5 Self- Care Micro Habits To Become Unrecognizable In 2026

0:00Hi, this is Monique Rose. Welcome to the Annual Right Mind Podcast. We were learning how to be happier by working with our minds. Today I want to talk about some things that are important because people often come to me and say to me, you know, what are your self-care habits? You know, if you could tell me a few self-care habits, what do you think I should be looking at? And I today want to talk about this because I think it's helpful and I think that it might be something that you can implement quickly to make some changes in your life. Most people think that transformation's got to be dramatic, that you need to quit something or overhaul everything or maybe wait for the perfect moment when life slows down enough to finally take care of yourself. But here's what I've learned, both in my own life and in the work I do, real change doesn't usually come from massive upheaval. It comes from small, consistent shifts that are really

1:00quietly rewiring the way that you think, the way that you feel, the way that you go through your days. So I want to tell you about five self-care microhabits that have made a profound difference, not just for me, but for the people I work with. And I promise you, none of them are going to take over your life. In fact, most of them are going to fit right inside the life that you already have. Okay, the first habit that I do is a morning pages practice. So before I look at anything, before I look at my phone, before I check messages, before I do anything else in the morning, even before I meditate, I sit down and I write. Not in any structured way, I don't have any prompts, I don't have a format, I don't have an agenda. I just open a notebook and I have a conversation with myself. So whatever's on my mind, it comes out onto the page. So it might be something that I'm thinking about, maybe I'm processing or maybe it's something I'm excited about.

2:05Or maybe it's something that's worrying me that I haven't fully looked at yet. Or sometimes it's an idea that's growing, maybe even an idea that's come to me before I've gone to sleep. I don't have a timer, I don't have a word count, I don't have any rules, I just write for as long as feels right and then I stop. All right. So this practice, sometimes called morning pages, this was a term popularized by Julia Cameron, who wrote the most phenomenal book, The Artist's Way, is one of the most powerful and underrated mental health tools available to us. And the great thing is, is that the research backs this up. So I found that there is a study out of the University of Rochester and it shows that expressive writing, even if it's informal, even if it's unstructured, significantly reduces stress. It lowers your anxiety and improves your emotional regulation over time. So what's happening when you write like this is that you're externalizing

3:11your inner world. So you're taking the noise that's living in your nervous system and you're giving it somewhere to go. Because what happens is when these thoughts stay inside your head, they have a tendency to loop. So they circle, they compound. In the moment that you put them on paper, they lose their grip. So I think of it as having an honest conversation with myself before the world, you know, kind of muscles in. And also because I have a very, very good relationship with myself, what I find is that when I do this, it's almost like talking to my best friend. And what I notice consistently is that when I've done my pages, there's no doubt that I'm moving through the rest of my day with more clarity, with more groundedness, with far less of that low-level mental hum that can follow you round if you let it build up. So you don't need a special notebook. You don't need beautiful handwriting. You just need a pen, a page, and that willingness

4:16to show up for yourself before anyone else gets to you. Okay, habit number two is what I would like to call the first sip pause. So this one's so simple, it almost sounds too small to matter. But in my experience, it's one of the most quietly transformative things you can do for your nervous system. So here's all it is. When you make your morning coffee or tea, or if you don't drink coffee or tea and you just drink water, and you take that very first sip, you pause. So you, if you're drinking to your coffee, you feel the warmth of the cup in your hands. You notice the aroma. And you take one slow conscious breath in and you let it go. That's it. 10 seconds, maybe 15. And in those few seconds, something shifts. All right. So what you're doing in that moment is

5:18you're practicing a mindfulness anchor. So this is a sensory cue that you're using intentionally to bring yourself into the present. So when we come into the present, through our senses, through warmth, smell, taste, breath, what we're doing is we're activating the parasympathetic nervous system. So we send a signal to the brain that says, we're safe. We're here. We don't need to be on higher alert now. And that signal, even when it's brief, has a measurable effect. So the research shows that as little as 60 seconds of intentional mindfulness anchoring every day can reduce anxiety levels by up to 30% over time. 60 seconds, that's it. There's also a concept that I love, call it glimmers. So it's the opposite of triggers. So triggers are things that

6:19spike our stress response. glimmers are the micro moments that regulate us. These make us feel safe and grounded and calm. And a glimmer can be the feeling of the sunlight on your face. It's what I feel when I go down for my walk in the morning with the dogs or the smell of your morning drink, that morning coffee or the sound of something that you love. So if you can train yourself to notice and inhabit those moments, even briefly, you're actually building neurological resilience. So you teaching your brain to find safety in the ordinary. So tomorrow morning, or later in the day, when you make your coffee or your tea, don't scroll while the kettle boils, all right? Or while your coffee machine works. Don't run through your to-do list before you've even had a sip. Just pause. Hold the cup, breathe, and let that be one of the first things that you give yourself.

