menu facebook twitter instagram pinterest youtube search chevron-down chevron-up
Be My Travel Muse
  • About
    • About
    • Contact Me
    • Press
    • Work With Me
  • Blog
    • Archives
    • Best of BMTM
  • YouTube
  • Solo Female Travel
    • Bucket List
      • The 31 Cheapest Places to Travel in 2025
      • 31 BEST Places in the USA for Solo Female Travelers in 2025
      • 25 Unexpectedly Awesome Destinations for Solo Female Travelers
      • 25 Best Countries to Travel Alone for the First Time
      • 13 Perfect Weekend Trips for Solo Female Travelers in the USA
      • 10 Best Weekend Trips from Phoenix, Arizona
    • Resources
      • How to take the best travel selfies
      • 41 safety tips for solo female travelers
      • The ultimate solo female travel guide
      • Best group tours for solo female travelers
      • Why Every Woman Should Travel Alone
    • All solo female travel blogs
  • Be My Travel Muse
  • Tours
  • Destinations
    • USA
      • Hawaii
      • California
      • Nevada
      • Idaho
      • Arizona
      • Florida
      • Alaska
      • Utah
    • North America
      • Mexico
      • Costa Rica
      • Canada
    • Asia
      • Thailand
      • Philippines
      • Indonesia
      • Japan
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Aruba
      • Chile
      • The Galápagos
    • Europe
      • Germany
      • Iceland
      • Italy
    • All Destinations
  • Trip Planning

12 Exquisite Daily Self-Care Ideas

04/19/2021 by Kristin Addis Leave a Comment

Self-care is about taking action to preserve one’s bodily and mental health. Quite simply, we only have one body and one mind, so it’s essential that we put these things first in life, no?

Except it’s rarely that simple. Other things like, well, life get in the way and sometimes self care feels out of reach or oddly selfish.

That’s backwards, though. Can we agree that self-care is not self-indulgent, or at all an irresponsible use of time? We can? Great. We have a responsibility to care for ourselves.

Without caring for ourselves we can hardly care for others, so if you’re finding yourself stressed, burnt out, or just want to keep up a healthy practice, you’ve come to the right place. These are 10 of my favorite daily self-care ideas and routines and ideas to make it enjoyable and easy.

Table of Contents

Toggle
  • 1. Create Consistency
  • 2. Commit to 7 Days of Meditation
  • 3. Read or Listen to Personal Development Books
  • 4. Immerse Yourself in Learning a New Skill
  • 5. Forest Bathing – shinrin-yoku
  • 6. Learn to Love Yourself
  • 7. Care for Your Body
  • 8. Check Out of Social Media and Keep Your Phone on Silent
  • 9. Be Artistic
  • 10. Let Personal Hygiene Be More Exciting
  • 11. Yoni Egg
  • 12. Try Journaling

1. Create Consistency

Benefit of waking up early consistently? Glorious sunrises like this one

I find, to take up a new habit, it’s best if I make it part of a consistent daily routine – one with payoff. For example, I can’t take my phone off of airplane mode or start doing work until I’ve done my daily meditation and journaling. That way, I set the tone for my day without letting anything steal my attention away or change the course before I’ve even begun.

We can change our habits by changing the routine. So if you find you have room for improvement with your AM routine, insert something consistent like meditation and journaling before you begin your day.

2. Commit to 7 Days of Meditation

Meditation can be done anytime, anywhere

Committing to a lifetime of meditation might feel excessive, but you can do seven days of meditation, at just 10+ minutes per day, right? Anyone can find ten minutes, and if you don’t have that, then it’s worth taking a hard look at why not.

It might feel pointless at first, and your mind will likely wander, which is normal and part of meditation. It’s the practice that gives you results, and 7 days is a gentle introduction. You can sign up for free here.

3. Read or Listen to Personal Development Books

Food for the brain

The older I get, the less I realize I know, and the more I’ve gotten into self-help/personal development books. They’re often written by successful authors, public speakers, psychologists, and specialists who have spent a lot more time studying human behavior than I have.

If I have one big takeaway from each read (or listen), then I feel it was worth the time and attention. You can find my favorite list of self-help books here.

4. Immerse Yourself in Learning a New Skill

mandarin rosetta stone
Brushing up on Mandarin!

Novelty releases endorphins in the brain, our body’s natural opiate. You also feel it after dancing, exercising, sex, and many other healthy activities. New projects can put us in a flow state and help us get that pleasurable rush.

The universal experience of flow, when we’re deep into a project and fully immersed into it, often makes up some of the best moments of our lives. Plus, learning a skill you’ve always wanted to learn builds up self-esteem and character.

I have a list in this post of some of the best resources for learning new skills for free or cheap.

5. Forest Bathing – shinrin-yoku

yosemite winter hikes
We will be back in here again soon

It wasn’t that long ago that we lived fully outside, surviving off of what the land provided, and living in harmony with it as hunter-gatherers. We have spent much more time living in that way – nearly 2 million years – than we do now indoors. It’s estimated that these days we spend 93% of our time indoors, which isn’t all that healthy.

