With The Cost-of-Living Rising, Here Are 7 Free Ways to Practice Self-care
Updated: Aug 20
In a world where almost everything comes with a financial cost and the cost of living is rising, it can be challenging to invest in something that may feel self-indulgent, like self-care. But self-care doesnāt always have to take the form of an indulgence, especially when it helps keep you healthy and functioning.
When everyday expenses for necessities keep increasing, average job wages arenāt keeping up with inflation, and youāre trying to put any extra money into savings or investing in retirement, thereās often nothing left to invest in our self-care.
But not only do we have to afford our lives, we must ensure that we are maintaining our mental health while we are living them. Itās easy to become trapped within a conflict between financial responsibility, survival, and your personal well-being. It can become increasingly difficult to justify spending your limited resources when every dollar is already accounted for.
Self-care can be defined as the intentional practice of preserving, protecting, or improving your mental well-being. It provides a way for you to reduce stress, regulate your mood, improve how you show up in your relationships with others, and prevent future burn out.
Think of self-care as an essential part of life, necessary maintenance.
Here are 7 practical self-care ideas without spending a single dollar to help you prioritize yourself.
SUNSHINE š
Sunshine directly activates biological changes that can boost your mood, help reduce Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or the āwinter blues,ā lower blood pressure, provide vitamin D, support your immune system, and even improve your sleep cycle.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that is linked to the changing of the seasons, typically increasing in the wintertime and often improving in the spring and summer months. Some symptoms that people report experiencing can include feelings of anhedonia (the inability to feel joy from the things you normally like to do), low energy, overeating and weight gain, hypersomnia, suicidal ideation, and feeling hopeless.
SAD exhibits a strong correlation with increasing distance from the equator, which may be attributed to decreased sunlight during the winter months. The lack of daylight throws off your bodyās internal systems.
Sunlight works in your body to combat SAD by:
Increasing serotonin. When visible light enters your eyes, it stimulates the retina, activating your brain to produce serotonin. That in turn lifts your mood.
Regulating your circadian rhythm. Morning sunlight stops the production of melatonin (the sleep hormone) during the day, resetting your internal biological clock, supporting better sleep at night. Good sleep hygiene is foundational in supporting your mental health.
Synthesizing Vitamin D. When skin is exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) rays from the sun, your body produces Vitamin D.
According to GoodRx, sunlight exposure may lower systolic blood pressure. Sunlight causes your skin to release nitric oxide into you blood. That molecule widens your blood vessels and widened blood vessels naturally lower blood pressure.
GoodRx recommends as little as 10 minutes of sun exposure, with the caveat that people with darker complexions may need more. Where you live matters as well. People in tropical areas, where the sun is stronger, may need less sun exposure than those farther north where the sunās rays arenāt as strong.
Scientists at The University of Manchester recommend,
ādaily sun exposure of 10-15 minutes (25-40 minutes for people with darker skin) ... Exposure to sunlight is important because it is most peopleās principal source of vitamin D. Vitamin D is vital throughout life to maintain good bone health and inadequate vitamin D can cause rickets in children and bone disease in adults.ā
Vitamin D is also essential in supporting a healthy immune system. It helps reduce harmful inflammation in your body by keeping your immune cells calm. That calming effect helps with the management of inflammatory diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and autoimmune disorders.
SCREEN BREAK š»
So many of us are chronically online, whether that be for pleasure, work, or both. And thatās a big problem, especially since our brains and bodies evolved for a physical world that requires real-world connection, not constantly scrolling and staring at screens.
Taking intentional breaks and limiting screen time can help lower stress, reduce brain fog, reduce eye-strain and headaches, and free up more time for valuable activities such as exercising or sleep.
Studies have shown the negative impacts of too much screen time. One scoping review on the effects of excessive screen time on neurodevelopment suggests that chronic sensory stimulation (via smartphones) in adolescence may affect cognition and brain development, increase the risk of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional disorders, and potentially increase the risk of early-onset dementia later in life.
Four ways to practice a digital detox:
The 20-20-20 Rule
Every 20 minutes, look at something that is 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. This helps reduce eye strain.
Physical Boundaries
Keep all your digital devices tablet, phone, laptop, and T.V. out of the bedroom. You can keep a charging station in another part of your home instead of charging your phone on your bedside table.
