Self-care!
A very important aspect of this 80 Day journey (any transformation journey really) is knowing how to take care of ourselves, mentally as well as physically. Whenever you introduce new challenges to your daily routine, it can show up in your body as stress - hormonal changes, energetic fluctuations - and we all know that we need to manage our stress levels as best we can.
So, I am here to share with you, on this Sunday afternoon, some amazing self-care strategies and activities!
1. Get a Massage: a good massage will help draw out some toxins that are lying deep in your nervous and muscular systems. This will not only leave you feeling incredibly relaxed, it will help ease out the symptoms of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) which will leave your body in a much better condition to handle the physical challenges of the week to come.
2. Take a Bath: make it hot and add some Epsom Salts! Epsom Salts draw toxins completely out of your body. The combination of a massage into an Epsom Salt bath is to die for! You may feel a little light-headed once you come out so make sure that you drink plenty of water and allow yourself to just lay around a little afterwards.
3. Stretch: practice some gentle yoga, foam roll, allow some tightness to release from your muscles. Foam rolling can be very uncomfortable but it is necessary in order to help ease out the bunched-up sensation of the big muscles in your body that have been working hard, particularly the hamstrings, quads and glutes. Releasing this tightness will help with any strain sensation that you may be experiencing in your lower back and hips.
4. Drink Water: hydrate, nourish and replenish the electrolytes that we lose through sweat and prolonged physical activity. The H2O will hydrate all the way down to your cells which will only have incredibly healing effects on your internal systems as a whole.
5. REST: quality sleep is essential to your self-care routine. Don't set an alarm, allow yourself to sleep-in, take a nap in the middle of the day, go to bed early. All of your physical exertions are assimilated by your body during it's hours of rest so if you want to see those changes, adequate quality sleep should be a top priority.
Get to work! Pick one day in your week that you dedicate some time to doing things that replenish not just your body but your mind and your soul. Yes it's important to do the work necessary to get the results you want but, in order to stay in it long enough to get these results, you have to engage in all the self-care activities!
Enjoy.
Sabs xxx
