Being in service to others is a rewarding experience, but it requires you to be at your best. Helping others takes a toll on you. It’s essential to take care of yourself if you want to give people your best, and the following guide will help you do that.
A New Focus on Sleep
If you’re a volunteer or frontline worker, you might have to keep odd hours. You may have to travel often from one place to another. This could hurt your sleeping patterns, and that’s not a good thing. Fatigue impairs your ability to learn, your ability to maintain your energy, and it hurts your ability to focus. You need this as a frontline worker, so you need to make sure you sleep well. This means having noise-canceling earplugs when you’re traveling and eye masks, too. This also means investing in blackout curtains so that you can sleep even if it’s still morning.
Gyms all Over the Place
The next thing you want to figure out is exercise. You need to stay fit and active if you’re going to continue providing as much care as possible. Exercise helps maintain your energy levels, which you need. On top of that, exercise helps maintain your mood. This may not sound like a big deal, but some volunteer workers and frontline professionals are in high-stress environments, which could take a toll on them. The good thing is you can always find gyms in San Diego and other major cities so that you can exercise even when you’re traveling. Make sure the gyms are open 24/7 if you work strange hours.
Mental Health is Vital
As you know, being a frontline worker or a volunteer exposes you to all sorts of trauma. Sometimes, trauma takes a toll on you, and that’s something you need to worry about. People sometimes experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) if they’re dealing with difficult situations day in and day out. You want to deal with these sorts of feelings as soon as you can with a professional. This could be difficult if you keep strange hours or travel a lot, but the good thing is there are telehealth services now that you can rely on. You get to talk to a professional on the phone whenever you need to at a convenient time for you. Just be sure to do this when you need it.
Nutrients in All Things
You need to worry about getting the proper nutrients. Working odd hours makes it hard to eat right. You want to learn how to eat quickly but well. You also want to take a multivitamin or see a nutritionist now and then see which nutrients you’re lacking. Eating quick meals that are good and healthy isn’t as hard as you might think. For example, you can start making smoothies every day filled with all the good stuff you can find, like powdered vegetables, or maybe you can add egg yolks along with other ingredients you know your body needs. You can also learn to make dried bars, like meat bars or other types of nutrition-rich bars, as long as they’re natural.
Take Breaks
It’s important to pause for a moment. Help is always needed, but you need to take a break from everything, at least for a moment. The body and mind shouldn’t have to take so much turmoil and stress. Every so often, you need to find time to center yourself. To accomplish that, you need a full break. This respite period should allow you to travel and take care of yourself. You can camp for a while and enjoy the silence nature has to offer. You can take on a temporary job, like working for an animal farm, which is usually away from the city and allows you to interact with animals, which can be therapeutic. Whatever you feel like doing that feels right is what you should be doing.
Hopefully, these suggestions make it easier to take care of yourself to continue to care for others. What you do should never feel like a chore, and it doesn’t have to if you put yourself first.