Top 10 Benefits of Making Time for You
Self-care is as important to your health as nutrition and exercise.
— Dr. Donna Hamilton, MD
In order to create a path to wellness in your life—a life where you feel vibrant, connected, loved, loving, balanced, at peace, on purpose, and authentic—you need to make space for creating the wellness you desire. The good news is that, with 10 Minute Wellness, you only need to commit a 10 minute block of time each day when you will do something nurturing for yourself. 10 Minutes—that’s all!
What is Self-Nurture?
Self-care and self-nurturing are used interchangeably. Both terms mean to take care of youself. For example, it means that you take time to rest and eat well, or that you make time for the things in life that make you happy. Self-nurturing involves many different aspects of taking care of you. The dictionary describes nurturing as: To nourish, feed, protect, support, encourage, develop, educate, train; and these are all parts of what it means to nurture or care for yourself.
Self-care provides the foundation to nurturing the body, mind, and spirit across all the areas that wellness encompasses—whether it be eating healthy, exercising, using more positive self-talk, shamelessly pampering yourself, or managing finances. In fact, self-nurture may be the most important practice in creating a balanced, healthy, and happy life.
My veneration of self-care comes from several places: I have received endless miracles as a result of learning to nurture myself—not just the daily, mysterious, sometimes unexplainable events that make my life better, but vibrant health, harmony and happiness; I have also personally experienced the devastating effects of not caring for myself—illness, chaos, and lack of peace and joy.
Furthermore, I’ve spent twenty-two years observing rapid, positive changes in the lives of my psychotherapy and coaching clients who commit to self-care. From my perspective, these rapid, positive changes happen because a commitment to self-nurturing brings into play forces greater than oneself—a sort of divine intervention. These forces assist healing and growth, and help you become your best self. I have seen this over and over, and am now convinced that if you commit to taking better care of yourself, your life will transform in a million wonderful ways. I can confidently say: expect miracles when you decide to make yourself a priority.
Why It’s Important
Ample research has proven that self-care is actually essential to your well-being. Increasing your self-care has been proven to deliver the following results:
- increase self-confidence
- increase self-control
- strengthen integrity
- clarify your direction in life
- gain self knowledge— discover who you are
- know what you need and want in your life
- discover your true self
- improve immunity
- increase positive thinking
- reduce susceptibility to stress, depression, anxiety and other emotional health issues
But self-care takes time and commitment. Taking time out to care for yourself helps remind you and others that your needs are important too. Feeling well cared for leads to feelings of calm and relaxation, and conveys to others that you value yourself, which contributes to long-term feelings of well-being. And, most importantly, taking time for self-care helps you become more loving, compassionate, and accepting of yourself and others.
You may need to let go of all your pre-conceived ideas about self-care. You might have notions about self-nurturing that block you from taking good care of yourself, like beliefs that self-care is self-indulgent, selfish, or a guilty pleasure. It isn’t. Self-care is healthy and holy. It is an affirmation of love for yourself that allows that love to extend to others, the world, and the Divine.
Examine your self-talk about taking time for yourself. Do you tell yourself things like: “I’m really tired, but can’t stop and rest because I have too much to do now”, or “I don’t get massages because they are such a luxury, and I don’t have time.” Instead, embrace the importance and value of self-nurturing.
Steven Covey says, “In managing and scheduling your life, the key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” The following method helps you put your own self-care and self-nurturing first. If you are willing to do this exercise, you will have taken a huge step towards learning to take better care of yourself.
- Take out your planner, smart phone, calendar, or whatever makes you most comfortable. Before you put anything else on it for the next 8 weeks, choose one 10-minute slot each day. I designed each activity in this book to take no more than 10 minutes. But, remember this means at least six days of the week.
- Write in Self-Care on each day of the week in the 10-minute slot you have chosen. Use your favorite colored marker to grab your attention.
- Commit to yourself that you will honor your self-care time. Remember— when you think self-care doesn’t matter, what you’re really saying is “I don’t matter”. This is not true. YOU DO MATTER. When this happens: Stop! Take three deep breaths, and recommit to let go of your fears and resistance. You are worth it!