self-care

What is Self-Care and Why Should You Practice It? | Nadia La Russa

What is Self-Care and Why Should You Practice It?

Let’s Talk About Self-Care

I want to preface this blog post by making it clear that self-care is not the same as self-indulgence, or being selfish. Self-care is all about taking care of yourself so you can be healthy, and stay well before doing anything else.

Self-care has been a topic of discussion everywhere and it’s rightfully so because now more than ever, we all need a bit of self-care.

Self-care is part of how we cope with daily stressors, and it’s about taking steps to focus on our physical and emotional health needs. It includes everything related to staying physically healthy – which includes exercising, taking care of our personal hygiene, nutrition, and seeking medical help when needed. These are all the steps we can take to manage the stressors in our lives and take care of ourselves for our own health and well-being.

Self-care requires checking in with yourself and asking how you’re doing mentally and physically. It’s about listening to your mind and your body and giving yourself the rest you need. Self-care is different for everyone – some use it to deal with difficult news and others use it to maintain their happiness day-to-day. Self-care is not the same for everyone, and everyone has their own way to practice self-care. 

Why Practice Self-Care? 

Practicing self-care regularly can help you put your best foot forward. When we take care of ourselves regularly, we react to things better and handle situations healthier. It’s a great way to maintain a positive well-being. 

Engaging in self-care regularly can reduce or even eliminate anxiety, depression, and stress. It can improve concentration, minimize work frustration and anger and improve energy and so much more. From practicing physical self-care, it can help to reduce heart disease and other physical conditions and illnesses. By paying attention to yourself and your well-being, you are reinvigorating yourself so you can be the best version of yourself.

Different Types of Self-Care

Emotional Self-Care 

Self-talk. You read that right, talk to yourself. Ask yourself what you need and then give yourself that emotional support. Have a bubble bath, make yourself your favourite meal, take yourself to get your nails done, or read a book for pleasure. Whatever it is, there’s nothing wrong with pampering yourself. 

Another way to show yourself emotional self-care is by practicing how to say “no” when you need to. If you feel yourself getting stressed from work or other responsibilities, saying no to taking on additional tasks will help you set boundaries for yourself, and give yourself permission to take a pause, and breathe when things are getting too much. When I start to feel overwhelmed, I choose to meet up with a good friend or set up a virtual coffee date to chat and unwind. 

Physical Self-Care 

Prioritize your sleep. Sleep is so important for your body so be sure to give yourself that much-needed rest. Another way to practice physical self-care is by exercising. Adopting an exercise routine that you can stick to can help you out so much! It can be as easy as taking a walk or going for a run, or doing yoga. Choosing a healthy diet, eating healthy and picking nourishing food over processed food can also help fuel your body and your mind.

Spiritual Self-Care 

Unplug and spend time in nature. Taking some time out of your day to meditate, or write in a gratitude journal are some other simple ways to practice spiritual self-care. 

How to Start a Self-Care Routine for Yourself

  • Figure out which activities make you happy, replenish your energy and restore your balance
  • Start small by picking one thing you want to incorporate into your daily routine
  • Slowly build up to practice that one self-care activity every day of the week and see how you feel
  • Add an additional practice when you’re ready
  • Be sure to get support from loved ones, a licensed professional, or a coach

A few ideas to help you begin your self-care journey

  • Journaling 
  • Start your day by doing some breath work
  • Eat breakfast 
  • Put your phone down for 30 minutes and don’t pay attention to any notifications
  • Have a bedtime routine and stick to it

Self-care doesn’t have to be difficult. If practiced regularly, self-care can have a really positive effect on your health, but it does require you to invest in yourself. So ask yourself, are you ready?

In Health and Wellness,

Nadia La Russa

Click here to learn about how to keep your work-life balance when you work from home.

Click here to learn about how kombucha can benefit your body.

4 Benefits of Working with a Personal Coach

4 Benefits of Working with a Personal Coach

In each of our lives, there are inflection points, moments in which we have key choices to make in our careers or personal lives.  Perhaps you’re trying to decide whether to remain in your current job or return to school to obtain new training or a degree or even to take those special skills of yours and strike out on your own as a business entrepreneur.  Whatever the challenge, you don’t have to make these critical choices on your own.  There are skilled professionals who have the training and experience to help—personal coaches.

A personal coach will help motivate you and clarify your goals so you can make informed decisions and improve the quality of your life.  Personal coaches are skilled communicators and motivators with powerful people and organizational skills.  Although there is no specific degree program that directly prepares people to become personal coaches, most have experience in counseling, consulting, social work, teaching, or human resource management—and many have obtained specialized post-graduate training to enhance their effectiveness.

