Self-care Leads to an Abundant Life

Why should you prioritize self-care? Is it just self-indulgence? What does self-care even mean. I want to layout reasons why doing yoga as self-care might be the most important thing you can do for your overall well-being.

First the definition of self-care. Choosing moment-to-moment to care for oneself vs destroying oneself.

When you prioritize self-care you are an abundant person.

I believe based on my experience that creating a daily yoga practice was key to making better moment-to-moment choices.

1.      Daily Yoga helps you slow down and prioritize your day more wisely

2.      Daily Yoga helps you think clearly and more long term for moment-to-moment decisions

3.      Daily Yoga increases your physical and mental fitness

In her book How Emotions are Made, Book by Lisa Feldman Barrett, she talks about the concept of “The Body Budget.”

She lays out the research she has done, and others have done on how to increase your emotional intelligence (EQ). The evidence shows that maintain a balanced body budget is key to increasing your emotional intelligence.

The body budget is also the key ingredient in how you feel at any given moment. The word feel here is mean to both refer to emotions and to your mood. If you want to feel healthy, happy, focused, in control of your emotions, resilient, etc, then you want to have a fully balanced body budget.

So how does the body budget work? It works by making small decision during your day to add to it.

 During your moment-to-moment life you make decisions that are adding currency to your body budget or spending currency on your body budget. Things that add to your body budget vs subtracting.

• Daily yoga creates space in your schedule for self-care.

• Daily yoga helps slow down and make moment-to-moment good decisions like the following ones.

• Yoga is exercise and depending on which practices you adopt can strengthen, move the blood, and build flexibility.

• Sleeping the 7 to 8 hours your body requires to repair its cells.

• Eating within a 12-hour window and not for 3 hours before bedtime.

• Eating nutritious food.

• Become aware if you are focusing your attention on things that make you feel hopeless or focusing your attention on things that inspire you.

  I hope that you use these tips to prioritize self-care and be an abundant person.