Self-Care and Your Senses: How to Use Your Senses to Better Your Day!

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The Importance of Self-Care

If you’re familiar with my blog then you know that I am a big advocate of self-care. I think that many of us women don’t prioritize self-care enough.  Especially when motherhood, work, and other aspects of life take up so much of our time, it is easy for self-care to sometimes fall behind.

However, I truly think that self-care is fundamental to living a happy, healthy and low stress life! The more we make time for self-care, the less likely it is that we will feel burnt out and overwhelmed from our daily duties.

To read about more ways you can prioritize self-care, and for some great tips, check out this post.

The Connection Between Self-Care and Your Mood

Particularly when you’re having a bad day, self-care can be a great way to help alter your mood and mindset.

Changing how you feel is often easier than you think.  It usually just takes some purposeful action and positive thinking to shift things in the other direction.

How Self-soothing is Related to Self-Care

Self-soothing can be easily linked to self-care.  Self-soothing describes any behaviour that helps an individual to regulate their emotional state on their own.  These activities can help to increase positive feelings, which in turn can help to reduce negative feelings or make them seem less apparent or burdensome.

There are both negative and positive ways to self-soothe.  Some examples of negative self-soothing techniques might include excessive drinking, drug abuse, binge eating or risky behaviour.  Whereas, positive self-soothing techniques can include self-care activities such as relaxation techniques or positive self-talk.

How Your Senses Can Help to Uplift Your Mood

When your day isn’t going the best or you feel the need to uplift your mood, positive self-care and self-soothing techniques are great ways to take charge of your emotions in order to attempt to change your mindset.

Some easy ways to do this is to use your senses (smell, hearing, taste, touch and sight) to improve how you’re feeling.

How we feel is directly related to what our senses experience.  For example, when we smell a food that we love this can help to put us in a positive frame of mind and remind us of positive times associated with this food.

What we see, smell, touch, hear and taste offers us ways to interpret the world around us, and this can have a significant impact on our mood and affect.

How Self-Care and Your Senses Can Help Better Your Day

Below I share 5 quick and easy strategies to uplift your mood.  No matter what has you feeling down, whether it is a mini setback or what seems like a big obstacle, it is important for you to know how to self-soothe.  This way you can take steps to alter your own mindset, even if it just for a short while.

This self-care time may even help you to address your negative feelings or the obstacles that you face with a calmer and cooler frame of mind when you are ready to tackle them later on.

You will notice that each of these strategies is tied to one of your senses.  Relying on our senses is an easy way to stay grounded, and these techniques can be used at anytime with little effort or forethought, making them great on-the-go tools to have in your personal toolkit.

This is especially important for busy women, wives and moms who may need to implement these strategies at anytime during a busy or hectic day.

5 Quick Self-Care Tips to Uplift your Mood!

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1. SMELL: Light a scented candle or put on the diffuser

 

Many research studies have reported a direct relationship between mood and smell.  The positive benefits of aromatherapy are widely recognized, indicating why it is used to combat a range of issues from insomnia to stress.

When you experience pleasant smells or ones that you enjoy, it has an almost instant effect on your brain and mood. This is why real estate agents will often bake freshly baked cookies when they’re trying to sell a house, because it helps prospective buyers to associate the new space with home and comfort.

Try This:

Light a scented candle or turn on a diffuser, using one of your favourite scents

(check out some of my favourites).

Some recommended scents for stress relief, calm and uplifting your mood include: lavender, lemon or vanilla.

 

2. SOUND: Turn on your favourite music

 

Music has a generally uplifting effect on your spirit, especially if it is music that you enjoy!  Countless bodies of research cite that music and memories are closely intertwined.  Music can transport us to times when we experienced happiness and pleasure, even when we listen to it years later.

Professor Catherine Lovejoy, a cognitive neuropsychologist at the University of Westminster, found that your  favourite music is typically the music you listened to during your teenage years.  What we listened to during this time usually impacts our preference for music in adulthood.

Is that true for you? It is for me! Although I am a lover of all types of new and old music, my favourite tracks are still 90’s and 2000’s r&b and hip hop, exactly what I listened to in my teens!  When I put on this kind of music I can’t help but smile and think about youthful memories.

Try This:

Make a playlist of your favourite tracks.  Blast them in the car or listen to them while taking a walk with the kids (or solo if possible).

 

3. TASTE: Cook or order your favourite meal

 

They don’t call it comfort food for nothing! Food that you love is a great way to help you feel good and improve your mood.

Like smell and sound, taste also has the power to make you reminisce about more pleasant times when you enjoyed a similar meal.

For example, pizza often reminds me of my grandfather because he used to treat me to it when we spent time together when I was a child.  Whenever I am having a rough day, pizza is usually one of the first meals I crave (although I don’t always give in).

Try This:

Prepare a family favourite meal with your partner and/or kids.  The social aspect of this activity can also help to improve your mood.

OR

If you’re not in the mood to cook, order something tasty and relax while catching up on a show.

 

4. TOUCH: Take a Relaxing Bath

 

Touch has been connected to an increase in oxytocin (the love hormone) and a reduction in stress.  It can be soothing, uplifting and comforting.  Whether it is a massage or hug from a family member, these simple acts can soothe us even on our most stressful day.

Try This:

 

Take a relaxing bubble bath.  Water is also very soothing, so this activity is perfect to calm your muscles, joints and consequently yourself after a long and/or difficult day.

 

5. SIGHT: Spend time watching some beautiful scenery (whether in person or in pictures).

 

Have you ever stared at the moon or a sunset and just couldn’t take your eyes off of it?  Did you notice that it made you feel calm or relaxed fairly quickly?

That is usually the case for pleasant scenes.  Looking at beautiful scenery, even in pictures, has an almost instantaneous uplifting effect.

Try This:

 

Go for a walk or drive to somewhere that you enjoy, and just gazing at your surroundings.  Spend at least 30 minutes taking in the sights.

If you are unable to get out of the house, try looking at pictures of your last vacation or of your kids when they were babies.  These are likely to elicit some positive feelings!

 

Final Thoughts

As much as it may not seem so at times, we are always in charge of our emotions and feelings.  Knowing quick ways to uplift your mood and self-soothe when you are having an off day or feeling down is a vital skill for every woman.

The self-care strategies that I have shared are great ways that you can take control of your feelings.  They can help you to improve your mood on your own, at anytime.

These are just ideas to get you started, it is always important to cater your self-care plan to what works for your lifestyle.

I hope that this post has given you some insight and ideas into how you can use your senses to improve your day by utilizing these positive self-soothing and self-care tactics.

Remember, if you experience persistent down days, sadness, stress or anxiety, it is a good idea to speak to your doctor to see if they are able to provide additional assistance.

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Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions!  Click here to leave me a message.

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