It’s officially that time of the year – Fall. Fall is here, and with it comes the busier schedules, colder weather, and shorter days. That magical time when the leaves on the trees change colours, and the temperature goes from hot and humid to chilly. In the blink of an eye, the day outside turns quickly into the night.
Autumn is a natural time for reflection and gratitude, and provides some special opportunities to stay at home and focus on your well-being. Here are some self-care ideas you can do this Fall.
1. Savour a Warm Drink
Make yourself a warm drink and make time to actually sit and drink it while it’s still warm! Whether day or night, practice taking a few minutes out for yourself without feeling guilty or selfish. To maximize this self-care practice, take your time to savour the drink and don’t just gulp it down. Focus on how amazingly soothing enjoying your favourite hot drink is – whether it’s tea, coffee or cocoa.
2. De-clutter
Fall and winter usually mean spending more time inside the house, which means it’s important to keep your surrounding in a relaxing and pleasant mood. Most people are overloaded with stuff. All this stuff can have a negative impact on your mood. Take a look around your home and identify some decluttering projects you can tackle when you have time. Not only will your home become more clutter-free, but decluttering is also a wonderful form of self-care habit.
Here are some articles to help you begin with it:
3. Journal
Get your thoughts out of your head and down onto a paper so you can see them clearly and take the correct action when necessary. Journaling is a wonderful way of reconnecting with yourself, slowing down a busy mind and exploring how you feel about yourself and your life. For an optimal experience, get a good journal and pen and set aside 5-10 minutes each day before bed to list three things you’re grateful for. It might get a bit challenging at the beginning but you’ll eventually get better at it over time.
4. Bake
Baking is one of the ways to express your creativity. It is very therapeutic and perfect to reduce stress and promoting mindfulness when you stay at home for too long. Don’t be afraid to get your hands a bit dirty because this is something you should have fun with. Try gathering your friends and family to do this together. Baking and making food together is such a fun experience, and it’s a great way you can turn an activity into a fun memory.
No ideas what to bake? Here are some for you:
5. Learn a Skill
Learning something new can reduce stress and improve your mental health. Be it a new language, art, cooking, baking or gardening, discover what you’re interested in and explore them.
6. Keep Hydrated and Drink Plenty of Water
In this season, you need water more than ever. Don’t let your skin dry out because the heating’s going full blast. Imagine when you’re staying in the house for most of the time because the weather is just perfect for a homebody and your heating is turned on the entire time, how would your skin be like? If you’re not a drinker, use an app or a tracking water bottle to keep yourself hydrated.
7. Enjoy Cooking Stews or Soups
Create some warm and hearty meals that you can batch cook and make a big quantities of these to freeze for super-busy days. This is a great way to spend a few hours making your favourite meals or trying out a new recipe. Also, this saves you time and stress in deciding what to eat when you have some prepared in the freezer.
You might want to try these heart-warming soup recipes:
8. Call a Friend or Loved One
For many of us, this season is a time for family and friends. So, make a point of connecting with those who mean the most to you. Give them a call and spend time talking to them. This brightening your day, you might brighten theirs too!
9. Arrange a Fun and Cozy Night
Arrange a fun and cozy night for you and your partner, family or friends. Make it really special by making everyone feel at home. Watch a movie, play a game, or just simply have a conversation for the night. Also, bring it to another level by making dinner together!
10. Go Stargazing
Stargazing is another great self-care idea for Fall. When the nights get a little chilly, you can cozy up beneath a blanket under the stars. Stargazing is a magical and inexpensive way to explore nature. You don’t need to own a telescope or know the constellations. You can see the wonders in the sky with your naked eyes, but you will need to allow 15 minutes or so to adjust properly to the darkness.
11. Go For a Drive
Hop on a spontaneous road trip for a day, an afternoon, or just for an hour. Roll down the window and enjoy the cool crisp autumn breeze. Pick a non-peak hour to go for a drive so you don’t have to waste your time stuck in a traffic jam.
12. Build a Good Habit
There’s no better time than now to start building a good habit. During this season of the year, you’ll most likely be spending more time inside the house, and it makes it so much easier to build and track a new habit. Start from the smallest thing like going to bed before 11pm, drinking more water or doing a quick 20 mins at-home exercise. It doesn’t have to be the greatest good habit in your life. Just start small and consistently make your way up on it.
13. Make a Meal Out of Fall Vegetables
You’re always meaning to get more veggies into your diet, and Fall is a perfect time. Squash (acorn, pumpkin and butternut), cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cabbage and Brussels sprouts are all at their best during Fall. They tasted so much better during this season of the year. So, try making a meal out of these Fall vegetables. Even if you’re just simply roasting them with salt and pepper, you’ll be surprised by how good they taste.
Here are some Fall recipes for you to try out:
14. Collect Fallen Leaves of Different Colours and Make a Scrapbook
Take a walk outside, splash in the puddles and swish through the leaves on the ground. Look for different colours of fallen leaves, take them back home and make a scrapbook of them. Make a note of what the leaves look like. Nature is so beautiful at this time of the year, and it’s the best time to enjoy the changing colours of the leaves.
15. Decorate the House
Decorating the house to create a cozy and inviting atmosphere is crucial for our health and mental wellness. When the day gets darker a lot earlier at this time of the year, we often feel depressed and a little low in energy. By setting the atmosphere in your house, you can make it feel more like a place where you’ll want to spend time. If you have no idea how to decorate your house, find some inspiration on Pinterest. There are plenty of inspirations and I’m pretty sure you can find one that catches your eye.
16. Read or Re-read Your Favourite Book
When it’s wet and windy outside, nothing beats curling up under a blanket with a good book. Whether you want to re-read your favourite book or read a new book that has been up on your book list for months now, it’s the best time to go for it. Cozy up with some tea and fuzzy socks and break open your go-to read.
17. Sit Still in Silence For 5 Minutes
The world we’re living in now is a very fast pace world. Everything moves very fast before you even know it. This is extremely bad for our mental and physical health because we never get a chance to really sit down and rest. So, take a moment, at least 5 minutes to sit still and do nothing. Pay attention to your breathing or surrounding – how your body moves when you breathe in and out or how the sky looks.
18. Go on a Spontaneous Self-Staycation
If you’ve been working so hard for the last 8 months, this is the time to give yourself some slack and enjoy your life. I’m sure most of us already have our travel bucket list lying around in our notebooks which seems to be unreal to achieve. Take a few days off from work, and use this time to find somewhere affordable with great fall views and hop on the next flight. If it’s impossible to take a few days off or fly somewhere far, taking yourself on a short weekend trip to somewhere new in your city is also another way of doing it.
Here are some packing tips to avoid overpacking that will ruin your trip:
19. Listen to a Podcast
Many podcasts are offered for free! They aren’t only good entertainment, but also a great education. Now you can be entertained or learn a new lesson whenever you want, wherever you are. You get to learn something new and be inspired! You can also go for a walk or do the housework at the same time.
20. Make a Vision Board
Just because you’re staying at home more doesn’t mean you can just lie around and binge-watching your favourite shows. Another Fall self-care idea is to make a Fall vision board. It can be your career goals, health goals or personal goals. Plan what you want to bring to your life, cut out your Fall inspiration photos and make a physical vision board or make a virtual one.
In Summary
I know that for many of us, self-care seems difficult, especially if you have little kids or a jam-packed schedule. However, you need to take good care of yourself before anything else. Give it a try on some of the self-care ideas above and see how different you’ll feel at the end of the day.
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