If you’ve never worked with a personal coach but are considering hiring one to get you from where you are to where you want to go, you probably want to know the precise ways in which a personal coach can help you.  Specifically, your personal coach will help you:

  1. Clarify your goals:  success is at the intersection of what you love doing and what you do better than almost anyone else.  A personal coach will help you identify those activities which energize and motivate you, and then determine from among these the ones in which you excel.  For example, you might be the person to whom everyone comes when they have a problem because they know you’ll be compassionate and have the skills to find a solution—but it might never have occurred to you that those people and problem-solving skills would make you a successful counselor or psychologist.  Your coach will not only help you identify your skills and competencies, but also show you what steps you need to take to launch a new career which better meets your needs.
  2. Stick to your plan:  one of the reasons people’s plans fall off the rails is that they encounter obstacles and eventually lose interest.  A personal coach will help you understand that those obstacles are part of the process of making progress and help you keep your eyes on the prize.   In those moments when you’ve experienced failure and begin to lose heart, your coach will remind you of how much progress you’ve already made and help you understand how much closer you are to your goal today than you were yesterday.
  3. Give objective feedback:  if you’ve ever shared a problem with a friend or family member, only to hear them tell you what they think you want to hear, you know how valuable unbiased feedback can be.  Your coach is there to ensure that you make progress towards your goals—when your coach evaluates the actions you need to take, he or she will do so objectively, providing an honest and forthright assessment of what you’re doing right—and what you’re doing wrong.
  4. Focus on you:  as much as those close to you want to help, they have problems and concerns of their own.  Your coach has a single-minded purpose—to help you.  You will always have his or her complete attention, unimpeded by his or her own concerns and issues.

Conclusion

Anything worth doing requires both hard work and a commitment strong enough to carry you through the rough patches and obstacles in your way.  By working with a personal coach, you will have a determined and constant advocate who will help you move outside of your comfort zone to face whatever challenges are in your way.   Personal coaching will enhance your personal development, help you achieve your career goals, and ensure you take the actions necessary to get you where you need to be, and where you want to go.

Want to find out more about Nadia’s take control coaching program? Find out more here!

Week 3 - Ants, Scoopy and Toilet Paper | Nadia La Russa

Ants, Scoopy and Toilet Paper – Week 3

Week Three is done. Wow, just wow.  I feel the days slowing moving by, and then the next thing I know, the days have flown by.  Life has slowed down here for us – finally. I’m absolutely loving this pace.  We had the chance to get into some really good conversations with the kids and have found out the insights from their viewpoints. Emerson, on his own accord, told us the other day “Life is easy here.”  Hearing him say that was a breath of fresh air.

This week’s adventures took us to Waterbom – Asia’s #1 rated waterpark, and #2 in the world. The kids had a blast.  The parents also had a blast relaxing in the gazebo and occasionally throwing food towards dripping children.  Of course, the immediate question as we were leaving was “can we do that again?!?” – so I’d call the day a success.

The boys and Andria took turns on the “flowrider” to hone the surfing skills, and we did a family ride down the lazy river. The day was absolutely amazing.

Our house is next to the Four Points Sheraton, and each night, we can hear music from their rooftop patio. On Monday’s, we have started taking the kids there. It’s usually a small crowd, maybe our group plus one other table, and the musicians have started including the kids in their sets.  I’m loving it, although every so often I get a twinge of “maybe Camryn is a bit young to be singing in a bar.”

As we settle into regular life here, I find myself getting used to certain aspects of life that I think would be strange to accommodate back home.

 

Ants. Holy moly, the ants.

These buggers are e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.  They are small, they travel in packs of 349,280 and the walk around silently, carrying of any food you are foolish enough to leave out.  They don’t bite or actually harm anything, but they are certainly not easy to get rid of.  I realized pretty much from day three here that I could either live in a cloud of Raid, or just deal.

So, all of the things go in the freezer. Chips, rice, cereal, fruit, everything. Zero things get left on a counter here. These guys will literally crawl inside a wrapped loaf of bread if you leave it unattended for more than a few hours.  I’ve gotten used to brushing them off my bed each night and wiping down the bathroom sink each morning.

 

I drive a Scooter

I rented a scooter this week.  What a difference a little mobility makes.  I think my mother is going to lose her mind at this one (sorry mom!) but the more time I spend here, the more I realize that the traffic moves relatively safely. So, I walked down the street and rented this piece of freedom:

Meet “Scoopy”

Scoopy and I did get ourselves into one itsy-bitsy traffic jam (see above traffic picture) but I just followed the rest of the pack – on to the sidewalk – and in a few minutes it was over.  No one actually drives at any amazing speed here, and I’ve learned that all you really need to do is keep track of what is going on in front of you, not hit anything, and everyone else does the same.

I bee-bopped from Seminyak to Canngu where I visited Made’s Banana Flour and had myself a little piece of heaven on a plate – fluffy, gluten free waffles.

It was AH-MAZING.

 

Toilet Paper

For reasons that I don’t quite understand, toilet paper isn’t a “thing” here really. They have it, but the more time I spend here, the more I start to wonder if it’s really just for the north American tourists.  The house we are staying in is fully stocked, but heaven help you if you leave the house without a partial roll with you.  Most public bathrooms are outfitted with this setup.  I can’t even begin to figure out how on earth I would even operate this, or what the rules are on it’s use. Just, no.

 

Since coming here, Brent and I have waffled back and forth between “this is awesome” and “what were we thinking.” Overall, its been an experience being here – one that I have definitely found enriching and challenging at the same time.

