3 Ways to Nurture the Body with Mindfulness

One scroll through a "self-care" hashtag and you're sure to find perfectly curated photos of crystals and journals, cups of mushroom teas, and the inevitable flower bath photo, but self-care has always been so much more than bubble baths and face-mask (but don't get us wrong, we love those too). At Jihi, we recognize that self-care is an act of love towards yourself and the world around you.

 At Jihi, we recognize that self-care is an act of love towards yourself and the world around you. By introducing a self-centered approach to wellness, we are better able to show up and love the world because we love ourselves.

But what exactly does this mean? To distill it down to its most basic element, self-centered wellness means to know and understand your body and mind and how it functions in the world around you. By tuning into these small changes, we are able to develop a deeper understanding of our responses and the incremental changes that lead us to live wholly at what feels best to our individual selves. Self-centered wellness recognizes that each body is entirely unique and to deeply understand yourself, you must begin by turning inward.

As humans, our bodies are ever evolving. With each new day, comes a wave of changes both large and small. While it is easy to become comfortable in these shifts, we must learn to be mindfully aware of them in order to prevent illnesses, aid in recovery, and understand our bodies on a deeper level.

To get you started as you turn your mindfulness inward, we put together a few points of entry that you can implement as you get to know your body better.

Daily Body Scan Meditation

One of our favorite practices in becoming bodily aware begins with daily body scans. To make these more mindful, we like to implement a meditative state during these.

A daily body scan meditation consists of silencing out the external world while noticing and easing sensations in the body. A tingle in your big toe? Breathe into that location while relaxing the rest of your body and mind. As you begin to practice these exercises, you will begin to notice where your stress and pain are manifesting within your body.

A helpful guide to entry level body scan meditations can be found here!

Weekly Self Exams

While we can't visit the doctor every week, we can certainly prevent illnesses, like skin and breast cancers. Both types of cancers are significantly easier to treat if caught in an early stage. Because of this, it is important to take inventory of your body frequently by performing self-examinations.

For women, 57% of breast cancer survivors reported initial discovery through something other than a mammogram, specifically 25% of them reported their findings via self-examination. Because early detection is critical to preventing the spread of breast cancers, a weekly self breast check should be performed to take inventory and become aware of how your body changes.

Not sure where to begin? The National Breast Cancer Foundation put together this easy instructional video to show you how and what to look for.

Monthly Bullet Journals

As you become more mindful of your body, tracking and recording your responses and patterns can be an incredibly beneficial way to reflect on the changes that are taking place. For this, we like to implement the use of a monthly bullet journal which allows for us to quickly record and reflect on how our body responds to daily life. By using a bullet journal, we can track anything from water intake, sleep habits, skin changes, and performance, all of which will play a role in our overall wellness.

To begin, try our bullet journal for recovery and performance to help you understand how your body functions in response to daily movements and to learn how to better prevent injury.

With this self-centered wellness practice and deep understanding of our bodies, we are able to arrive authentically and mindfully to our daily lives, ready to care for both ourselves and others. To practice self-centered wellness, is a practice of activism in itself. You cannot pour from an empty cup. For more ways to channel this practice, explore your body, and understand what self-centered wellness means to you, head to our Self-Centered Wellness Meditation for an 11 minute deep dive into your relationship with yourself.