7:22Habit number three, move your body every single day. So let's be honest about something. Most of us are sedentary and ways our bodies were never designed for. So we sit at desks, we sit in cars, we sit on sofas. And we tell ourselves that we're going to exercise properly when we have more time, maybe when things calm down, maybe when the right routine materializes. And in the meantime, hours pass without our bodies moving at all. And we feel it. That sluggishness, the brain fog, that low mood that is creeping in in the middle of the afternoon that we can't quite explain. But the research is really clear on movement. Movement is an optional for mental and physical well-being. Literally, it's a foundation. So exercise is triggering the release of endorphins, serotonins, dopamine. These are the chemistry, stress reducing chemistry

8:24that regulates your moods and it's all in your brain. So you have access to it. This reduces cortisol. This improves your cognitive function. It improves your memory and improves your focus. You know, there was a landmark study that I found from Harvard that found that regular physical movement, even in short intentional burst throughout the day, can be more effective at boosting your mood and your energy than a single long workout session done frequently. One of the things that I do, because I have to sit a bit during the day, is I get up and I do 10 S-quats every hour. And it's great. My legs are getting stronger. And also it feels really good. It gets everything going in my body. Now, there's other research that is linked regular movement to reduce risk of anxiety and depression. I have no doubt about this. It also improves your sleep quality. It improves your immune function. And it also helps to slow the cognitive decline

9:27as we age. You don't need an hour. You don't need a gym. You don't need perfect conditions. But you need to move your body in a way that feels good every day. All right? And for me, that looks different on different days. You know, I get up in the morning every morning and I walk my dogs and usually afternoon, I'm doing some sort of exercise. But some mornings I dance, you know, properly, joyfully, to music that makes me feel alive. But those of you who know me know that could well be ever. All right? Sometimes it's a walk outside later in the day, which does something for me that indoor exercise just can't do. So there's a growing body of research on the very specific benefits of time and nature, how that affects your cortisol levels, how it affects your nervous system. So green spaces, natural light fresh air, these aren't luxuries they're medicine. And I know when you're living in cities as so many of you do, this can be harder,

10:29but you need to get into those green spaces. You need to get outside into the natural light and to the fresh air. All right? Some days you might want to do yoga or stretching. All right, some days it could be a mixture of things. The point isn't performance. The point is just to be present in your body. So when you move intentionally, so when you feel your muscles working, your breath deepening, your body warming up, you actually come home to yourself in a way that no amount of thinking or scrolling can replicate. So find your movement. The kind that makes you feel like you will get and then make it non-negotiable. Not because you should, but because you deserve to feel that good every single day. All right, habit number four, the seven o'clock digital sunset. So at seven o'clock in the evening, note that I go to bed at nine o'clock. At seven o'clock in the evening,

11:32my digital world closes down. So I don't have emails on my phone. That's a boundary I said a long time ago and I've never looked back from it. I'm not scrolling. I don't have screen-based stimulation of any kind. The phones away, the laptop is already closed as soon as work's finished and the evening's mine. So I take a book and I sit with my dogs. You know, every night I make myself a drink, something warm and calming. That's designed to signal to my body the day's done and it's safe to begin winding down. And I let the quiet in. And when I do this, I remind my nervous system of something it genuinely needs to hear. You're safe now. You can rest. You think about what most people are doing. They're telling themselves nothing safe because they're scrolling online, looking at all the horrors of the world. And when they're not doing that, they're watching

