Concocting The Ultimate Self-Care Weekend

Whether it’s been a particularly hard week, your body is building up a checklist of aches and pains, or it’s simply been a long time since you spoiled yourself, sometimes you need more than just a long soak in the bath at home. Taking a weekend to slow down, reset your energy, and focus on what makes you feel good can help you reclaim your happiness. Here are a few things you should consider adding to that weekend.

Free Yourself Up Entirely

It’s not just your body that needs some pampering; your brain might need a vacation, as well. Begin the weekend with the intention of focusing fully on yourself as best as possible. This might include finding a sitter for the kids, a doggy daycare for the pet, and making sure that you don’t have work intruding on your relaxation time. Clear your schedule where possible, reduce obligations, and permit yourself to move slowly. You don’t have to set an overstuffed itinerary, just give yourself some plans to look forward to.

Book A Spa Day

How often do you really get a full spa day for yourself? The carefully designed space, luxury treatments, and manual care provided by a real spa like Spencer’s Spa are the big difference between a little self-care and a true investment in your wellness and emotional health. Choose treatments based on what your body needs most, whether that is muscle recovery, skin nourishment, stress relief, or simple indulgence. Arrive early so you can enjoy the full experience without rushing. Nothing helps get you into that mindset of deep relaxation like a good spa visit.

Spend Time In Nature

Nature is one of the simplest ways to make a self-care weekend feel grounding. A walk through a park, a coastal stroll, a woodland hike, or even quiet time in the garden can help clear your mind and reconnect you with the present moment. Fresh air, natural light, and gentle movement that doesn’t demand too much sweating can help you boost your mood and feel a little more connected with the world. Bringing a journal or a camera with you can encourage you to connect with the world around you in a more natural sense, as well.

Make Time For Mindfulness

Taking a little moment to slow the world down and focus on yourself can give your weekend the emotional reset it needs to truly rejuvenate you. Practicing mindfulness could mean meditation, breath work, journaling, stretching, prayer, or sitting quietly with a cup of tea. The goal is not to empty your mind perfectly, but to let your mind flow without rushing them or feeling compelled to find all the solutions to the questions in your mind. You might find that it grounds you a lot more than you thought, leading to a real mindfulness habit.

Your self-care weekend doesn’t have to look exactly like this. If you’d prefer something more active, something more precise, or otherwise, alter at will. Just make sure that you give yourself the time and space to really enjoy it.

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Key Health Habits To Commit To When You Reach Your 30s

Staying healthy past your 20s isn’t typically too difficult to do. After all, you’re still young! Even if you don’t feel like it! And with the accessibility of wellness tricks like a good diet and an early night here and there, you’re doing plenty of good for yourself as you go. 

But there are a few health habits you should think about seriously picking up once you’re in your 30s. If you do, your brain and body may have better chances of feeling just as strong and flexible in later life as they do right now. You’ll also feel much better in the short term too!

Plus, it’s always good to know you’re doing everything you can to take care of yourself. And when you put the hours in now, these habits won’t take anywhere near as much effort later on. 

So, what health habits should you think about committing to once you’re in your late 20s and early 30s? Here are a few key contenders for you to work into your lifestyle.

Always Attend Your Checkups

Your health should always come first. But we don’t just mean booking a visit to a doctor when you’re worried about something.  The checkups you’re supposed to keep up with throughout the year – dentist, eye test, yearly physical, etc – all need to be booked on time too.  They’re not just something to find time for when you’ve actually got some. They’re important to your long term health and wellness. 

If you’re overdue on a checkup like this, book your visit ASAP. And in the future, make a commitment to always clearing some space in your diary and getting these appointments fitted in. 

Get Lab Tests Ordered on Time

We all need to have a blood test done from time to time, as it’s the easiest and most in depth way to check for signs that something isn’t working quite right. And as you get older, getting these tests ordered and booked on time will be crucial to keeping an eye on your health.  Both you and your doctor can order lab tests, so it’s totally up to you if you want to get a closer look inside your body, or a certain system inside the body. 

Indeed, ordering biomarker tests can be a good way to check out functions of major organs like the heart and kidneys. An eGFR test will specifically investigate how the two interact, and help you get a bigger picture of how your health might change in the future. 

Similarly, blood tests can also be used to check your platelet count and serum levels, which can help to identify an immediate problem (such as an infection). 

Try Not to Forget to Stretch

Exercise is crucial for good health, of course. But many people can forget to keep their muscles loose and flexible too.  A stretching routine often gets left out of a fitness regime, and that’s something to focus on when you hit your 30s. 

If you wake up feeling stiff, you need to stretch. If you get cramps in your legs and feet after a day at work, you need to stretch. If your back aches when you’re sitting down, you’ll need to stretch out – as well as work on your usual posture.

Walk More Often

Walking doesn’t often get counted as good exercise, but it’s one of the best ways to make sure you’re committing to fitness on a regular basis. After all, most people are able to just get up and take a 5 to 10 minute walk around the block. 

And human beings are built for endurance, so walking is a good way to tap into that. Remember, our ancestors weren’t crossing huge plains of land by running. They were just walking!

Get a Bit More Fiber in Your Diet

Everyone’s focused on carbs and protein these days, but fiber is the thing your body probably needs most right now! Fiber helps your digestive system to process food properly, as well as move it down and out of the body without any trouble. In fact, eating enough fiber has been linked time and time again to a lower risk of colon cancer. Certain types of fiber can also help you to feel more full after eating, so it’s very good to try and include it in your diet. 

Ground Yourself in the Present

This is more for your mental health than anything else, but when you take care of the mind, the brain will take care of the body.  That’s why it’s often a good idea to practice mindfulness. Grounding yourself in the present makes sure you’re able to focus only on what’s happening in the here and now. 

It’s about keeping yourself tethered to the ground beneath your feet, and not letting stress and anxiety let your thoughts run away. Stay present, focus on your surroundings, and bring your thoughts back to yourself. 

If You Feel Dismissed, Advocate for Yourself

In any and all situations, if you’re feeling dismissed and like you’re not being taken seriously, it’s important to be able to speak up about it.  Learning the skills to do so can protect your brain and body from taking on too much stress, and this protects your health more than most other things. 

A Few Habits Now, a Lifetime of Wellness in the Future

Your 30s are a changing point in your life. When you leave your 20s and start feeling like a ‘real adult’, it’s the perfect time to commit to trying out a few more wellness habits to see you through.  Because it’s true that if you pick up a few habits now, you could create a lifetime of wellness for yourself – both in the present and later on. 

Take care of yourself by attending your checkups, understanding what’s going on in your body, keeping yourself grounded, making sure you stretch your legs, and being able to stand up for yourself when you feel something is wrong.

The post Key Health Habits To Commit To When You Reach Your 30s appeared first on SB Magazine.