A new year is about to start and you might already be overstimulated from all the holiday festivities. A self-care day is just what you need to recharge your batteries and enter this new year the right way!
A stay-at-home self-care day can be so wonderful, so relaxing, and perfect to unwind from your busy everyday life. Whether or not you are a homebody, I think anyone could benefit from a day of pampering.
When you live your day-to-day life, you probably won’t see much room in your schedule to spend a whole day doing the things you love. Make room for it! Plan a day that is solely for enjoying yourself and recharging your batteries.
Life can be hard and tiring at times, and you certainly do deserve to take a day to enjoy yourself without feeling guilty about it.
Have a self-care day and go all the way!
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The Ultimate Self-Care Day
Okay, so you’ve got this whole day to yourself! How are you going to fill it?
If you think about this in advance, you probably will have a better time than when start scrolling through your phone all day because you have no idea what to do and when to do it.
You can create a loose plan with a few things you want to do on your self-care day to spend it more mindfully. Let me help you and give you some ideas of activities you can include.
Morning
Mornings are great when you have the day off! When you have to go to work, on the other hand, mornings can be a dread. You might hate waking up for work, but when you know that you can do anything you want during the day, you may want to jump out of bed to get started!
Lazy Wakey Wakey
Start your self-care day off with a lazy morning. You can snooze for as long as you like or even not set an alarm at all.
Give yourself time to wake up without the morning rush from your workdays. It’s about starting the day off relaxed and not ruining it the second you get out of bed by stressing about getting somewhere on time or your responsibilities for the day.
Feel the warmth of your bed, and the softness of your sheets, and enjoy how you can stay in a bit longer today, amazing!
Breakfast Love
When you have to go to work, you might eat breakfast in your car or even skip it entirely because this way, you get more time to sleep. Today doesn’t have to be like this! Take your time to make and enjoy your breakfast, as this is the most important meal of the day!
What do you fancy in the morning? Bacon and eggs or some avocado toast? If you don’t have the ingredients at home, you have to go to the store and I don’t think that you want to be doing that on your self-care day… So prepare yourself for this day. Buy the ingredients for your best breakfast when you do your weekly shopping.
If you want to be lazy you could just spend some time enjoying a cup of coffee or tea. Go for an easy breakfast like cereal or a breakfast biscuit if you don’t feel like cooking in the morning. Maybe add a piece of fruit for the vitamins though!
Morning Yoga
To wake up your body even more, you might need a little stretching or a little yoga to warm up your muscles. Yoga With Adriene has great morning routines on her YouTube channel!
You could practice a more gentle Yoga routine or a routine to start your inner fire and heat your body. Stretching your body feels good and we often don’t do this enough. All of our muscles cramp up from sitting in the same bad postures every single day, your body would truly benefit from a stretching routine.
Yoga With Adriene also has great monthly playlists. If you want to give yoga a go, maybe start with one of her monthly playlists and keep trying and showing up consistently. Doing it every single day can only improve your health, physical as well as mental. There are a few yoga practices that you can do from the comfort of your bed, but for most, it would come in handy to have a yoga mat available.
Fun fact, I grew 1,5cm from doing her yoga videos every day for an entire month. A bit weird, right?
Cozy Loungewear
What to wear on your self-care day? Well, during the morning I would go for cozy loungewear or even keep wearing your PJs a bit longer. If you don’t plan to leave the house at all during your day of fun, you could keep wearing them all day long!
To feel a bit more energized after waking up, I would switch from my PJs to some comfortable clothing like sweatpants or leggings with a nice fluffy sweater. But you do you! Depending on the activities you plan, PJs might work out great.
Soft and comfortable clothes feel so good on your skin, it’s wellness for your senses.
You could also choose to dress yourself to look your very best today! Wear your newest outfit and maybe do your hair and put on some make-up. Do what makes you feel like your best self on this day of self-care! The most important thing today is that you feel great. You don’t have to impress anyone, think about you and only you for a change!
Afternoon
You can spend the afternoon the way you like. For some people, this will be more pampering, and more cozy time on the couch, but for others, it might be doing something more active.
I will list different ideas in the afternoon section of this post, pick whatever feels right for you and add it to your self-care day routine! 🙂
Lunch
Everybody has to eat lunch. If you did spend all morning in bed, you might consider making it a brunch!
Do you want to spend your lunch having a solo date or meet up with friends or family to enjoy a nice lunch together, that’s up to you. Going out for lunch can be great! Having plenty of options to choose from in a lunch bar is lovely and you don’t have to prepare it yourself, even better!
If you want to be more budget-friendly, you can stay in and have lunch at home or at your friend’s/parents’ place to have lunch together.
