February is Wellness Month at Carizon
It’s Wellness Month at Carizon – twenty-nine days dedicated to fostering your wellbeing and self-care routine so that we can all recharge and continue the year with full force!
When people rank their least favourite month of the year, February is often the winner. With the holiday season behind us, the colder temperatures, the lack of sunshine, and the drawn-out winter months of shoveling, hazardous driving conditions and slippery walking surfaces, February is the heightened season for the winter blahs. So how do we counteract those down-in-the-dump feelings? We can focus on self-care.
At Carizon we are dedicating each week of the month to an area of wellness – physical wellness, emotional wellness, social wellness, and financial wellness. We are challenging our people at Carizon to participate and act on self-care initiatives in each of these areas of wellness. We’d also like to challenge our community to do the same.
Here are some ideas we propose that you could try:
Physical Wellness
- Walk to work
- Try a new sport or activity
- Try a healthy new recipe
- Practice good sleep habits
- Complete 30– 60 minutes of physical activity
- Stretch at your desk 2 times a day
- Do calf raises while making food
- Squat 10x while brushing your teeth
- Do something active on your lunch break
- Belly laugh
Emotional Wellness
- De-clutter your workspace
- Nurture your creativity—try an art class, start a journal, take an introductory music lesson
- Have a dance party
- Practice mindfulness and self-compassion (positive self-talk)
- Meditate
- Clean out a closet
- Curl up with a good book and a cup of tea
- Run a bath, light some candles and schedule a 30-minute soak with no interruptions
- Download Woebot (here), an AI-powered app that helps you monitor your mood and learn about yourself
Social Wellness
- Do a random act of kindness
- Try a new social activity
- Call someone instead of texting
- Spend Family Day with family or friends
- Exercise with a friend
- Cook a healthy meal with a family member or friend
- Participate in a local community event
- Take an opportunity to give back or volunteer
- Be mindful of being present with those around you
Financial Wellness
- Complete or review your personal budget
- Explore saving mechanisms including RRSP, TFSA, RESP
- Incorporate a smart strategy for charitable giving into your budget, to help align your long-term financial interests with your drive to do good in this community (hint hint)
- Review your retirement goals and how you’re going to get there
- Update your passwords for your online financial institutions
- Check your credit score
- Pay the full balance of your credit card in February
- Celebrate one good financial decision you made today
We’ve also designated Thursday, February 20th as “Me Day.” We’re proposing that members of our community do at least one thing on February 20th that is dedicated to their self-care and to share it with us on social media by tagging Carizon and using the hashtag #MEdayWR.
Why February 20th? February 14th is Valentine’s Day, when we focus on taking care of our significant loved ones, February 17th is Family Day when we focus on our family; we thought it time that we designate a day to focus on ourselves. We all know that we cannot take care of others if we do not take care of ourselves. So on February 20th, let’s walk that talk.
Looking for a tool to promote self-care in your workplace? Carizon has developed a Bingo Card for the workplace, for staff to record their self-care activities. You might also want to have a prize at the conclusion of your challenge.
Join us and take care of yourself!
