Self-care is often associated with face masks, bubble baths, and delicious meals from your favorite takeout spot. But a deeper level of self-care requires a more holistic approach. Here are ten often overlooked ways to support your overall well-being.
Make necessary doctor’s appointments
No one really likes going to the doctor on a normal day, and it can be especially scary to seek help when you’re experiencing symptoms. But ultimately knowing what is going on with your health—whether good or bad—can bring you peace of mind. Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and be persistent with your physician if something feels off. Now go schedule that appointment you’ve been putting off for the last six months!
Keep your kitchen stocked with accessible food you enjoy
This isn’t to say you should abandon eating a healthy diet, but having food on hand that satisfies your soul is important too. If you know you are going to have a busy week, stock up on foods that aren’t time-consuming to prepare so you can keep your body, and spirit, happily fueled without adding more stress to your schedule.
Buy clothes that fit, and clear out ones that don’t
It’s normal for your weight to fluctuate throughout the different phases of your life. Don’t keep clothing in your closet that makes you feel uncomfortable or bad about your current body. If a piece no longer fits, replace it with something you feel good in and that gives you confidence. Clothes are meant to fit you, not the other way around.
Take care of your car
You may rely on your vehicle to go to your job, run errands, and generally get around, which means you need to be able to count on it to function at its best. The best way to ensure this is to follow a consistent maintenance schedule and bring it into the shop when it makes weird noises. Washing your car regularly, and maybe even giving it an annual detail, can also boost your mood while driving and make you more comfortable inviting passengers to join you.
Clean and organize your house
There is often a parallel between the state of your home and the state of your mind. Having a clean and organized space can lower your overall feelings of stress and fatigue, whether you do it yourself or hire someone to help. And once everything has a home, it’ll be much easier to put items away and keep your place tidy.
Boost your brain
When it comes to your brain, you should be playing the long game. Due to the brain’s plasticity, more pathways can be formed and strengthened as you learn a new skill, such as speaking a foreign language, playing an instrument, or using a complicated cooking technique. This training is important to help maintain memory recall, concentration, attention to detail, and other cognitive functions as you age.
Take up a new hobby
Occasionally, the line between sticking to a daily routine and becoming stagnant can get blurry. If you are feeling less motivation to get up in the morning, it might be time to find a new hobby or interest. Try a dance lesson, an art workshop, or an auto mechanic course. There might even be local groups near you that do certain activities like going out to eat together. Stepping outside your comfort zone in this way can both reenergize you and expand your social circle.
Set boundaries
As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. If you’re perpetually saying yes to every invitation or call for help, you likely aren’t leaving enough time for yourself and your own needs. This can lead to resentment and feelings of burnout. Setting and enforcing boundaries will help you make sure you aren’t pushing yourself beyond your limits, and it will signal to others that you can be counted on to show up if you are saying yes.
Ask for help
For some people, admitting they could use a hand is difficult, but receiving support is just as important as giving it. Whether it’s an emotional need or a physical one, don’t be afraid to reach out to friends and ask for help. Doing so might even make them more willing to seek support from you as it will show that your relationship is reciprocal. Knowing that you have people you can count on will give you reassurance that you can handle whatever life throws at you.
Practice random acts of kindness
Sometimes the best thing to do when you are feeling lonely or unsatisfied with life is to extend energy outward to others. And finding creative ways to practice kindness to strangers is an easy way to bring positivity and light into your world. Hide empowering notes in random places for people to find, tape small plastic bags of quarters to the washers in a laundromat, or buy a bunch of roses and leave one bloom each on a row of car windshields. Imagining how such acts might leave a smile on someone’s face will create a feedback loop of happiness that will last for days to come.
As the calendar turns over to September, we prepare to embrace the sights, sounds, and aromas of a new season. Dive headfirst into the comforting flavors of fall with this pair of recipes from Salad Seasons: a hearty, flavorful pasta salad perfect for any dinner and a fun fruit-focused one to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Pasta salad gets an autumnal twist with this dish, which masterfully combines Brussels sprouts, pancetta, pasta, garlic, and honey.
Juicy, sweet persimmons blend with the flavors of ginger, cinnamon, pomegranate, and pecan in this vivid, tasty salad.
Salad Seasons: Vegetable-Forward Dishes All Year by Sheela Prakash © Rizzoli, 2023. Photography © Kristin Teig.
Pasta salad is a summer staple, to be dished out at picnics, potlucks, and barbecues. Who says we need to pack it away after Labor Day, though? This warm pasta salad is decidedly autumnal.
Serves 4
When it comes to fall fruit, persimmons are truly an underdog. However, they really do deserve so much more attention. Here, slices star in a jewel-toned bowl made complete with spicy candied pecans, tart pomegranate seeds, and a citrusy dressing.
Serves 4
Note: You’ll make more gingered pecans than you need for this recipe, but their crunchy sweetness hardly makes that a problem. They’ll stay fresh stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of weeks and can be snacked on out of hand, sprinkled on yogurt, added to other salads, or even used as an ice cream topping.
Exercise is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. It provides numerous benefits, such as improved mental health and boosted physical performance. However, the workout isn’t the only part that matters—the recovery is equally important. Postworkout recovery is the process of allowing your body to rest and repair after exercising, which can play a big part in producing the results you want. Through a combination of techniques and strategies, you can optimize this process and build stronger, healthier muscles.
While the extent of the recovery you’ll need to do will vary, it is a necessary step regardless of the intensity of your exercise regimen. That’s because most workouts create microtears in your muscles; these tiny tears are responsible for the soreness you may feel the day after rigorously exercising and play a key role in helping your muscles grow stronger. After a workout, your body goes through a repair process that begins with inflammation and ends with the synthesis of new proteins, resulting in stronger and more resilient muscles. You must make sure that you’re giving your body the time it needs to complete this recovery. If you don’t, you may end up doing more harm than good, even possibly injuring yourself.
