Is your weekly wellness schedule filled to the brim, yet nothing much gets accomplished? You’ve heard it all: the morning routine, the night routine, the wellness routine that will take you from living a life of misery and emptiness to fulfillment, more productivity, and enlightened spiritual states.
You’re encouraged to forgo sleep for a 6 am wakeup call where you’ll journal, read, work out, meditate, take a cold shower, and eat a hot breakfast, all before 8 am. Now, if you’re someone who thrives on this type of lifestyle and it works for you, then by all means go off king or queen, but for a lot of us, that’s not realistic. Maybe you have late-night obligations and wish to prioritize sleep, or are a busy working mom with limited time throughout the day.
Let’s face the truth, many of us can’t do it all every day. Or maybe you try, but eventually your daily wellness routine becomes another source of burnout and causes you stress when it’s supposed to relax and energize your nervous system. That’s where having a weekly wellness schedule comes into play. Curate your weekly wellness schedule in a way that’s realistic and can be completed without you becoming overwhelmed and discouraged. Keep reading to learn how to build the weekly wellness schedule of your dreams to boost your overall well-being.
Perfectionists-
If you’re an all-or-nothing person, you may feel that unless you can check off your to-do list which includes working out every single day, reading 10 pages, and stretching your body on top of your work life, home life, and social life, you might feel that it’s not worth doing at all.
Many of us have this habit of being perfectionists when it comes to our wellness. Once you fall off the wagon, it becomes harder to get back on because if you can’t commit to a daily practice, then you won’t get the benefits from it. While that can be partially true, with things like morning pages or exercise, where they are beneficial when done every day, our current lifestyle doesn’t allow for so much downtime. This is why we should break up our wellness routine into smaller chunks that can be realistically completed.
List Your Wellness Goals-
Make a list of what wellness activities you’d like to complete each week. It could be things you already do that work for you, or things that you want to start. Aim for around 5-10 things that you feel could benefit your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
Your list could look like:
-Journaling
-Exercise
-Full body stretch
-Facial yoga and/or massage
-Read for 30 minutes or 10 pages
-Meditate
-Practice Duolingo
-Lie on an acupressure mat
x Per Week-
Contemplate which activities you want to complete more frequently and which are of lesser priority. You might want to get in a workout 3 or 4 times a week, while reading or doing a facial massage or gua sha session is only important for you to do once or twice a week.
Make a list on a piece of paper, your notes app, or your computer, and write out the days:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Wherever you have listed your wellness activities, decide how frequently you’d like to accomplish them per week. Put a x1, x2, x3, x4, or x5, x6, or x7 beside the activity to determine how often you’d like to get them done. Aim to stick to only 3 wellness activities per day. If you want to journal every single day, then keep in mind that you’ll only have two other slots per day for other activities. Mixing up your wellness schedule can help to keep it fresh and exciting instead of boring and stale.
Example:
-Journaling x2
-Exercise x4
-Full body stretch x3
-Facial yoga and/or massage x2
-Read for 30 minutes or 10 pages x3
-Meditate x3
-Practice Duolingo x2
-Lie on an acupressure mat x2
Now fill your wellness activities into your wellness schedule. It might look something like :
Monday
Exercise
Stretch
Read
Tuesday
Journal
Meditate
Facial massage
Wednesday
Exercise
Stretch
Acupressure mat
Thursday
Duolingo
Meditate
Read
Friday
Exercise
Stretch
Acupressure mat
Saturday
Journal
Meditate
Facial massage
Sunday
Exercise
Duolingo
Read
Once you complete these activities throughout the week, you can highlight or cross them off. If you miss an activity one day, you can always add it to the next day’s schedule if you have time. However, keeping your wellness activities to a minimum can help you feel like you can achieve the physical and mental benefits without becoming overwhelmed. If you’d like to complete this only during the week and leave your weekends or certain days free, continue with the 3 activities per day metric to keep yourself busy without overfilling your schedule.
Flexibility-
We’re going to keep these activities free of timeslots so that you can complete them throughout the day as you see fit or have time for. This is meant to be as flexible and non-restrictive as possible to keep the stress down. However, if you feel more comfortable adhering to a strict time frame, then feel free to add time slots.
Weekends-
If you’d like to keep your weekends or your days off completely free with no obligations, feel free to remove the weekends or certain days. This schedule isn’t about being perfect; it’s about creating a wellness schedule that is completely custom and tailored to your well-being needs.
Time Frame-
To be the most efficient, aim to schedule activities that take longer with activities that take less time. If you want to practice another language on Duolingo, which might take 10 minutes, pair it with a longer activity like a workout class or gym session, which might take around an hour.
Look at your schedule for the week ahead and align it in a way that makes sense. If you have a day off, you can put more time-consuming activities together. If there’s a day when you know you won’t have much time available, schedule your least time-consuming activities, like a quick facial massage. Be realistic with how much you can get done so that the day doesn’t fly by without you attending to your wellness. You can allot as much time as you need for each activity. Some people can only meditate for 5 or 10 minutes, while others can for 30 minutes. Know yourself and how much time you’re willing to schedule for each activity. Maybe you only want to read 10 pages per day instead of 30 minutes.
Final Thoughts-
Wellness has taken over our lives, and while this is a positive, it can become stressful when you feel like you need to wake up at the crack of dawn to complete a 3-hour wellness routine before you’ve even had breakfast. By breaking up your weekly wellness routine into a manageable schedule, you’ll be able to reap the benefits that a regular wellness routine can bring without the added stress of a long to-do list. Especially if you’re a perfectionist and feel you need to do everything every day, this takes away the added pressure and reminds you that wellness is for progress and not perfection. This weekly wellness schedule gives you the flexibility you need to stay on track and reach your goals. Hopefully, it’ll help you stay on course in your wellness journey.
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