Our favorite Apps for the 5 Dimensions of Self-Care
January is going away, and with it, the first month of this new decade.
Have you already started fulfilling your New Year’s purposes? It’s never to early to start with those simple habits that can make your life better -those tiny steps that can change your day, your work, your relationships… And the very first one of those steps is learning how to treat yourself better.
Become available to yourself
It’s all about self-care: The art of becoming more available to yourself, and nurturing all of the different dimensions that constitute your integral wellbeing.
Exercise, hobbies, quality time with loved ones, reading for pleasure, journaling, and something as simple as crying freely when your feeling sad. All of these things are massive steps towards mastering self-care, and they seem pretty easy to work through
… Until you start.
The truth is that we rarely have time anymore. Work tends to get more consuming every day, and daily commitments with our kids, partners, friends, and families can make us forget to take a breath and focus on ourselves for a minute.
Could technology help us out? The same tool that we use to organize our obligations -our smartphone -could be the key that allows us to disconnect.
The five paths to self-care
Many research institutions, including the Roger Williams University of Bristol, England, recognize 5 key dimensions of self-care, that represent the main paths of human growth and wellbeing.
Normally, self-care is associated with the first one of these dimensions: The physical one -exercise routines, a healthy diet, skincare, drinking water, etc.
This is certainly a very important one, but you should know that there are four other ways leading to the same direction, and working them complementarily will allow you to reach real results.
Let’s check them out!
1. Physical Self-Care
As said before, physical self-care is the most go-to form of treating yourself better. Starting an exercise program or picking up on a new diet can be an amazing way of getting a fresh start.
The important -and hardest -part, is steaking to it. Physical Self-Care is all about habits, you need to create a healthy way of life to achieve lasting wellbeing. If you go out jogging 4 days and then stop, nothing really is going to change. The same thing will happen if you do your night skincare routine twice and then get bored.
You have to commit! And since building habits is pretty hard, why don’t you start with a really elementary one?
Sleep Cycle is a free to download app that tracks your sleep and wakes you up in the lightest state, helping you to start your day feeling refresh and really rested.
Even though there are some really cool in-app purchases, the free features are also awesome and enough to get and detailed idea of your sleep quality.
Learn about your sleep cycles, discover how many hours of rest you personally need and have sweet dreams! Once you improve your quality of sleep, that cross-fit training will come through a lot easier
2. Emotional Self-Care
Emotional self-care is embracing your emotions for what they are, without feeling guilty or getting self-judgy.
To work this out, you need to simply find what feels good, and do that.
Spend more time with the people that genuinely make you laugh, wear clothes that make you feel lightened up, re-read your favorite books or show your partner your favorite film, pay attention to your inner experiences and look for help when you feel overwhelmed.
Achieving emotional wellbeing is not easy for everyone. Some of us are more susceptible to stress or suffer from mental health conditions.
For tracking our inner processes, meditation can be an amazing practice. It may seem as a hard skill to master, but there’s plenty of apps that can help us get there, at least for a few minutes a day.
Headspace is one of the most famous and widely used meditation apps in the world. You can enjoy a free introductory trial, with the keys of mindfulness to get started. The explanatory animations come very handily, with lots of tips to breathe correctly and maintain your focus.
If you want to go deeper, the paid version is totally worth it. You’ll have access to special meditation tracks for specific goals -dealing with stress, loss, change, and self-esteem are just some of the features that this app has to offer.
3. Social Self-Care
As humans, we are social beings, and we need to develop and deepen relationships with others.
It’s important for us to make sure that our social circle is supporting and caring -that it makes us feel safe, loves us for who we are and believes in our projects.
Even introverts need to work on their social bonds and engage in real-life interactions… Something difficult for all of us in the social-media era.
A good way to come back to the real world is tracking or screen-exposure. Moment tracks your screen usage and lets you know exactly how many times you peak up your phone in a day, plus how many hours you spend immersed each time.
While it offers you the possibility to set a personal goal of smartphone use, it asks you the question: What else would you do with that time?
4. Spiritual Self-Care
When we say spiritual, we are not talking necessarily about God. It could be God, Allah, Buddha, the general energy that controls the universe, Chakras or your own hidden wisdom.
It doesn’t matter if you are actively religious, agnostic or an atheist; what spiritual self-care refers to is discovering what’s within you that brings you peace.
You can practice this dimension of self-care internally -through meditation, for example -or externally: Contributing to causes you believe in, spending time in nature or reduce your material consumption are some great and practical ways of developing spiritual wellbeing.
The life coach Gabby Bernstein created Spirit Junky, an app that will keep the good vibes flowing through your day, giving you reminders and daily positive affirmations that will empower you and make you smile.
You can scroll to previous affirmations and share them on your social media. Some of these affirmations could even become your meditation mantra!
5. Intellectual Self-Care
The final dimension of self-care is intellectual: The continuous feeding of your brain and the will of learning new things.
Deepening your interests, getting better at a skill, learning a new language and stay informed about world events… All of these are ways to feel satisfied with your achievements and gaining a sense of presence in your reality.
Having intellectual habits will give you a wider range of conversation topics, more recognition in your work and brand new possibilities.
We learn best about the things that interest us and, with that in mind, Flipboard is an excellent tool!
Flipboard is an app that helps you stay informed, curating the best content in the world regarding those topics that inspire you the most.
Its partnerships with publishers from all over will give you a tailor-made information experience, with a wide plurality of voices.
