We’re constantly being told we should take more care of ourselves if we want to stay mentally and physically healthy. If you want to reflect more and find balance in your life, a popular tool to use is a self-care wheel.
It’s a way of improving your own self-care, self-love, well-being, and happiness.
What Is A Self Care Wheel?
A quality-of-life self-care wheel is a tool you can use to help you overcome the stresses and strains of modern living. Research undertaken over the last two decades has highlighted our inability to handle the situations we find ourselves in.
Self-care can help with situations such as:
- Lack of commitment
- Negative attitudes
- Overwhelming exhaustion
- Dissatisfaction with performance
However, for self-care to help, it has to be planned, acted upon, and practiced, which is where the self-care whee comes into play.
The wheel is a pictorial representation of wellness. The spokes of the wheel depict an interrelated set of tasks. These tasks interact with life forces such as family, community, religion, education, media, business and industry, and government.
Implementing Self-Care Wheel As Part Of Overall Self-Care 2024
The structure provided by the self-care balance wheel helps you to identify and nourish areas where you are failing, surviving, or thriving.
There are three steps to follow if you want to learn how to use the self-care wheel:
Assess
This takes the form of a self-care assessment worksheet wheel that consists of a series of questions about your current self-care practices.
Plan
Based on the results of the self-care assessment wheel, you make a self-care plan to take care of self-care aspects that are in need of your attention.
Implement
The final step is to execute your plan. Some strategies that might help include:
- Scheduling self-care activities, making sure you’re specific about them
- Make a commitment to yourself
- Share your plan because it makes it more likely you’ll follow through
Self-Care Activities For Physical Domain
This is the section of the self-care wheel template that relates to activities that impact your physical health/well-being.
- Exercise
- Sleep
- Unplug
- Eat healthily
- Be sexual
- Get regular medical checkups
Self-Care Activities For Emotional Domain
These are ways that you express your emotions/feelings.
- Laugh
- Find a hobby
- Practice self-love
- Cry
- Forgive
- Cuddle with your pet
Self-Care Activities For Spiritual Domain
Your spiritual side helps you feel connected and gives you a sense of belonging to the world.
- Spend time outdoors
- Meditate
- Volunteer
- Practice yoga
- Pray
- Get inspired
Self-Care Activities For Psychological Domain
This section of a self-care life balance wheel is all about self-reflection.
- Go to therapy
- Journal
- Self-reflect
- Relax
- Ask for help
- Do something creative
Self-Care Activities For Personal Domain
In this section of the self-care wellness wheel, you’re focusing on learning who you are and figuring out what you want from life.
- Create a vision board
- Get out of debt
- Establish goals
- Spend time with loved ones
- Learn who you are
- Cook
Self-Care Activities For Professional Domain
In this section, you’re exploring the professional side of your life.
- Leave work at work
- Take a vacation, sick, and mental health days
- Plan your next career move
- Take lunches
- Avoid working during days off
- Learn to say no
What are Some Popular Self-Care Apps?
You can create your own life balance self-care wheel, but there is also a variety of self-care apps you can use. For example:
- Grateful: Use the tools in this app to help you manage stress and anxiety and work through your worries.
- Gratitude: Use this app to highlight the things in your life you’re grateful for and focus your attention on positive things in your life.
- Anxiety Solution: Calmer You: This subscription-based app is based on the book The Anxiety Solution by Chloe Brotheridge. It includes an anxiety toolkit that covers practices for focusing on self-care, practicing mindfulness, improving your sleep, and overcoming anxiety and worry.
- Headspace: This subscription-based app provides a mental well-being program for teams and individuals. It also includes support for mindfulness meditations.
Conclusion
If you can find balance in your life, you’ll divide your time and energy across all areas. However, when life is out of balance, parts of your life are going to be undernourished.
