Self care is so important to our happiness and health and in a perfect world we’d all be practicing self care daily. But there are times where taking care of yourself can become quite challenging.

For example, last weekend was the World Domination Summit, located in Portland, Oregon. I had the good fortune of being one of ten of the Action Team members responsible for organizing this event. I’m proud to say that the event turned out amazing! Inspiring speakers, awesome people, electric group energies and individual epiphanies were delivered in huge overflowing servings. Going to WDS is like eating a meal that is so big and delicious it takes you weeks to digest it all.

My role was to organize almost all of the details for the opening and the closing parties, as well as being in charge of the other venues associated with the event. There were moments over the weekend where I had phone calls, texts, emails and people coming up to me all at the same time asking me what to do, how to do it, or other requests. I calculated my hours over the weekend, just out of curiosity, and estimate that I worked between 42 and 45 hours in three days. There were moments where I could sit and listen to speakers, just enjoying the conference, but mostly, I worked my tail feathers off.

It is not easy to maintain any sort of self care habits when you’re working so hard and are responsible for so much. There were some things that I managed to do for myself this weekend that really helped, though. Here’s my list of what I call self care triage for those times when you’re way too busy and know you need to take care of yourself, but you barely have time to think about what you need for yourself.

Self Care Triage

This is a process of determining what you need, and when, during crazy stressful times. It requires paying attention to your body and mind. It extends way beyond the points I’m listing below, but this is the self care I did to keep myself up and running.

1. Eat both snacks and meals- like bringing little pre-packaged almonds from Trader Joes. I only ate one package all weekend, but when I needed it, I had it. I also gave Jena a snack when she needed it. Almonds stabilize your blood sugars and the protein really helps in a pinch. I also started each day with an awesome meal- I ate scrambled eggs with sauteed kale each day. It really makes a difference when your day begins with a deliciously, healthy protein and fiber.

2. Quench your thirst- There were moments when I struggled with this, but by day two I was in the habit of refilling my water bottle every time I walked past the water filling station. Another thing I did was to drink one to two glasses of water between cocktails at the opening and closing party.

3. Sleep- I’m not going to lie, I didn’t get enough sleep this weekend, so on the last day I took a disco-nap in one of the hammocks in the Hammock Lounge, which is just one of the awesome things that WDS offers. It’s important to listen to your body and even a quick nap can give you a boost of vital energy when you need it.

4. Stretching- the house was totally full for WDS so most of the Action Team members and volunteers stood or sat on the floor. When I was on the floor backstage I stretched and did simple yoga moves to ease my tired, aching muscles.

5. Take a moment for yourself- Whenever I’d start to feel stressed and like there was too much going on, or I had too much on my plate, I’d take a quiet moment somewhere and decompress a bit. Most of the time, if you give yourself even a minute to yourself, you can really turn around any negativity that might try to creep in. Sometimes a good cry can rid the yucky stress emotions as well. There’s no need to take negative emotions out on others if you take care of yourself first.

A young guy who was a volunteer at the event, assigned to help me with the opening and closing parties, asked me how I managed to pull off these events in such close succession. I said, “Well, I do everything I can in the planning stages so that the day of, I can let go of it a bit. I also double and triple check that the things that are supposed to be done are actually getting done by the venues, bands, food and drink vendors, etc. I try to think ahead and strategize what I’ll need as early as possible and most importantly, I take care of myself so I can do my job effectively.”

Every awesome project we begin, starts and ends with us taking care of ourselves.

When our own basic needs are met, we have so much more to give and share with the world.

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Check out Jena’s post on her blog, about how she practices self care thru quick daily restarts.

Share your thoughts/tips/struggles around self care on your blog too, and we’ll post a link right here for our readers to check out!

Readers Say:

Pocky gets truthy about her lack of self-care lately (and our psychic abilities) and her new 5 minute rule.

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What little things do you do each day to take better care of yourself?

Do you remember to take care of yourself when you’re feeling super busy and stressed? Or does your self care slip thru the cracks?

Let us know in the comments below, or on your own blog! We’d love to hear your stories around self care, whether you have tips to share in how you take care of yourself each day or are currently struggling to find the balance between your responsibilities and your own needs.

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ps: if you feel like you need to get back on your own to-do list, you’re not alone! We talk a lot about how to create more time for our own needs and happiness in our Catalyst Course, so that we can all give our best selves to the world! The next round starts soon and inner-circle subscribers will get special first dibs registration at a discount, so be sure to get on the list if you’re interested!

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