From nutritious diet to exercise, the basics of a healthy lifestyle are more or less common. While some may have specific needs that they need to attend to, physical wellness, for the most part, is something that helps everyone. There are some basic things that are needed to take care of our mental health. Good sleep and rest are some of them, but self-care needs tend to vary quite a bit from person to person. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, or just a warm bath, there are many popular self-care activities.

Finding a self-care routine that works for you and helps you feel better can take some experimentation. While some people may meditate to calm down, others prefer to engage in vigorous exercise to distract themselves from the problems of everyday life. There’s no “right” way to take care of yourself, but you’re bound to find a routine that works for you and your needs. So if you’re feeling unhappy with your current routine or aren’t sure if your self-care is as effective as it could be, here’s how you can tell if your self-care is working—and how to create a routine that works for you and your needs.

How should self-care make you feel?

To understand whether or not self-care is working for you, you need to know more about how it should make you feel. After all, the “spectrum” of good well-being is more complex than it seems. Should selfcare make you happy or just okay? Our self-care should therefore leave us feeling uplifted, relaxed, recharged and our well-being enhanced. If self-care activities don’t make us feel that way, then it might be best to try something else and experiment. If you find it difficult to identify how you feel after a self-care session, then you can try asking yourself a few questions: How are your energy levels? How is your mental state? Do you talk to yourself kindly or do you ‘talk’ to yourself? How are your relationships? Do you have the energy to be around people or do you feel drained? By checking yourself through the questions, you will soon find out if you are taking care of yourself in the right way.

Is there a “perfect” self-care routine?

There is no such thing as a “perfect” self-care routine, and your self-care needs are likely to evolve from day to day. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t find a range of activities to suit your needs. These may change over time and be different from person to person. What works for us one week may be different the next month. This is because we are all different, with different personalities and backgrounds, and therefore have different needs. That’s why it’s helpful to have a set of self-care routines that we can refer to depending on what needs we have at any given time. The “perfect” self-care routine is one that allows you to reconnect with yourself, relax and recharge. To get ideas you can talk to other people about it, do research on the internet or read a related book and try what suits you. But it is important not to exclude activities that have not worked in the past. Every day we change and it is important to give opportunities again to activities that did not express us before. For example, you may think that reading books does not suit you. But with the right kind of book and the ideal reading environment, it can become your favorite habit. Make a list of all the forms of selfcare you know work for you, and maybe make a list of the ones you’d be curious to experiment with. Finding what forms of self-care work for you can be an exciting challenge and a way to learn more about yourself!