Whew, life feels pretty crazy right now, doesn’t it? If you’re staying home, which you should be aside from doing the essentials, you may suddenly have found yourself with a lot more time on your hands. I started writing up a huge blog post of a ton of things to do while sheltering in place, but it was taking too long to finish, so I decided to break it up into smaller posts. This is the self-care edition, cause you definitely deserve to do stuff that’ll help you deal with all of the extra stress in the world right now.

10 Ways to Practice Self-Care

1. Grab that old bottle of nail polish, and give yourself a mani-pedi. If you have the supplies, get fancy with it. Pinterest has a million different ideas, and even if it ends up looking like a Pinterest-fail, no one has to see it.

2. Emerge from social isolation with amazing skin. Give yourself a face mask if you have one, and if not, whip one up from stuff you might already have in the kitchen. Tons of DIY face mask ideas here. 

3. Deep condition your hair. Stress can definitely take a toll on your hair, so give your hair some deep conditioning. Multi-task, and do it at the same time you do the face mask. As with the face mask, you can use a pre-made one, or get creative with DIY versions.

4. Run, walk, hike or bike outside. Yes, even if you’re supposed to shelter in place, it’s still allowed as long as you stay at least six feet away from other people. Also, don’t touch anything if you can avoid it, and be extra careful if you’re on a bike. Now is not the time for an ER visit!

5. Exfoliate with body and lip scrubs. You can whip up your own by combining 3 parts sugar with 1 part coconut oil. So for a lip scrub, I’d do 3 teaspoons (which is 1 Tablespoon) sugar and 1 teaspoon coconut oil. You can add a few drops of extracts like vanilla or mint for a nice scent. You can also exfoliate with used coffee grounds. This mint coffee soap I made a few years ago will also do the trick.

6. Start a meditation practice. If you don’t know how to meditate, there are lots of apps to help you learn. Headspace is one of the most popular, but Calm, Insight Timer, and Aura are all free and recommended by experts.

7. Take a bath. Make it extra luxurious with candles, bath salts, bath bombs, a glass of wine, etc.

8. Experiment with your hair color. Especially if you normally have a job where you couldn’t get away with having a wild color, why not try a semi-permanent one now? I dyed my hair pink with Overtone a few months ago, and I definitely don’t regret it!

9. Give your teeth some love. If you don’t normally have a flossing routine (guilty as charged), now is a good time to start one. Yes, I’m telling you to stay home and floss. You can even give your teeth a little extra sparkle with some DIY tooth whitening.

10. Start (or continue) a yoga practice. There are tons of yoga classes online, but I’m partial to the ones from the local studio where I’ve attended weekly classes for the past few years, Flex & Flow. They’re doing regular classes on YouTube and Instagram Live. (I haven’t tried them, but they have bootcamp bodyweight workouts, too!)

Have you been doing anything extra to take care of yourself during this stressful time? I don’t have any more time at home relative to before the pandemic, but after Juniper goes to bed, my self-care involves yoga, playing Animal Crossing, and bingeing old episodes of The Office. It’s a glamourous life, ha!