Are you stressed out, anxious, or overwhelmed and looking to practice more self care? While there are many areas of self care, I’m sharing 5 ways to practice self care through nutrition.
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In times of stress it is important to reflect back on what you need and participate in self care. Without it, we can quickly become overwhelmed with what is going on and spiral down into depression and/or anxiety. As I have talked about before, there are many different ways to practice self care.
How one person chooses to relax, reflect and recharge might be completely opposite from someone else. That’s why it’s important to not just look at a list online telling you how to do self care, but to actually dig deep within yourself and find out what it is that helps you positively refresh and reconnect.
In addition, there are different areas in which someone might choose to practice self care, including physically, nutritionally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, psychologically, environmentally, and even financially. As this is a nutrition focused blog, today I am sharing 5 ways to practice self care through nutrition.
As always, keep in mind that what I list below might not work for you – and that’s okay! These are just tips and general guidelines to give you some ideas of how you can incorporate better nutrition into your self care routine.
5 Ways to Practice Self Care through Nutrition
Listen to what your body needs (and wants)
Honing in to what your body really needs can be tricky, especially if you have gotten out of touch with your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. Sometimes we can lose sense of what our body actually needs because we turn to outward signals telling what and how much to eat. For example, you must eat everything on your plate, or you have to eat because everyone else is eating.
Finding your way back to intuitive eating can sometimes be a long process, but it is totally worth it! Giving yourself permission to eat whatever you want, whenever you want and how much you want can be really freeing.
At first, people are usually afraid they’ll go crazy bingeing on junk food, but the truth is you will eventually tire of eating that way day after day.
You body will come to naturally crave healthier foods – if you are really in tune to know and feel it. With intuitive eating you know you can have a cookie or two if you want and not eat the whole batch.
You can also eat some broccoli and hummus for a snack because it makes you feel good. Both are totally fine and acceptable.
Basically, what I’m saying with this point is to follow a healthful eating pattern but don’t restrict “bad” foods. There are no good or bad foods – just food. Overall, eat food that will nourish your body but if you are stressed out and want some chocolate – go for it.
Self care through nutrition is giving your body both what it needs and wants.
Choose a Variety of Foods
Part of the reason I love food so much is because there are so many ways to cook and eat it. Eating the same food meal after meal, day after day gets boring. Including a variety of foods in your eating pattern will not only bring diversity to your meals, but different and complementing nutrients, as well.
When you eat only a small variety of foods, you are missing out on so many flavors, textures, and nutrients in foods! There is no single food that has all the nutrients you need (with the exception of breastmilk for babies). Getting a variety of foods is good for your gut health, too.
Choose every color of foods. When I say eat the rainbow, I don’t mean Skittles. I mean mostly fruits and vegetables. But that’s not all you should be eating.
Lean meats, poultry, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, dairy and healthy fats (see below) can all fit into a balanced diet, as well. Try to include variety in your meals and snacks each day.
That’s not to say you can’t have broccoli every day for a week (you know what I’m talking about if you buy the big bag from Costco). But remember variety is the spice of life. So keep your life spicy.
Eat Regularly
Spreading your meals and snacks throughout the day is a great form of self care through nutrition. Eating regularly will help keep your metabolism going, maintain steady blood sugar levels and prevent you from bingeing later in the day.
When your body goes for long hours in between eating, it becomes drained of energy, fatigued, you get brain fog, and become hangry (and nobody likes to be hangry).
I am a big snacker and love to grab something to eat in between meals to help stave off hunger. You can check out my healthy snacking formula here for some snack ideas. You can also browse my blog archives for breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas, too.
Meal and snack time doesn’t have to be a big production. Keep it simple if you want or go all out. It’s up to you. Just make sure you are keeping your fuel tank full.
Add Healthy Fats
Fats do more than just add mouthfeel and flavor to foods. Fats, specifically the polyunsaturated fats omega-3 fatty acids, have been shown to be beneficial for our health in many ways.
These include reducing inflammation, lowering blood pressure, normalizing cholesterol levels, and promoting brain health. They may also reduce depression and anxiety, though more studies are needed in this area.
Omega-3’s are found in fatty fish, such as salmon and tuna, olives, olive oil, avocado, flaxseed, and nuts. In addition, without fats our bodies are not able to properly absorb and metabolize certain nutrients, including vitamins A, D, E and K.
This is yet another reason why it’s important to have some fat with each meal.
I love to use extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil (affiliate links) in cooking, especially when sautéing, roasting, making marinades or vinaigrettes, and more. They are so versatile!
Drink Water
I feel like I say this one over and over again, but it’s because it is so important. Water is so important to sustaining life. It does so many good things for our bodies.
Water helps regulate our body temperature, lubricates and cushions our joints, protects our spinal cord and other sensitive tissues, rids our body of toxins via urination, perspiration, and bowel movements, maintains our body’s electrolyte balance, and aids in digestion.
I also feel that drinking water and staying hydrated helps with appetite regulation and boosts our overall mood.
We get most of our daily water by drinking it, but we can also get some water from the food we eat. For example, a broth soup, watermelon, celery or an orange all contribute to your overall daily water intake.
Getting enough fluids in is especially important if you are physically active, are sick, particularly if have a fever, you’re vomiting or have diarrhea, or if it’s hot outside.
My best tip to drinking more water is to keep a full water bottle or two (affiliate links) in your house or work where you are most often. At work, mine is always at my desk. With it sitting right in front of me, I tend to pick it up and drink it more often than if it was out of sight.
The same goes for my house. I keep my water bottle on the side table in the living room or on the counter in the kitchen. At night I even keep it on my bedside stand so I can take a sip as needed in the evening, throughout the night or in the morning.
If you have a hard time drinking water, don’t give up! There are so many ways to flavor your water naturally with fruits, veggies and/or herbs. You can jazz up your water by drinking sparkling water with a splash of 100% fruit juice.
This is especially a good option for those of you that crave the fizzy or bubbly feeling from soda. You can also choose from already flavored sparkling waters, such as Bubly or La Croix (affiliate links).
Individualized Self Care through Nutrition
As another reminder, self care is personal and different for everyone. Though I do recommend them, you don’t have to do every single item on this list every single day of your life. Some days will be crazy busy, some days just crazy.
Don’t judge your self care based on what someone else calls their self care. You do you. Focus on you, trust your body and it will let you know what it needs.
Let me know in the comments below: how do you practice self care through nutrition?
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