Wellness refers to the condition of good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise, and habits.  Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do.  Our ability to provide the body with all the necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.  But what makes us well? There are 5 elements to self care.  Here at En Forma, we strive to give you the resources and tools to find self care. Our calendars help you find the activities that work best for your schedule while our resources help you learn about all the options for self care. 

Physical Self-Care

You need to take care of your body if you want it to run efficiently. Keep in mind that there’s a strong connection between your body and your mind. When you’re caring for your body, you’ll think and feel better too.

Physical self-care includes how you’re fueling your body, how much sleep you’re getting, how much physical activity you are doing, and how well you’re caring for your physical needs. Attending appointments, taking medication as prescribed, and managing your health are all part of good physical self-care.²

When it comes to physical self-care, ask yourself the following questions to assess whether there might be some areas you need to improve:

• Are you getting adequate sleep?
• Is your diet fueling your body well?
• Are you taking charge of your health?
• Are you getting enough exercise? 
  
  

Social Self-Care

Socialization is key to self-care. But, often, it’s hard to make time for friends and it’s easy to neglect your relationships when life gets busy.  The wellness community in Sayulita is one of the best, so surrounding yourself with people with the same hopes and goals is ideal.

Close connections are important to your well-being. The best way to cultivate and maintain close relationships is to put time and energy into building your relationships.

There isn’t a certain number of hours you should devote to your friends or work on your relationships. Everyone has slightly different social needs. The key is to figure out what your social needs are and to build enough time in your schedule to create an optimal social life.

To assess your social self-care, consider:

• Are you getting enough face-to-face time with your friends?
• What are you doing to nurture your relationships with friends and family?
  
  

Mental Self-Care

The way you think and the things that you’re filling your mind with greatly influence your psychological well-being.

Mental self-care includes doing things that keep your mind sharp, like puzzles, or learning about a subject that fascinates you. You might find reading books or watching movies that inspire you fuels your mind.⁴

Mental self-care also involves doing things that help you stay mentally healthy. Practicing self-compassion and acceptance, for example, helps you maintain a healthier inner dialogue.

Here are a few questions to consider when you think about your mental self-care:

• Are you making enough time for activities that mentally stimulate you?
• Are you doing pro-active things to help you stay mentally healthy?
  
  

Spiritual Self-Care

Research shows that a lifestyle including religion or spirituality is generally a healthier lifestyle.

Nurturing your spirit, however, doesn’t have to involve religion. It can involve anything that helps you develop a deeper sense of meaning, understanding, or connection with the universe.⁵

Whether you enjoy meditation, attending a religious service, or praying, spiritual self-care is important.

As you consider your spiritual life, ask yourself:

• What questions do you ask yourself about your life and experience?
• Are you engaging in spiritual practices that you find fulfilling?⁵
  
  

Emotional Self-Care

It’s important to have healthy coping skills to deal with uncomfortable emotions, like anger, anxiety, and sadness. Emotional self-care may include activities that help you acknowledge and express your feelings on a regular basis.

Whether you talk to a partner or close friend about how you feel, or you set aside time for leisure activities that help you process your emotions, it’s important to incorporate emotional self-care into your life.⁶

When assessing your emotional self-care strategies, consider these questions:

• Do you have healthy ways to process your emotions?
• Do you incorporate activities into your life that help you feel recharged?
  
  

The first place to start would be with the examination of your eating habits.  Since we are a product of what we eat, if our eating habits are unhealthy, or do not provide for the nutrition we need, we’re not going to be healthy individuals at the end of the process. Do you take in more calories than your body needs?  Are you supplementing your vitamins and minerals to make sure you are getting your recommended daily allowances? These are all important. 

Next, you might want to look at your exercise habits, if there are any.  If there aren’t any exercise routines to examine, no wellness.  Everyone, no matter what their age, benefits from exercise.  Whether it is organized exercise activities, free weights, or simply establishing a personal routine, exercise is an excellent wellness tool.  It keeps our bodies conditioned, our mental sharpness working at top speed, and thanks to the physical aspect, we get a boost to our cardio health, extra calorie burn, and more oxygen to those cells! There are so many ways to get exercise; weight training, running, walking, hiking, taking a fitness class, the list goes on and on and Enforma can help you find these classes with our calendar and resources.  

Being able to deal with and handle the daily stresses of life keeps us well.  Making sure we take the time to accommodate our needs for stress relief, such as downtime, therapy time, massage time, or simply take the time for a nice, hot bath.  The body tends to retain stress in the muscle of the shoulder and back.  Yoga, breath work, massage, taking the time to relax….combine these with physical exercise for the entire body, and you shouldn’t have any trouble maintaining a state of wellness.  Self care should be #1, and the best place to find the best self care that Sayulita has to offer is on En Forma. 

Our personal habits either keep us well or prevent us from being well. If you smoke, drink, or lose sleep to excess you’re not the well individual you could be.  Smoking, drinking, and loss of sleep work to our detriment, and it takes extreme discipline to stop.  All the more reason to incorporate alternative therapies into to your wellness journey. 

Giving ourselves adequate time to devote to all areas of our wellness needs, from our nutritional intake needs, to our physical fitness needs, to the need for quiet time contributes to our level of wellness.  How well we allocate time for these needs, and the choices we make in fulfilling these needs, keeps us well.  Finding time while here in Sayulita is a great place to start.  Wellness and Sayulita go hand and hand. 

There are so many occasions to stop and question our efforts at maintaining optimal health, that we usually don’t even take the time to begin the examination. But it is beneficial to our overall health, the quality and quantity of our life, to make every effort to be well, healthy, individuals.  

Optimal health comes in many forms.  It’s important to know that health and wellness can be achieved in so many ways.  Yoga, breath work, meditation are all things that can be incorporated into your wellness journey.