Me Time: Part I, Benefits of Finding Time For Yourself

We tend to underestimate the benefits ‘me time’ can have on our mental health. It’s not just something we should do when we’re bored or have nothing else to do, scheduling ‘me time’ is just as important as setting up a doctors appointment. In a society that is always on the rush, we tend to postpone any time we have for ourselves or spend it on our phone, not fully immersing ourselves into a moment that should be centered on taking care of ourselves. In fact, here are some benefits you might be unaware come from spending quality time with yourself:

• It relieves you from stress: to fully enjoy ‘me time’, you need to start by accepting that it’s not selfish to take time to yourself, in fact, it's healthy and therapeutic. When you enjoy this time, it gives you the opportunity to really relax and focus on what you want. It doesn’t matter what you do, whether it’s a bath or a movie on Netflix, the important thing is to have uninterrupted ‘me time’ so you can get rid of some extra stress.
• Improves your concentration and ability to retain information: by giving yourself a moment a day where your brain can ‘turn off’ and just enjoy what you’re doing, you’re also taking care of your brain so that it can work better throughout the day. Since it knows you’re going to let it relax, later on, it doesn’t need to stop working to ‘doze off’, improving your concentration and making it easier to retain information throughout the day.
• It allows you to reflect: spending time with yourself allows you to explore your mind and reflect on things that might be bothering you at the moment. Which means you can also take this time to take care of yourself.
• Raises your self-esteem: by taking the time to take care of yourself and focus on your needs you subconsciously remind yourself that you matter and are important. Sometimes we tend to neglect ourselves when we’re too busy taking care of everyone else around us, it’s important and healthy to remind ourselves that we’re important too.
• It impacts the people around you: I know we tend to say that see ‘me time’ as selfish, but actually, the time you spend on yourself has a positive impact on the people around you. All the benefits that this quality time with yourself brings you, will help you improve your relationship with your friends and family. When you don’t take these moments for yourself, you tend to resent people and hold on to anger and negative emotions. So really, scheduling ‘me time’ is part of the greater good.

Now that we’ve established how important it is to have a date with yourself, the next step is seeing how you can find that time for yourself. We’ll offer some tips on this on our next article, but until then we encourage you to look browse through our online library www.mediavex.com for books to read during your ‘me time’.