12:33TV that also has all of the horrors of the world. Okay? So just be thoughtful about this. Our nervous system needs safety. And I also keep technology out of my bedroom entirely. I don't have a phone in there. I don't have an iPad in there. I certainly do not have a TV in there. So my bedroom is a place of rest and I really protect that with real intention. Now why does this matter so much because the science is a little bit clear on this, right? There's no real ambiguity around it. So if you're exposed to screens and particularly the blue light emitted by our devices, this suppresses malatone and production. Malatone and production is the hormone that regulates sleep. So research shows that suppression can delay your ability to fall asleep by up to 90 minutes. But it's not just the light. It's the content. So every time you cheat your inbox at nine o'clock

13:35or scroll through news or social media, you're feeding your brain information that it's got a process and respond to emotionally. So you're stimulating your stress response at the exact moment when your body is trying to move into its natural rest cycle. And the result is that even when you do fall asleep, it's fragmented. It's shallow. You might even have nightmares and you wake up feeling as though you haven't really rested at all. So sleep isn't a passive state. It's one of the most active, restorative and essential things your body and brain can do. And during deep sleep, your brain consolidates memory and learning. So your body repairs tissues, it regulates hormones, it clears metabolic waste and your emotional processing resets. So if you're not getting good sleep, it doesn't just make you tired. It affects your mood. It affects your decision making. It affects

14:35your immune system, your metabolism, your mental health. It affects everything. So the other day came back from being away for a few days overseas and I just didn't get enough sleep. And the next day, I just was so aware of how my mood wasn't the way I always wanted it to be. So creating a digital sunset, it's just one of the most loving things you can do for yourself. You're not missing anything. The emails are going to be there in the morning. The news is still going to exist. But the version of you who woke up rested, regulated and ready for the day, wow, that person's depending on what you do in those evening hours, so protect them. And now habit number five is the daily identity anchor. Here's something I return to again and again, both in my own life and in the work I do with other people. We don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our identity.

15:36So the habits we keep, the choices that we make under pressure, the way we treat ourselves when no one's watching, these are all expressions of how we see ourselves. And if something, if somewhere deep down, we still hold an image of ourselves as scattered, overwhelmed, not quite there yet, our behavior is going to keep reflecting that image back to us. No matter how many new habits we try to layer on top. So the most sustainable change doesn't start with what you do. It starts with who you believe you are. And this is where the identity anchor comes in. So once a day, I do one small, intentional thing that reflects the person on becoming. Not the version of me that's behind on everything, the version of me that's calm, that's clear, that's grounded, that's well. It could be as just as simple as making my bed carefully. Or it might be getting dressed in something that makes me feel like I'm showing up for

16:37my own life. Or it might be saying, notice something when I mean no without over explaining, without apologizing. So it's not the action itself that matters most. It's the message that action sends to my own brain. This is who I am now. So if we look at the research about habit formation and behavioral psychology, we consistently see that identity-based habits are far more durable than out-based ones. So outcome-based ones. So when you exercise because you're the kind of person who moves your body, you're more likely to sustain it. Then if you're trying to reach a number on a scale. So when you rest because you're the kind of person who honors their own needs, it stops feeling indulgent. It starts to feel like integrity. So it's good to ask yourself, who is the the future version of you? The one who's well, the one who's whole, the one who's living in a way that feels genuinely good. And then ask yourself, what is one thing you could do today

17:43that that version of yourself would do? Start there. Do it tomorrow. Do it the day after. And watch how your sense of yourself quietly, gradually, unmistakably begins to shift. So you don't need to transform your entire life to feel different. You don't need to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and meditate for an hour like I do. You don't have to have a perfect wellness routine. You just need a few small meaningful practices. Do them with consistency. Do them with intention. This is telling your mind and body. I matter. I'm worth showing up for. All right. Write your thoughts before the world gets in. Pause over that morning drink. Move your body in a way that makes you feel alive. Protect your evenings and anchor yourself every day to the person you're becoming. And don't forget, just 10 minutes a day of meditation is going to be a game changer. So come and do the 10 minute mind. That's it. And it's enough. It's

18:44more than enough. So if one of these habits spoke to you, I want to know about it. All right. So let us know. And if you want to go deeper with this work, everything you need is in the link in the description. I hope this has been helpful. Don't forget, come and do the happiness quiz. The happiness quiz is where everything's at because it'll help us to see where you're at with your happiness. As always, be kind. Take care. Go gently in the world.