Because it is your self-care day, have lunch the way you like it with people you love, or enjoy it by yourself whilst watching your favorite show. If you want to care for your physical health as well, try including some vegetables in your lunch.
Walk
A nice afternoon walk! Have a stroll with your dog or a loved one, or maybe just by yourself listening to your favorite music or a nice podcast. Walking has so many benefits for your physical and mental well-being, if you want to be a little active on your self-care day, include a walk in it!
You don’t have to do a massive walk, a 30-minute walk can do the trick. Most dog breeds love walking, so definitely include them if you have a dog! You will feel good about spending time with your furry friends when you take them along with you.
Walking can be fun in every season, you only have to make sure to dress appropriately so you don’t catch a cold in winter! Work with layers in wintertime so you can take some clothes off if walking gets your body too hot. Getting back inside after being in the cold weather is also very nice. Have a hot beverage and a blanket and you will feel heated up in no time!
Visit
Spending time with family and friends can be great self-care as well! It’s not all about being by yourself the entire day, unless that is something that you need, to spend some time alone. Connecting with loved ones can be a great form of self-care.
Talking about your everyday life or even your bigger dreams and goals in life with people you love can be so good. You need to connect with others to feel fulfilled in life. As humans, we crave connection, maybe not every single day, but certainly, in general, we do.
Visiting relatives can be a lot of fun if you have fun relatives. If visiting them feels like an obligation, don’t do this on your self-care day obviously! Only visit people you would love to see on your self-care day. Family obligations can be for another time.
Quality Alone Time
There are probably some things you love doing that no one else does. Do them by yourself today on your self-care day! Some things are also nice to do alone instead of always having to have company with you.
You know best what you love to do, but let me give you some inspiration.
- Go Shopping
- Bake Something
- Visit A Museum
- Playing Music or Listening to Music
- Make Jewelry
- Paint or Draw
- Visit The Local Library
- Journaling
- Photography
- Reading
- Movie Marathon
- Etc.
Make a list of every activity that you absolutely love to do, and pick one or more to do on your self-care day. This list will inspire you every self-care day when you don’t know what you want to do with your day.
Evening
The evening has fallen and you are ready for some more unwinding activities. Let’s get to them!
Dinner
Cook your favorite meal or order take-out. If you have chosen a healthy lunch, now might be the time to cheat with a delicious pizza or burger with fries. Treat yourself to your favorite dish because you deserve it!
Cooking a meal together with your partner or friends can also be a lot of fun. Have some appetizers, drink a little wine, and enjoy the quality time and yummy food.
You can make your dinner extra fancy by setting the table nicely, drinking your favorite beverage, and having an extravagant dessert!
Hot Bath
There is nothing more relaxing than soaking in hot water. It might have something to do with the fact that that is where it all started for all of us, in the womb of our mother, like a happy floating baby.
A hot bath always helps me to chill after a busy and stressful workday. To make it more special for your self-care day, add some nice scented candles, calming music, a glass of wine, or your favorite beverage and relax.
You could also have a spa day on this self-care day. The bath doesn’t have to wait until the evening. You can visit a wellness with all their luxury facilities or create your spa day at home. Things to include in your spa day can be taking a bath, applying a face mask, having a mani-pedi, getting a massage, etc.
Reading
Reading a book feels like ultimate self-care if you ask me. You have to have enough time and sit on a comfortable couch with a blanket and a hot cup of tea. You are doing this because you love reading and like to get lost in the fantasy of the story or learn something new.
When you are doing this right before bed it can help you fall asleep faster and unwind even more. You could also move this pleasant activity to the morning if you don’t want to risk falling asleep whilst reading your book.
There are so many books for you to borrow from your local library, their inventory is huge, so there will always be some books you will like.
Watching Your Favorite Shows
If you don’t like to read, or you do but want to do both, spend some time watching your favorite shows! You can have a movie marathon or binge-watch your favorite show during the day or in the evening.
While you watch your favorite show, you will spend some time being in another universe mentally, away from your day-to-day life, which can help you with de-stressing. When you worry a lot, a distraction from a good TV show can help you to not think about your problems for a while.
There are so many good streaming services these days, so plenty of options to find something you like. I love watching Netflix but if I wasn’t watching my budget so much, I would probably have a Disney+ subscription as well.
Self-Care Day Closure
The list of things you can do on a self-care day is endless, that’s why you should do this more often!
You probably can’t do everything you want to do on only one self-care day. Make it a habit to spend at least one day a month to only think about yourself and enjoy this well-deserved day of me-time.
I’ve written multiple blog posts about self-care, so check them out for more inspiration!
Enjoy every minute of your self-care day, I wish you all the best in the New Year!