Wear an Analog Watch
You can still check the time without getting sucked into checking notifications on your phone. If you don't already have an analog watch sitting in a drawer somewhere in your home, try searching for one on these community-based options:
Buy Nothing Project: Look up your local "Buy Nothing" group on Facebook. Members frequently give away items they no longer use or wear.
Freecycle: A website network where people post items they want to give away to keep them out of landfills.
Bury Your Social Media Apps
Move all of your social media, news, and shopping apps off your home screen. You can even try creating a folder to keep all these apps in and name it something like āwaste of time,ā to make engaging with them feel more unappealing.
MOVEMENT š
Physical activity lowers stress hormones by burning off extra adrenaline and cortisol. That extra cortisol can be especially harmful to your body because overexposure can cause organ damage, raise blood sugar, and store the dreaded extra belly fat. Regular movement
encourages the release of a protein called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). This protein repairs brain cells, improves your ability to learn, and increases memory and focus.
So, not only can movement like exercise support better mood and health, it also helps enhance cognitive function.
Getting startedā¦
Stretching: Before getting out of bed try stretching to wake up your muscles and boost circulation.
Scheduled Moments: Incorporate dedicated times in your day to move your body, like walking on your lunch break, doing calf raises while your coffee is brewing, completing squats during commercial breaks, or taking after dinner walks to aid in digestion.
Chore Dancing: When youāre doing chores, cleaning up the house, or cooking try turning up the music and freely sing and dance.
BREATHWORK š®āšØ
By changing the depth and speed of your breathing you can hack your nervous system and change your brain chemistry.
Breathwork Techniques:
Box Breathing
When you feel emotionally overwhelmed or panicked try to:
Inhale for 4 seconds
Hold for 4 seconds
Exhale for 4 seconds
Repeat for 4 cycles or whatever feels most comfortable and helpful for you and what your mind and body need. This breathing technique helps create a steady and predictable rhythm for your brain.
The Sigh
When you need to disrupt intense anger or stress try to:
Take a deep inhale
Take in a sharp second inhale (sniff)
Exhale a long, slow sigh
Repeat 3 times or whatever feels most comfortable and helpful for you and what your mind and body need.
The first deep breath starts to open your alveoli (the tiny air sacs in your lungs) and the second sharp inhale pushes extra air into your lungs to reinflate those sacs, dumping carbon dioxide from your blood. This signals to your brain that you are safe, as high levels of CO2 in the blood can activate a panic like signal in the brain, causing anxiety.
We humans do this involuntarily when sobbing to help us calm down and recover from intense emotional distress.
TAPPING š
If youāre anything like me and have a difficult time sitting still while practicing breathwork, mindfulness, or meditation you might enjoy tapping or what is called the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). There is a growing body of research suggesting that many people experience reductions in anxiety, stress, and emotional distress after using the technique.
EFT involves gently tapping with your fingertips on a series of acupuncture points on the face and upper body while paying attention to a thought, feeling, memory, sensation, or belief.
The Tapping Points Include:
Outer Palm: The outer edge of the hand, between the top of the wrist and the base of the pinky finger.
Top center of the head
Eyebrow: The inner edge of the eyebrow, right above the nose bridge.
Side of the Eye: The bone on the outer corner of the eye.
Under the Eye: The bone right under the center of the eye, level with the pupil when looking straight ahead.
Under the Nose: The small space between the bottom of your nose and your top lip.
Chin: The crease between your bottom lip and your chin.
Collarbone (just below it)
Under the Arm: On the side of the body, about 4 inches below the armpit.
The idea is not to force difficult emotions away or convince yourself that everything is okay. Rather, itās a structured way of staying present with an experience while engaging the body at the same time.
Step 1: Rate your distress (physical or emotional) on a scale from 0 ā 10.
Step 2: Create your āset-up phraseā that you will focus on while tapping specific points. Your phrase could sound something like this:
āEven though [insert problem here], thatās ok that I feel this way.ā
āEven though uncertainty feels dangerous, I choose to become a little more comfortable not knowing everything.ā
"Even though Iām afraid people will judge me, I choose to focus on connection rather than perfection.ā
Feel free to experiment with different set-up phrases and use what feels most authentic for you for your situation.
