“Self-care” is the ultimate uberpositive buzzword of the moment. With all of the turmoil of the past few years has thrown at us, self-care has been thrust even harder into the spotlight, both as a heartless marketing tactic and as a genuine tactic for emotional resiliency. Self-care is about washing off your feet after a long, dusty journey. it’s not about avoiding the journey altogether. With that in mind, here are 11 ways to practice self-care to help reset your stress response and leave you ready and resilient to live another day in this crazy world of ours.

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Ways to Practice Self-Care

Grab Something Cold

This is the first of a few DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) exercises on this list, and it’s also one of the simplest and most effective. If you find yourself deep in your Slack messages, or reading the news with a hard knot of anxiety in your stomach, or doing really anything that makes you feel tightly wound and helplessly outraged or anxious, this is for you.

It’s simple: simply get up, get something cold, and let it hang out on your skin (preferably your face). The most effective thing is a cool wash cloth, but you can also simply run your hands under cold water or my personal favorite, rub a jade roller on your face. It works even better if you hold your breath while doing it, but please exercise caution when holding your breath.

The human body has a natural response to a blast of cold; your heart rate slows and blood moves from your extremities to your torso to help you conserve energy. It turns out that heightened emotional states, like anxiety and Facebook-induced outrage, have physical symptoms that are counteracted by this technique. Plus it feels really nice, and you can do it just about anywhere without embarrassing yourself or drawing unwanted attention.

Gentle Stretches or Exercise

In their awesome book Burnout (not affiliate), authors Emily and Amelia Nagoski explain that one important way to deal with a constant barrage of stress (you know, the one most of us experience daily), is to complete the stress cycle. Basically, what this means is, stress has a pattern that it must follow: trigger, adrenaline, physical release, rest. In the modern world, we usually have the trigger and the adrenaline, but rarely the physical release (we can’t deal with an asshole boss or customer by punching them in the face).

That means many of us have pent up stress hanging out in the form of tense shoulders and clenched jaws. In order to complete the cycle, we must release it, and generally the best way to do that is physically. In yoga, this idea is tied to the concept of prana or fire. If your limbs shake during a pose, it’s okay to let that extreme energy move through you.

Now, the release itself doesn’t have to be too extreme (though if you’re a run-seven-miles-per-day person, more power to you). Engaging in some gentle stretches or movement can help you complete the cycle, too.

Sit and Listen to a Favorite Album

This one is really easy, yet perhaps one of the hardest in a busy world. Find a favorite album – no inner judgments, just love – put it on, and listen to it. Don’t clean, walk, or do anything else, simply listen to it. You can dance or move if you feel like dancing and moving to the music. Otherwise, it’s just you and the album.

There’s a reason there’s an entire branch of therapy based on music. The power of music and psychology is practically metaphysical; it’s barely understood. Sound baths and ASMR meditation can be an effective way to calm yourself. In my opinion, real healing happens when you connect back into yourself, hence picking a favorite album.

According to a study published by Harvard Men’s Health Watch, even uptempo music has a calming affect, as your heart rate drops when the song or album is over. In other words, Cardi B will work just as well as “Cardigan” when it comes to reducing stress.

Write in a Journal

Journaling is a pretty well-known, well-documented, and well-traveled tool for self-care, but that’s because it works. You don’t even need to be a daily writer to experience the benefits; sporadic journaling can help, too. Perhaps it’s some combination of the physical sensation plus the straightening of your thoughts into a linear fashion. To up the self-care ante, go to a quiet place, and use a pen you like and a nice journal.

An important caveat to this: if you are spiraling or catastrophizing, it is best not to write about how you are feeling that moment. There is some evidence that writing about trauma in the immediate aftermath makes you feel worse emotionally, not better. In that case, incorporate a classic mindfulness technique and describe something you see in excruciatingly specific detail. This act of single-minded focus can really help ground you.

Stick to Your Routines

This is more of a long-term way to practice self care than a single-use strategy, but it’s one of the most crucial on the list. In the midst of deep grief, anguish, or trauma, engaging in your normal routing – even just the bare minimum – is crucial to feeling like “yourself” again.

Our daily habits and routines are actually in a different part of our brains than our conscious cognitive functioning. Doing your normal routine can help signal to your subconscious that you are still here, and you’re still living. Any depressed person can tell you the power of a shower on a bad day.

So walking the dog, making your morning coffee, doing your nightly skincare, these are all ways to signal to yourself that you’ve got this. Plus, many routines (making the bed, taking a shower) are ways that we care for ourselves and the environment around us. Anecdotally, I can’t tell you how many times my mental health has improved 50% just by taking a shower and changing into warm pajamas.

