After getting back from my Portugal trip (which was SO amazing BTW), I desperately felt like my whole life needed a detox. Like suddenly my mind was just filled with all the things I wanted to clean out, organize and get rid of. And I don’t just mean my closet and rooms in my house – I wanted to detox my entire life. Which is why today I’m sharing the first installment of my mini “How to Detox Your Life” series.

What does this even mean? Well, for the next month I’ll have one “How to Detox Your Life” post per week that will explore a different category. I’m starting the series off with self-care because that’s that first area of my life I tackled when I got back from my trip.

I hope y’all are as excited about this as I am! I feel like I might subconsciously detox my life every year during spring cleaning, but I wanted a way to be more intentional about it. And what better way to do that than create my own little guide system? Honestly, these posts are something I plan on referencing several times a year moving forward depending on what area of my life needs detoxing. I hope you guys find them helpful and come back to them again too!

How to Detox Your Life: Self-Care

I actually have a post all about how to make a self-care plan, so if you read this post and want more, definitely give it a read. But for the purpose of this series, I’m going to break down exactly what I’ve done for myself lately from a self-care perspective.

You know how they say when you take a vacation and you come home and then you need a vacation from your vacation? That’s exactly how I felt when I got home from Portugal. I had a blast, but I needed a fresh start in so many ways. I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could to take care of myself so I dove deep into how I could clean up my headspace, my skin, my diet and my exercise game. Let’s start with my skin and I’ll go from there!

Skin

I just posted the skincare routine I’m loving right now, and a lot of the products I mention here I also talked about in that post, so if you have any questions or want more info, check there because I went into serious detail about each product.

OK, if you watch my Instagram Stories regularly then you saw me go through this entire process and literally detox my skin from my head to my toes. But to give y’all more details on everything I did so you can do something similar at home, here’s a breakdown:

Scalp

The scalp is a place a lot of us forget about I think, but with the amount of dry shampoo I use plus hair spray and other products, I knew I needed a good scalp moment. I used this Christophe Robin Cleansing Purifying Scalp Scrub with Sea Salt, which basically made me feel like a whole new person. It’s designed to remove all the build-up in your hair and soothe your scalp. If you have issues with dandruff or flakey skin it’s supposed to help with that too!

Facial Exfoliation

Next, I wanted to exfoliate my facial skin so I grabbed Tula’s new Exfoliating Sugar Scrub. This is a new product for Tula, but I’m seriously obsessed with it. It smells amazing and I can feel such a big difference in my skin after using it. Before using it I could feel slash see all the texture on my face like dead skin cells, dirt and just everything that built up during travel. After, everything looked smooth and polished. It was such a night and day difference!

Body Exfoliation + Moisturizing 

I highly recommend exfoliating your legs and arms with Beautycounter’s Sugar Body Scrub! I am in love with this product and it was EXACTLY what my skin needed.

To finish it all off, you’ll want to moisturize. I’ve been using Beautycounter’s Hydrating Body Lotion and am also in love. There’s definitely a trend happening here with Beautycounter products LOL. They’re perfect for every day but also when you want to detox because it’s a brand you can trust to not put any harmful ingredients in their products.

Headspace

Something I’ve learned over the last few years is that self-care is so much more than taking bath and doing masks. Those things are great, but I’m someone who believes that you’re never going to feel 100% if your mind isn’t also being taken care of. Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by the constant comparison game on Instagram or overthinking something, I really try to take a step back and breathe. My way of doing that is by doing a brain dump or going on a nice long walk.

I’ve talked about brain dumps over and over again, and that’s because they’re the BEST way to completely clear out your mind. Meditation and yoga are great, but for me personally, I need to get it all out, and the best to do that is to grab a sheet of paper, a pen and just write down anything and everything that’s been weighing on me. If your mind needs a detox, I highly, highly recommend doing a brain dump ASAP.

Diet and exercise

Y’all know I’ve been trying (#TRYING) to be a bit more conscious of what I’m eating lately and also building exercise into my daily routine consistently. This isn’t something that comes super naturally to me, but I’m figuring out ways to make it work for me. For example, I’m using My Fitness Pal as a food journal. I’m not trying to track calories or anything like that, but it’s a great way for me to be aware of what I’m putting in my body. I also made a commitment to myself to walk for 30 minutes every day for 10 days when I got back from Portugal. It’s a small goal, but it made me feel so good! Walks always help me clear my mind, which is the point of a detox, right?!

Sleep

I had to make sleep part of this plan because my nighttime routine was kind of out of whack after getting back from Europe. But also because sleep is SO IMPORTANT!! When I’m not sleeping well it seems like everything else just spirals out of control. I have tons of posts with tips on how to get better sleep. Start with this one and then read this one, k? I’m actually re-reading this myself because man, I have just been SO tired lately, I’m not sure what’s going on. More to come on this!

So there’s my version of a self-care detox! It might look a little different for everyone, but I think the biggest thing about a detox is knowing you need one!

Check out some of the other posts I have on self-care in case this fired y’all up!:

• 30 Ways to Nourish Your Mind, Body and Soul
• 15 Self-Care Strategies for Better Work/Life Balance
• 7 Everyday Habits that Drain Your Energy
• How to “Find Balance” When You’re Busy
• How, When and Why I Love Brain Dumping
• Why You Need a Self-Care Plan and How to Make One