Forest bathing is about spending time immersed in the outdoors, almost becoming your environment. It’s a calming meditation that you can do anywhere natural, from a forest to a desert to your backyard.

A 2016 study found that forest bathing “significantly reduced pulse rate and significantly increased the score for vigor and decreased the scores for depression, fatigue, anxiety, and confusion”. To put it simply: We need time in Mother Nature. As far as daily self-care ideas go, this one is perhaps the simplest one to implement.

6. Learn to Love Yourself

You are a divine goddess and you best believe it!

Self-love, like self-care, is an ongoing practice that takes time and patience. At least, it has for me.

However after 9 years of traveling solo, I’ve spent a lot of time alone, and that has meant learning how to love myself and welcome that solo time. This deserves its own post, which you can read more about here.

7. Care for Your Body

Staying active and eating healthy are two of the most important things to me, and yet when I’m super busy, they often take a back seat.

But I can’t deny I feel my best when I’m feeling fit and healthy, so in isolation, I commit to doubling down on these important aspects of having a long, happy life.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite free workouts.

8. Check Out of Social Media and Keep Your Phone on Silent

Just hang out!

In times of stress, social media makes it all much, much worse. Over the past year, I’ve deleted the news app from my phone and homepage of Google, kept the Facebook app off my phone, and gone long periods of time without the Instagram app, too.

I also keep my phone on silent, without even vibration, most of the time. This not only helps tremendously with productivity, but also helps me keep my thoughts my own. I don’t want nor need excessive input, which has been shown to increase stress and decrease feelings of personal power and efficacy. This helps us consciously choose when and how we wish to connect with others. It gives us our personal power back.

9. Be Artistic

Create something with no end goal. Paint, write, or garden just because you want to – because it feels good to make things. It took a forced slow down for me to realize how important this is. Creating things just because you want to, rather than for any kind of outside approval, is art in its purest form. And it feels damn good.

However you wish to interpret ‘make art’ is perfect. Just do it.

10. Let Personal Hygiene Be More Exciting

Might invest in a bathrobe just because

I lived in Taipei in 2007. Back then, it cost about $3 to get one’s hair washed, massaged, and perfectly cleansed at a salon. I don’t know about you, but I go into a state of bliss when having my head massaged. If I were a cat, I would surely purr.

Then I realized: Hey, I can do this to myself! I can make any shower, lotion application session, tooth brushing moment, or facial mask into a luxurious event just by giving it all of my attention and intention. I take my time with the hair washing, I massage my lotion in, and I let it be enjoyable. This really only adds 10 or so minutes to my routine but makes all the difference in how I experience it.

11. Yoni Egg

San Juan siquijor
Pay attention to your body’s power center

I’m just going to say it: this list of daily self-care ideas is incomplete without giving attention to our body’s power center – to the origin of all life. Having a better relationship with our yonis (this is the only acceptable word I can find for ‘vagina’), means more personal power, self-efficacy, and better relationships. It seems like a strong promise, and it is, because this is one of the most important self-care rituals you can have.

Yoni yoga with the yoni egg, a small jade egg that you insert, yes, into your yoni, can be incredibly healing. I find the whole ritual to be empowering beyond almost anything else I’ve tried. You can learn much more here from Layla Martin, whom I trust completely.

12. Try Journaling

Journal + coffee. I love this ritual.

This is one of the daily self-care ideas that brings me so much joy to do. Journaling daily is an awesome way to intentionally check in with yourself each day. Even writing just one page a day can provide some much-needed mental clarity. You can either follow specific prompts, like these shadow work journal prompts, or simply do a PIES check-in each day. This is basically just writing how you are P-physically, I-Intellectually, E-emotionally, and S-spiritually.

I hope these daily self-care ideas introduced you to something new or helped you find a practice you hadn’t thought of before. Whether we’re on the go or stuck in one place, making time for self care can be life-changing in the best of ways.

Get the guidebook for solo female travelers!

About Kristin Addis

Kristin Addis is the founder and CEO of Be My Travel Muse, a resource for female travelers all around the world since 2012. She's traveled solo to over 65 countries and has brought over 150 women on her all-female adventure tours from Botswana to the Alaskan tundra.

« The 24 Most Beautiful Places in Mexico
12 Reasons You’ll Love Bacalar »

Hello There!

headshot

Welcome to Be My Travel Muse, one of the top female travel blogs in the world, welcoming over 5 million readers annually.

I'm Kristin, and my vision of a better world is one where more women are empowered and living out their dreams. Solo traveling is the best method I've found to become the best, bravest version of me. This site is all about how YOU can have the adventure of a lifetime in an easy, fun, approachable way, so that you can feel empowered, too. Want to learn more about me?

Click here!

Get the Solo Female Travel Guidebook

Popular Posts

I am currently in:

The USA!

Check it out on Instagram Stories!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Stay Connected

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Me
  • Archives
  • Privacy Policy and Disclaimer

© 2025 · Be My Travel Muse. All Rights Reserved

footer-icon