Apart from muscle repair, your body needs to replenish its glycogen, which is the primary energy source for your muscles during exercise. Exercising rapidly depletes the glycogen stored in your liver and muscles, and when those stores are empty, your performance decreases and your body becomes highly fatigued. It can take up to two days for your glycogen levels to fully recover from a strenuous workout.
Further, recovery gives you time to rehydrate. Water is essential for various bodily functions, including regulating body temperature and transporting nutrients to the muscles. During exercise, you lose that water through sweat, which can then lead to dehydration. When you don’t hydrate properly, your body can’t replenish those lost fluids and, therefore, won’t be able to adequately recover.
There are two main types of recovery: active and passive. In active recovery, you engage in a low-intensity, low-impact workout, such as taking a walk or stretching. This activity stimulates blood circulation to better remove the buildup of waste in your muscles, allowing them to repair and rebuild after your exercise. Conversely, passive recovery is a complete break from all exercise. The American Council on Exercise recommends taking a rest day every seven to ten days if you’re continually performing more rigorous exercises. This time away can help you avoid stress injuries or overtraining and gives your body the opportunity to relax and fully recover.
Because there are multiple ways to recover, you should pick and choose what works best for you based on both the type of exercises you perform and how you feel after completing them. Here are a few ideas to help you get started.
Do a cooldown
Be sure to properly cool down when your workout is over. This could include stretching out your muscles, which can reduce muscle tension, improve blood flow, increase mobility, and, in turn, help your body repair faster.
Massage your muscles
Use a foam roller to massage your muscles after exercising. This activity releases the tension from the layer of tissue on top of your muscles and can actively reduce soreness and increase your flexibility and range of motion.
Rehydrate
Drink plenty of water and electrolyte-rich fluids not only after working out but also throughout the day to replace the liquids you lost while exercising. This will lubricate your joints and prevent muscle cramps and soreness caused by lactic acid buildup.
Eat a balanced meal
Consume a good balance of protein and carbohydrates within an hour of finishing your exercise to help replenish your glycogen stores and promote muscle repair and growth.
Get enough sleep
Prioritize your sleep, getting the recommended minimum of seven hours each night, to give your body the time it needs to recover from the microtears in your muscles.
Postworkout recovery is just as important as the workout itself, so make sure to stretch or take a rest day afterward. Your body will ultimately feel healthier and stronger because of it.
Having a good credit score is essential for many aspects of life. Most lenders rely on it to determine your creditworthiness, which can impact whether you get approved for a loan as well as the interest rates you get on credit cards and other financial products. From time to time, though, you may experience fluctuations in your score, leading to confusion and frustration. Knowing what factors can influence it can help you better manage it and protect your financial well-being.
While there are several scoring models out there for calculating credit scores, the one from the analytics company FICO is the most recognized. The three main nationwide credit bureaus—TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian—all use its formulas to create their credit scores, and 90 percent of lenders use these scores to determine loan eligibility. Each person’s credit score is based on five weighted categories: payment history (35 percent), amounts owed (30 percent), length of credit history (15 percent), new credit (10 percent), and credit mix (10 percent). Scores can range from 300 to 850, with 670 to 739 generally considered good, 740 to 799 very good, and 800 and above excellent.
At any given time, a creditor may send updates to the credit bureaus, which could initiate a score change without you even realizing it. However, if you discover that you’ve experienced a sharp decline, there are several reasons why it may have happened.
Credit cards
Applying for a new credit card or making multiple credit inquiries can cause your credit score to decrease temporarily, as it suggests you are looking to take on more debt. Unfortunately, closing a credit card, especially if it has an outstanding balance or available credit, can also affect your score because the card’s limit is no longer being factored into your credit utilization ratio.
Credit utilization
Your credit utilization ratio—the percentage of available credit as determined by how much you’ve spent against your limits—directly affects your credit score. The lower this ratio, the more positive that impact will be. Don’t be alarmed if your credit score takes a temporary hit after making a large purchase. Because credit card companies typically report the balance at the end of the billing cycle, your payment may not show up until the following credit card statement.
Hard inquires
A lender or creditor may check your score when you apply for credit, such as an auto or home loan. This is called a hard inquiry and may affect your credit score temporarily. Fortunately, several inquiries made within fourteen to forty-five days are usually only counted as one, limiting the hit your score may take.
Inaccurate information
There may be errors, unethical activity, false reporting, or even missing information on your credit report that can cause a sudden dip in your credit score. If you notice any suspicious activity, be sure to report it to all three credit bureaus as quickly as possible.
Late or missed payments
A missed payment or one made more than thirty days late can appear on the following credit reporting cycle. And because 35 percent of your credit score is based on your payment history, you’ll likely see a drop in your score until you resolve the issue.
Unpaid debt
Your creditor may send your unpaid bill to a collection agency to try to collect payment. They may also then report it to one or all three nationwide credit bureaus. Depending on the credit scoring models used, though, collections under $100 or unpaid medical bills may be ignored or treated differently than other forms of consumer debt.
Lowered credit limit
Your score might also dip if your credit card issuer lowers your credit limit due to a high balance on one or more of your credit cards or if your credit utilization ratio has surpassed 35 percent. To combat this, strive to pay down your balance as quickly as possible.
It’s not unusual for your credit score to fluctuate, but it’s still important to review it from time to time so you can stay on top of it. Get your free annual credit report from the big three bureaus, and consider signing up for services like Credit Karma or Credit Sesame, which offer free credit score monitoring. And be sure to investigate immediately if you do see a significant drop in your score.
