy 3 different types of the best quality chocolate you can afford and do a blind tasting on yourself taking time to sense the smell, texture and taste.
Hire someone to do a major clean of your whole house. Better still, make sure they come back every week.

The just do it list:

Go for a walk everyday - just half an hour. Look at the trees, plants, houses, listen to the birds.
Put on some amazing music - whatever your thing is - Chill, Miles, Classical, Opera, Disco, anything that takes you some place else. Preferably do this while sipping on a glass of something you like or a beautiful pot of herbal tea.
Take a bath. Put epsom salts in and 7 drops of your favourite essential oil, light a candle and just relax.
Go to a film…..on your own.
Get your thoughts out - write them down, record them, get them out of your head so you can better process them.
Listen to podcasts. Go to iTunes and have a look at what’s available in the genres you are interested in. Just a warning though, it can be addictive!
Spend a couple of hours at your citys’ art gallery.
Lie down somewhere outside, preferably somewhere nice and green, and look up at the sky and the clouds. Just for fifteen minutes - or half an hour!
Meditate. Unless you’ve meditated before, you have no idea how much this can centre you, recharge you, destress you and be generally good for your health.
Take half an hour each day to read a book - remember how to do that?
Make that book a travel book and go on a virtual holiday or learn about a new place.
Declutter your house. Doesn’t sound much like self pampering does it but it’s amazing how wonderful, cleansed and rested you feel after your done a bit of decluttering.
Body brush daily or do the Daily Body Boost - the video below show how and here’s a link to the beautiful Twenty8 site where you can find out more.