This week, we are heading on a snorkeling adventure – stay tuned!

Waking Up at 4AM is AWESOME

Why waking up at 4am every day is AWESOME!

I set my alarm for 4am every day.

Over the last two years, I have developed the habit of preserving my quiet morning time to meditate, pray, do a bit of yoga, read, or even mindlessly scroll through social media.  Most of the time, when someone new figures this out, I get one of a few canned reactions:

  1. You’re crazy
  2. I could NEVER do that
  3. Wow, that’s amazing, I wish I could do that.

Here’s the great news – you CAN. Everyone can.  And, although it takes getting used to, I’d never go back to the days of waking up straight into the morning rush-around.

Mornings can be pure evil

Why waking up at 4am is AWESOME!For many of us, mornings are pure evil. The anxiety-inducing buzz of the alarm, bare feet on a floor that feels like the polar ice cap, bleary, crusty eyes that only open halfway, and the endless trudge to the coffee pot (seriously, why does the walk to the coffee pot feel like running a marathon?). Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that you look, smell, and sound like a monster that just crawled out of the world’s deepest, darkest trench. To top it all off, your roommate/partner/spouse is a (gasp!) morning person. He or she seems to literally jump out of her bed looking like someone who just spent five days at a spa. They’re beaming from ear to ear, grinning like some kind of maniacal clown, going on and on about their incredibly detailed plans for the day–all the while singing and laughing in an insanely bubbly voice. As you respond to the endless babbling with a few caveman grunts here and there, you wonder how in the world anyone could possibly be like this every single morning. Although it’s hard to believe, there are a lot of morning people in the world, and following just a few of these tips could help you wake up a lot earlier with a lot less struggle:

Ease into it

Turning into an early bird isn’t going to happen overnight. You have to ease into it. If you normally get up at 7:00 am (meaning physically getting out of bed, not the first of seven times that your alarm goes off), don’t think you’re just magically going to start getting up at 5:00 am. Instead, aim for small goals–baby steps. Try getting up at 6:45 for a while, until it feels comfortable (you don’t have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like your roommate, but a bit more than barely functional is helpful). Once you are comfortable with your new time, creep it up another 15 minutes. Repeat the process until you reach your final goal.

Imagine

Imagine what you would do with your morning if you could wake up and hop out of bed without needing a gallon of coffee just to open your left eye (the right one takes another gallon). Let your imagination run wild–you could finish that book you’ve been reading for roughly two years, start a yoga routine, enjoy some early morning gardening, or even go for a run (okay, okay, let’s not push it). Whatever you imagine you could do with that extra time, let it be your inspiration.

Why waking up at 4am is AWESOME!Wake up to something pleasant

I’m not sure who came up with the idea that alarms had to be, well, alarming. Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to have the first thing you hear every day be a sound akin to someone hammering nails into your eardrums. None of us like waking up wondering if the house is on fire or if that’s just the alarm clock. So find an alternative. Ditch that vexing old alarm clock and try something new. Waking up to music can be very pleasant, or check out some nature sounds apps–you could be waking up to the sounds of rolling waves on the beach rather than a five-alarm fire.

No more excuses

As we talked about earlier, this isn’t a change that is going to happen overnight. There are some days that are going to be much tougher than others–days when you’ll want to give in to temptation and start beating on that snooze button. You’ll justify it with excuses–it’s so cold, I was up late last night, I don’t feel like making coffee, there’s nothing to eat for breakfast, I have so much to do and it’s going to be a bad day… In order for this new morning schedule to work, you have to make it tougher to find an excuse. Put slippers near your bed to combat your icy floor, program your coffee pot the night before (not only will it be piping hot and ready when you wake up, the smell will make you hop right out of bed!), prep simple breakfast foods (cut up fruit and store it in the fridge, stock up on yogurt, pour single-servings of cereal in small Tupperware bowls), and get organized. It can be tough to get up when your day feels like a hot mess before you even open your eyes–even a simple list of the things you need to accomplish each day can help. Write it out the night before and stick it on the fridge to help you feel less frazzled in the morning.

Keep a log

Although the actual getting-out-of-bed part is going to be hard, you’re going to notice a lot of benefits once you start waking up earlier. You’ll feel less stressed, you’ll be able to take your time, you’ll be more productive, and you’ll eat a better breakfast. Keep a log of all the changes (even tiny ones!) that you notice as you start the process of waking up earlier. Keep track of how much you get done in the first few hours of your day as opposed to how productive you were when you slept later. You’ll be surprised at how much of a positive impact getting up a little early will have on your life.

It takes perseverance

Changing your sleep pattern to wake earlier isn’t an easy thing to do, but it can be done with a little perseverance. There are many benefits to being an early riser–according to Forbes magazine, early birds are more enthusiastic, better problem solvers, better planners, more productive, more optimistic, in better shape, and get this–they sleep better (research shows that people who go to bed earlier and wake up earlier get more restorative sleep). So while you are adjusting to your new wake-up time, just remember all these benefits and keep imagining what you’re going to do with all that extra quiet time.

See you in the morning!