Lockdown has been a gift and a curse for me personally during Lockdown. Nothing can lessen the atrocious loss of life on a global scale, nor how scary it’s been for us all. At the same time, people have created flourishing businesses, found love, and reconnected with their families. I’ve done some of these things myself, and on a more micro-scale, it’s given me time to focus on me and create a self care routine. Something at the age of 35 you may have thought I’d already have been on top of but no.
I think I’ve written about self care way back when on my old blog, Circus Mums. It’s not that I’ve not known the importance of taking time to care for yourself physically and mentally, it’s just that, even with that knowledge, I was still finding it hard to find time to focus on me.
Then in March 2020 we found ourselves confined to our homes with our loved ones due to the Corona Virus. Suddenly time was of no excuse. There was more than enough time to figure out how to stop the constant break outs and rough patches of skin on my face. There was time to think about the food I was preparing for myself and my family. There was so much bloody time.
I’d love to tell you that I used all of that time wisely, that I created a new healthy eating regime, dropped 3 stone and became vegan but I cant. I did become more aware of how much (or little) I moved and made small steps to fix it. The same with my diet. Having to plan our grocery shops and not have the luxury of popping out whenever we pleased meant that both me and my partner put much more thought into what we were feeding ourselves and the girls.
What's in this post
Self care – Being more active
I nearly ran online and ordered an Apple Watch in the first month of lockdown. Just so I could measure my activities. But I didn’t need a watch to tell me I wasn’t moving anywhere near as much as I needed to. In which case, ANY movement and exercise would be a new personal best!
It’s funny because the plan at the beginning of the year had been to gut out our garage and kit it up as a home gym. Then I realised my dwindling bank account couldn’t afford even the simplest of rowers or treadmills, let alone the gym grade ones I planned to fill the space up with. When lockdown hit, I decided to bite the bullet and buy what I needed to fix up the garage gym, only for everything to be sold out. You couldn’t even order a kettle bell or exercise mat on Amazon.
My exercises have consisted of walking in the countryside which is easy considering I live in the middle of a wonderful little valley. It’s not hard to be out and in the middle of fields within minutes of leaving our front door. Rainbow, my three year old and I have also been enjoying fitness videos on Youtube. The first time I tried one, I was sweating 20 minutes in and felt like my heart was pleading with me to stop by 30! It was such a shock to the system but it’s been a wonderful form of self care to be more mindful of my body and to help it become stronger and healthier.
My next goal is to make this a regular occurrence. Getting in my 12,000 steps a day (I’m probably averaging 10k on a day that I’m out and about and less than half of that on a day I’m based at home!)
Eating a more plant based diet
I’ve got Polycystic Ovarian Syndrom (PCOS) and was diagnosed at about 18/19 years old when I started putting on lots of weight in a matter or months even though I was still as active as I’d ever been. My relationship with food has always been complicated. I love to eat. I love to feed people. It’s my love language. But one of the side effects of PCOS is my insulin resistance. I am ALWAYS hungry. My body can’t register the insulin it its blood so is forever telling my brain that it’s in need of more food.
I’ve read so many blogs, books and articles on how many of the PCOS symptoms, including the insulin resistance, can be managed by what you eat. Over the years, I’ve tried to go Paleo, eat a more Mediterranean Diet and go low GI. Nothing ever stuck.
But I’ve realised, over the past few months, that I haven’t been enjoying meat or dairy as much as I used to. And that the days when I stayed away from these products and ate more vegetable based meals I felt better. My original plan was to go cold turkey and experiment with going fully Vegetarian or Vegan for 90 days. But I decided that huge, radical changes like this rarely work. So, I’ve been gradually decreasing my meat intake to no more than one meal per day including meat. I’ve also cut out cow’s milk and made a huge decrease in my reliance to caffeine and sugar too.
My body feels better for it, even though I know there’s a long way to go. But anytime and thought spent on bettering what you eat is a great form of self care. It all counts.
Having a morning / night skincare routine
Going to bed has always been hard in my household. I’m usually the last to go to sleep even though I’m the first one to want to! By the time everyone is in their respective beds, I’m a grouchy mess, ready to just curl up and have a sleep on the sofa (which I sometimes still do!). However, now I fight that urge and find myself in the bathroom, indulging in a skincare routine before laying down to bed.
I think the skincare routine is deserving of a post of its own, not that it’s complicated, I don’t do complicated. More so, that I’d love to list what products Ive found have worked for me and to maybe include a video of everything too.
Having a skincare regime has been one of my favourite acts of self care. Not only has it made me feel more confident when I look in the mirror, but it’s given me permission to focus on myself and my own wants at least twice per day. Every morning and night, I spend all of maybe 10 minutes applying serums and creams. It’s about connecting with myself and doing something independent of the rest of the house.
have you found yourself finding more time for self care during quarantine? Has your routine gone out of the window? Or perhaps you’ve found time to really hone in on the ways you look after yourself?
