Do You Have a Self-Care Plan?
Jeff Garrett
Empowering High-Performing Leaders to Elevate Leadership Skills, Transform Overwhelm into Strategic Success, Avoid Burnout & Achieve Peak Performance.
Quote for the Week
Eat Well
Sleep Well
Move More
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This Week’s Podcast Episode
Do You Have a Self-Care Plan?
?(You can also listen on your favorite podcast app)
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From the Skybox
I have not come across many people that have a self-care plan.?
I have found that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.?
Very similar to when you're on an airplane. When the steward or stewardess is going through the preflight instructions they talk about the oxygen mask and how you are supposed to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.
You put yours on first because if you can’t breath and you pass out you certainly aren't going to be helping anybody else.?
A self-care plan is similar to putting your oxygen mask on first. It's a plan in order to enable you to care for yourself so you will be able to help other people.?
The first step is you have to stay fit.
Fitness is one of my 6 F’s.?The others are faith, family, finances, friends, and fun. The self-care plan is in the fitness category.?
领英推荐
There are some simple things that you can do to become healthier.
The first thing is exercise. You should get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day.?
This exercise can be as simple as walking outside. It can be going to the gym. It can be a matter of just doing some basic exercises at home.?
One key is to get 10,000 steps in a day. Why 10,000 steps? I can't tell you exactly why. I know if you get 10,000 steps in you will be walking about 5 miles a day and you will achieve a better fitness level.
There a many ways to measure your steps each day. A lot of you have smartwatches, the Apple watch as an example or Garmin watch that will measure your steps for you. Many phones will measure your steps too. There are also apps that have pedometers.?
One of the most important things that you can do is to develop core strength. There are quite a few websites, apps and books that have some very good core exercise programs. Most of these programs can be accomplished in 10 - 20 minutes.?
Eating is important to your self-care. The first thing I'm going to tell you about eating is stay away from corn syrup. If you look at the food labels almost everything has corn syrup in it. Why? I don't know, I guess it adds flavor. But it also adds a lot of unwanted calories. So try to stay away from corn syrup.
One of the things you can do is intermittent fasting. There's a lot of information out there on the internet. There are also apps available for smartphones. Intermittent fasting is only eating during a certain timeframe during the day. For example, you only eat between noon and 8pm.?
Drink plenty of water. There are a lot of suggestions out there for daily water consumption. Water will help you to recover and help your general health.?
You should limit your alcohol consumption. Alcoholic beverages are empty calories.?
Gut health is extremely important. An excellent book on this topic is The Plant Paradox by Dr. Guthrie. In the book he shows how to maintain a healthy gut.?
Recovery is very important to your self-care. It's so important that you get rest. Everybody requires a certain number of hours sleep, some of us less than others, some of us more than others. But what the experts have found is that generally we need seven to eight hours of sleep each night. If you are under stress, or if you're training let's say for example for a marathon or you're doing a lot of exercise and putting stress on your body you might require more sleep than you normally do to recover. So figure out what works best for you.?
You should go to bed at the same time, every night and get up at the same time every day. If you do this your body gets into a rhythm. I know this can be challenging on weekends.?
Some other recovery tools are hot tubs, cold tubs and massages.?
These are a few ideas to start to develop a self-care program. Before starting any exercise program or diet you should consult your primary doctor.
If you'd like my help and insight on developing plans like this we should talk. Contact me at [email protected].?
Be Audacious!
Coach Jeff Garrett