how to customize self-care for yourself

more personal / less extreme

Self care takes effort. It doesn’t just happen.
The body and mind need to be maintained. Similar to a garden, without effort, weeds will pop up and overtake everything.
With a bit of consistent pruning, the results can be beautiful.

James Clear

“Self-Care” is a widely used term across all types of brands and media today (myself included), but have you ever taken a moment to consider what it means to you personally, or how you take care of your Self on a daily basis?

I’ve learned about a wide range of self-care practices over the years from ancient wisdom like yoga and Ayurveda, current scientific studies and biohacking, doctors and various healers, teachers and mentors and like-minded friends.

*Click here and scroll down to “healers” for a list of my personal references.

Although the above have offered invaluable insight, some recovering perfectionist tendencies often kept me from actually caring for myself in my pursuit of self-care.

A quote I read in Ireland by Oscar Wilde put into words what I have been trying to practice as of late, whenever I notice that I have gotten myself into a tizzy of what I “should” be doing and how I “should” be doing it:

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.

Oscar Wilde

For many years I failed to realize that my self-care routines were often lacking the care component for fear of not doing enough in order to uphold my own mindfulness and wellness standards (even though the Yoga Sutras teaches us non-attachment to the fruits of our actions… I digress, I am human).

Self-criticism vs self-care is an unfortunately common topic I may expand upon another time – feel free to comment on this post if you can relate.

For now, I’ll say that if you’ve ever felt generally overwhelmed with a laundry-list of morning / nighttime routine self-care check-boxes, I feel you. It doesn’t have to be so rigid; it can be integrated into the day instead of a 2-hour time chunk AM and PM.

Self-care can be simple; it doesn’t have to take up all of your time; it can shift and evolve with you and the shifts within your life; it can be creative and unique to your current needs instead of mimicking exact practices as suggested or prescribed; it can be infused into daily life instead of a strict routine.

Once we practice small things on a more regular basis, they become more second-nature in lieu of a chore; they become personalized tools to care for your body and mind instead of a measure of self-worth.

Click here to read the full post on and subscribe to my Substack, including a few simple self-care tips to pick and choose from based on my studies and personal experiences for when you want to be good to yourself, but might be A. intimidated by biohackers (me), B. short on time, or C. are just unsure of where to start / want to start small.