Guided Full-body Meditation

Meditation has many purposes, relaxing us, helping us sleep, increasing our mindfulness and awareness. Guided meditations are the best for even those who say they “can’t” meditate. With a guided meditation, someone gently directs your attention to the next thing, helping to keep your mind from wandering (though if your mind wanders during meditation, that’s not necessarily bad).

A full-body meditation can help you release stress being held in your body (see above) and is a great anti-insomnia technique if you need it. It provides a deep sort of relaxation that goes beyond vegging on the couch and truly seeps into your bones.  You can find a 20 minute one here, or a shorter one here.

Make Something

If you are noticing a pattern that altering or paying attention to our physical world can alter our mental health or mood – ding ding ding! You’ve reached the point of this article. One of the ways the Nagoski sisters recommend completing the stress cycle is to do something creative; that is, make something!

Making something encompasses a wide range of activities, and doesn’t necessarily require amazing creative genius. The simple act of creation is a reward in itself, and there is no room for harsh judgment in self-care. Cooking a meal that gives you comfort, handwriting a letter to a good friend, doing a paint-by-number or a puzzle, all physical manifestations of your creativity are worthy.

Fix Something (Physically)

Alone with making something, physically fixing something is a powerful way to prove your agency over your surroundings and therefore help you feel more in control and emotionally stable. Julia Cameron suggests mending the holes in your clothes to mend a snag in an artistic project.

As with mending your clothes, it doesn’t have to be building a new fence, or painting your whole house. Putting some WD-40 on a sticky doorknob, or changing a flickering lightbulb is enough. Not only do you prove your agency, you also improve your immediate surroundings.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

This is a very fancy phrase for “move your eyes back and forth for 30 seconds.” That’s about it. It sounds really bizarre, and scientists don’t really understand how it works, but it’s another DBT technique and it can be quite effective. It’s important to do it as fast as you comfortably can (key word being comfortably). You can even close your eyelids and move your eyes back and forth underneath if that’s more comfortable.

You can even “practice” EMDR. After doing it a few times, pick a mildly unpleasant memory, and think about it for 30 seconds. Then, do EMDR. If any additional thoughts or feelings come up during the EMDR, take note of them, but don’t dwell on them. Just let them pass. Do this 4 or 5 times for the best response to the memory.

If you suffer from insomnia (yay! twinsies!), or just remember awkward or unpleasant things at bedtime when you’d rather be sleeping, use this technique as a way to practice self-care. Take that awkward memory and use EMDR on it 4 or 5 times. It can help you fall asleep faster and more easily.

Practice Good Sleep Hygiene

Speaking of sleep, this is another one that’s more of an ongoing action rather than a one-time help. Sleep hygiene is, essentially, a set of behaviors that preserves the quality of your sleep. I’ve started charging my phone in the other room, and not only has it improved how quickly I fall asleep, it’s also improved how quickly I wake up and how I feel when I wake up.

Good sleep hygiene is not a failsafe method against insomnia. However, protecting your sleep is one of the most important ways to protect your overall health. While it’s not an instant magical cure, building these behaviors into your routine is absolutely a game-changer. A few ways to practice good sleep hygiene include: 1. reducing noise as much as possible (or using a white noise machine to reduce outside noise) 2. turning off screens an hour before bed time 3. no caffeine after noon 4. no naps after 4 p.m. While many of these things are easier said than done, making sleep sacred by creating a good sleep routine can go a long way.

Take a Nap

If you need a nap, take a nap. That’s it.

Read about napping as a radical act via The Nap Ministry

Connect with Someone

I personally have a theory that part of the reason there has been so much collective grief, outrage, and suffering since the beginning of the pandemic is simply because we cannot be together. It’s not only card-carrying QAnon supporters breaking lockdown rules; it’s also regular people who are genuinely doing their best but are just tired of being alone.

Biologically speaking, humans are social. Our very survival is predicated on our ability to form social bonds and survive together. But when a brand new, deadly virus is going around and we can’t be together, it naturally affects us.

This is where social creativity comes in. Don’t just text your friend to check on them, call them. Write them a letter. Have a big belly laugh with them. Be REALLY honest about how you are. If you live with someone, give them a hug for at least 20 seconds. In other words, take the time to connect.

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At the end of the day, these ways. to practice self-care aren’t just for you. It isn’t just so you feel better. It’s so you can repair yourself and show up for others in your community. In order to assist a toddler with an oxygen mask, you need to make sure you won’t pass out from oxygen deprivation first. It’s not selfish. It’s self-care.