Unfortunately, it can still be difficult to access safe, gender-affirming, bias-free, understanding, and safe care for LGBTQIA+ people. Reclaiming power over your mind, body, and spirit through yoga is so empowering and can even act as a form of self-compassion. Yoga encompasses everything that your body and mind need to reconnect, as well as being the ultimate act of self-care. Yoga is made for everybody and every body. In this article, we will be breaking down why acupressure can be the perfect addition to your wellness routine and how it can affect your overall well-being.  Here are four quick-fire tips on how to get started and WHY self-care is so important:  

1. Radical Self-Acceptance

Practice radical self-acceptance for who you are, just as you are. A daily gratitude practice can slowly start to build self-knowing and confidence that can make LGBTQIA+ unshakeable in challenges. Start small and direct one grateful kind thought to yourself every day. 

Being sure to add a peaceful moment to your everyday life, where you sit back, breathe and feel grateful for everything you have, everything you’ve achieved, and everything you are is the best way to practice radical self-acceptance.  So, how does acupressure help you do this? Whilst you are lying back on your mat for 20 to 40 minutes, take a deep breath in, clear your mind and spend this time thinking about all the things you are appreciative for. 

2. Put Yourself First

Care and tend to your body like a garden. Despite times, you may have felt like an interloper by society understanding the beauty, power, non-judgment of a body that grows, blooms, and moves, a heart that beats, and lungs that breathe. Connect with what feels good in your body. 

Acupressure helps you do just that. Similar to yoga, acupressure works to reconnect your mind and body, getting them back on the same page. Acupressure works to restore the balance to the body’s energy flow (qi) by manipulating the body’s meridians. This stimulates energy, vitality, and a sense of well-being in the body.  The gentle, painless pressure of the mat allows the body to relax and release endorphins, creating the panic flow or life force within the body - perfect if you are trying to get back to spending time with yourself.

3. Self-Care Needs To Include Rest

Rest when you need to rest. Go easy and gentle on yourself. Practice non-judgment of your innate body's needs. Reform that primal natural connection to your biorhythms. This kind of connection is important to overcome dissociation and detachment. 

Self-care can often be misconstrued as being all about ways to physically make yourself feel better, like putting on a facemask, making a to-do list, or even, taking a hot bath. However, self-care should also include rest. In a world that never truly slows down, the rates of burnout are at an all-time high. If you are looking for a way to support your energy levels, acupressure is the ideal option. The plastic spikes are painless and will create a gentle stimulation on your feet. This will, in turn, stimulate your reflexology points and nerve ending, which results in an energy boost like no other. Remember, your value is not defined by how productive you are - spend time on yourself, for yourself. 

4. Where Acupressure, Mediation & Breathwork Comes In

Practice breathwork. Not only important for self-soothing anxiety, stress, or emotion but knowing that you can control your breath and physiological response in situations reminds you that you are in control and bolsters self-knowing. 

The practice of meditation reminds us how fleeting our thoughts can be. How they can either pass by or consume us. Understanding this helps us realise that negative thoughts, worries, or judgments work similarly. You are worth so much more than fickle thoughts.  Our self-care range of acupressure products is the perfect tool to help you relax, restore and reconnect with yourself.