Step 3: Tap on your acupuncture points 10 ā 20 seconds each, while focusing and summarizing the problem using your phrase. You can say it out loud or in your head.
Step 4: When youāve finished tapping, check back in with your level of distress, and assign it a number from 0 ā 10. If itās not a 0, go through another round of tapping.
I personally find it easier to visually see how to tap rather than read how. I would confidently guess there are hundreds of thousands of guided sessions, shorts, and tutorials on YouTube. So, here are a few YT videos to get you started:
Tap with Brad has a massive volume of tapping videos targeting almost every mindset goal you can think of.
How to Tap with Jessica Ortner: Emotional Freedom Technique Informational Video
Nick Ortnerās Tapping Technique to Calm Anxiety & Stress in 3 Minutes
PRACTICING GRATITUDE š
When we practice being grateful for the present moment, we embrace what usually passes us by in all the noise and distraction of life. We reclaim a sense of inner peace.
Creating space for intentional pauses throughout your day to be still and focus on gratitude allows you to embrace the moments that slip by in the rush of daily life.
Gratitude in action:
Thank-you note: Write a quick text or email to a friend or coworker who helped you or who you want to acknowledge in a meaningful way.
Gratitude jar: Write good moments on slips of paper and read them at the end of the week or month.
Reframe daily tasks: Change your mindset from āI have to do thisā to āI get to do this.ā Reframing your thoughts to support a gratitude mindset can be a powerful skill to use to help break free from negative thought loops and regain control over your internal narratives.
Share your highlight reel in person: Ask family, a friend, or your partner to share the best part of their day during a meal together while also sharing what you were grateful for that day.
Find a silver lining: Look for one lesson or positive outcome when a situation goes wrong.
LAUGH š
I know this one can be difficult, especially when we are constantly being shown in the media the social instability and systemic precarity of our world, country, and communities.
Here are some ways to allow more laughter into your life:
Dry Bar Comedy has a massive library of family-friendly stand-up specials.
Comedy Dynamics claims to have the largest independent stand-up comedy archive in existence.
Standup Specials TV is a playlist of over 150 full comedy special videos.
Hoopla Digital allows you to stream ad-free comedy specials FREE as long as you have a local public library card.
Call a funny friend: Reach out to the person in your life who always makes you smile or shares your sense of humor.
Reminisce: Look through old photos, videos, or talk with loved ones about funny moments from the past.
Remember that itās up to you to take responsibility for your well-being. Self-care is not selfish. Pushing through mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion will eventually leave you completely burned out and unable to help yourself and anyone else.
Resting supports the needed energy, patience, and clarity to live a full life.
If youāve made it this far, thank you for reading!!!
I hope today youāre met with kindness, especially from yourself.
ššš
Disclaimer: This information is derived from published literature for educational purposes and does not constitute personal medical or mental health advice. Always consult a healthcare professional regarding immune health and supplementation.
References
Burchell, K. (2019, July 25). Press release: Are you getting your 10ā15 minutes of sunlight a day? Research Explorer, The University of Manchester. https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/clippings/press-release-are-you-getting-your-10-15-minutes-of-sunlight-a-da/
Burns, E. (2025, October 31). Exercise and the brain: How movement improves cognitive function. Durham Region Centre for Cognitive Health. https://www.drcognitivehealth.com/blog/exercise-and-the-brain-how-movement-improves-cognitive-function
Fenercioglu, A. K. (2024). The Anti-Inflammatory roles of Vitamin D for improving human health. Current Issues in Molecular Biology, 46(12), 13514ā13525. https://doi.org/10.3390/cimb46120807
Hall, K.-M. (2026, May 28). Is sunlight good for you? Here are 8 health benefits. GoodRx. https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/environmental/benefits-of-sunlight
Jacobson, K. (2026, June 10). Gratitude and your financial well-being. Your Money Counselor. https://yourmoneycounselor.substack.com/p/gratitude-and-your-financial-well
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2021, December 14). Seasonal affective disorder (SAD): Symptoms & causes. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20364651
Neophytou, E., Manwell, L. A., & Eikelboom, R. (2019). Effects of excessive screen time on neurodevelopment, learning, memory, mental health, and neurodegeneration: A scoping review. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19(3), 724ā744. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-019-00182-2
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