11 Holistic Healing Tips For Busy People

I know what it’s like when trying to squeeze just 5 minutes of your day to meditate feels impossible.

We are more pressured than ever to excel in our careers at the same time as we are supposed to be perfect parents, perfect partners, keep our house clean, dress up and decorate according to the latest fashion, eat healthy, be in great shape, have time for our friends, belong to the right social circles, update social media, and of course — be happy while doing all this!

Ugh, just writing that made me feel exhausted.

So how to find place for taking care of ourselves in the mids of this endless list of expectations and things to do?

I’ve collected a list of healing methods to help you incorporate more self-care and healing into your daily routines.

First things first, before we get into the tips, I’d like to remind you to start by shortening the list above. We all want to be perfect but the truth is that there is only 24 hours in the day and we need to prioritise how we want to spend them.

But even after prioritising we sometimes fail to have any spare time. Don't worry. We all have those days. Days when a full yoga class or other self care time seems like a distant dream.

Needless to say, most of these techniques and healing tips below are more effective when only focusing on them and not doing anything else, but I think even a little bit is better than nothing. It’s better to take a bite of the apple than not to eat the apple at all. At least some of the nutrients will get in!

If only way to incorporate more self-care and healing into your day is through combining it with your routines, I say go for it! There is no reason to feel guilty about not doing self-care "properly" - we have enough expectations as is.

1. Snooze and meditate instead of snooze and fall back asleep

Instead of hitting the snooze button when your alarm rings and falling back asleep for 10 minutes, use that time to meditate and get a great start to your day! You can just sit up on your bed still curled up to your warm blanket and you don't even have to open your eyes.

I like to start my day with a simple mindfulness meditation or a visualisation of how I wan't to see the day unfold from the moment I wake up to the moment I go back to sleep.

2. Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting is not necessarily a healing method, but it has various health benefits and will save you time. One less meal to cook! I follow the 16:8 method which means I eat all my meals within 8 hours (usually two big meals) and then 16 hours to give a break for my digestion. I like skipping breakfast because my brain works a lot better when the energy doesn’t have to go digesting my breakfast and can be used to fuel my brain instead. It's a routine that takes a bit of time to get used to but I say it's worth trying. Just don’t forget to stay hydrated!

3. Practise gratitude while brushing your teeth or driving

Being grateful and giving thanks can have an incredibly positive effect in your life. Just like negative thought patterns and fears can affect our lives, so can the positive ones! Creating a healthy pattern of focusing things that you are grateful of is a great way to improve your happiness and attract more positive things into your life. Listing at least 5 things that you are grateful of every day will amplify the amount of good things in your life. Where the attention goes, the energy flows…

4. Connect with the Mother Earth when you go outside

“Earthing”, meaning connecting with maths electromagnetic field, is a great way to decrease your stress-levels and feel more balanced during your busy day. Whether you go outside to walk to the supermarket, or just to take out the trash - try to connect with some elements in the nature. Find a tree to hug, walk barefoot, lie on the ground or connect with the earth in any way that works for you.

5. Pranayama when showering or in a grocery store line

Pranayama is an important part of yoga that focuses on directing life force energy within us by different breathing exercises. Most of the pranayama exercises aren’t really possible nor recommended while doing something else, but you can take a first step towards the practise by bringing awareness to your breath and slow it down for example while taking a shower or waiting in the line at the grocery store. You can also visualize a sphere of light around your root chakra and lift it towards the third eye (the point between your eyes) with each deep inhale and bring it back down to your root with exhale. You'll be amazed how something often so frustrating as long line at the store can turn into something peaceful and enjoyable.

6. Energy Medicine while sitting in a waiting room

Even been stuck in a waiting room to see a doctor and hoped to spend that time doing something else? I'm sure you have - and now you can! My favourite quick energy medicine fixes are Donna Eden’s Wayne Cook method to calm me down when I'm feeling agitated and the Three Thumps when in a need of an energy boost.

7. Gentle stretching while talking on the phone

You can just sit cross legged and practise keeping your spine long and straight, roll the shoulders up back, and down. Open your chest and ground both sit bones into the earth and just maintain this posture while on the phone. If you want, you can take it one step further by doing the following stretches:

-Do a gentle side stretch: Place your right hand on the ground next to you and reach up with your left fingertips. Then gently lean towards the right, opening up the left side body. Repeat for the other side and place your hands in your lap.

-Place your hands on your shoulders and start drawing circles with your elbows. Begin with small circles and slowly make the movement bigger. Switch direction and repeat.

-Now interlace your fingers behind your back and straighten the arms. Lift the chest and feel how your heart opens.

-Continue with a gentle seated twist. Lengthen your spine and twist your core towards left while placing right hand on your left knee and left hand behind you. Repeat on both sides, but don't twist too far. Also, make sure the twist happens in your core, not in your neck.

8. Practise Mindfulness when cooking and eating your meal

Paying attention to the ingredients and the way we prepare and eat our meal has been an essential part of eastern medicine for ages. Take time to appreciate every fruit and vegetable of your dinner. Their journey from the seed that a farmer somewhere put in the ground, sunlight made grow, and how it made all they way to your plate as your nourishment.

As everything is energy, Ayurveda believes that the way you feel while preparing the meal will have an effect on how the food is digested. Whether it's love or anger that you feel while cooking, your energy will be transferred into the food. So love is definitely the secret ingredient! Take time to chew your food properly and give it your full attention.

9. Gentle self massage when reading your e-mails

Self-massage is an important self-care tool to move stagnant energy and aid our lymphatic system thats job is to remove toxins from our body. The proper Ayurvedic self-massage done with oil is called Abhyanga, but on a busy day you can just do a massage without oil.

Start from your scalp and massage your whole face and head with circular movements. Move down to your chest, belly, and back while doing clockwise circular movements. Then massage your arms, your legs, massaging every joint on the way and then finish at the soles of your feet.

10. Practise forgiveness when doing the dishes

This was intentional, as cleaning is one of topics that cause the most of the fights in relationships. So doing the dishes is a great time to practise forgiveness. You might start wondering: how exactly is forgiving others while doing the dishes self-care?

Because you get back what you send out, it's that simple. Whether its something small like a snarky comment you gave to a new employee who didn’t know how to get your coffee right or some deeper issue you are still holding onto, you need to be aware that the energy that you send out will come back to you like a boomerang.

Even if someone treated you in a way that feels unforgivable, the problem is that as long as you hold on to that resentment or anger, you will only attract more of it. Letting go doesn’t mean accepting someones behaviour. It’s just cutting the the energetic ties with that person. So forgiveness is definitely self-care and healing at it's finest: it's releasing you from that negative energy that's holding you back.

11. Visualize before falling asleep

This one is not only a great way to fall asleep and have wonderful dreams, but also a way to manifest your dreams to come true. Focus on one dream scenario that has all the elements that you wish to have in your life. You can start from your dream house, what it would look like, who is there with you, what is surrounding it, what is going around the world, and expand into more details each time you visualize. What can you see? Smell? Taste? Hear? Feel? The more you can FEEL your visualisation and the more specific you can be the better. Although be careful what you wish for, one day you will end up waking up in that house!

Following these tips will not only make the often frustrating moments like waiting in a line at the grocery store or being stuck in traffic more enjoyable but they're also great for your health and wellbeing. Start by trying just few tips and soon you will realize that you can incorporate these self-care tips in almost any moment of your day!