15 Ways to Truly Take Care of Yourself, for Free

How much do we spend to feel better? A cream, a dinner out, an aperitif, a gym membership, a weekend away, a beauty treatment, a course... Spending on ourselves can be wonderful, but are we really sure it's always necessary?

Mental wellbeing

Mental balance and inner peace make a radical difference in our lives. Having money, success, or beauty doesn't automatically equal feeling good. So here are some ways to take care of your inner wellbeing at no cost and with great benefits:

1. Free guided meditations
Meditation offers many concrete health benefits, such as reducing stress and improving focus, memory, and sleep, just to name a few. For those approaching meditation for the first time, one of the simplest ways is through guided meditations, and fortunately there are plenty of free ones online. I'll mention a couple of content creators I personally find interesting in this field: Giorgio Luciani and Maddalena Mazzoli.

2. Journaling
Journaling is the practice of writing a personal diary with ideas, goals, projects, gratitude notes, and much more. It's a very useful method for gaining mental clarity and fostering personal growth. Starting is the hardest part, but once you get going the benefits are so clear that it becomes fairly easy to keep it up. It's also a highly customisable practice, since everyone can decide what to focus on: some simply write a sort of gratitude journal about the good things that happen day by day, others write down their desires, goals, and plans to achieve them, etc.

3. Positive affirmations
These are short, strongly positive and transformative phrases that, when listened to and/or repeated daily, have the power to act on our subconscious mind, transforming our thoughts and therefore our reality. I personally love positive affirmations, because I can listen to them effortlessly at any time of day, even while doing something else - I often hear them while making breakfast or driving, but any moment works - and they always leave me with a sense of energy and positivity. You can find plenty of them online; I listen to those by Caterina Devoto, who created several in her podcast Quarta Parete - Art Lab on Spotify.

4. Time outdoors, immersed in nature
Whether it's a walk through the woods, in the hills or mountains, a swim in the sea, a stroll along the shore, or an hour spent on the sand watching the horizon, time spent in nature can have very positive effects on our wellbeing, and doing it consistently (for example, a couple of hours a week) clearly improves physical and mental health, reduces stress, and increases our sense of wellbeing. All these activities have a low or zero cost and can truly improve our lives.

Physical wellbeing

5. YouTube workouts or free apps
It's no secret that exercising is essential for our wellbeing - the ancient Romans already said "mens sana in corpore sano". Some sports can be expensive, but there are plenty of alternatives to stay fit at zero cost. I personally love doing pilates and yoga workouts at home whenever I feel like it, depending on my time and whatever's most convenient. As a free app, I mainly use Nike Training, which I find exceptional: completely free, packed with workouts across different disciplines, and with fantastic instructors. On YouTube you can find pretty much anything; I particularly love the channels La Scimmia Yoga and Nuvola Pilates.

6. Stretching
Keeping your body flexible helps reduce various issues related to posture, neck pain, sciatica, and much more. Again, YouTube or free apps like Nike Training offer plenty of exercises to try.

7. Walking or cycling
Why not combine the useful with the enjoyable and use your commute to get some movement in too? Walking a lot and cycling are great ways to get back in shape and improve muscle tone, with the added benefits of saving on travel costs and not contributing to environmental pollution.

8. Daily homemade self-care
Taking care of your appearance is a great choice, since looking good aesthetically helps you feel better overall. You don't need expensive treatments to feel good about yourself. A simple skincare routine, a DIY manicure, a hair mask, or a relaxing bath can become small daily wellness rituals. To give a concrete example: you can dedicate 5 minutes every evening before bed to a skincare routine made of a few but effective steps, like good cleansing followed by moisturising with a cream suited to your skin, applied with a gentle self-massage.

Personal growth

As Socrates said: "an unexamined life is not worth living", so it always makes sense, at any age and at any point in our existence, to keep learning, studying, and improving. I'll be completely honest, until a few years ago I thought "personal growth" and "nonsense" were synonyms, but I was proven quite wrong, because I realised I had the wrong idea about this concept. After many books, videos, podcasts etc... the conclusion I've reached is that, as in any field, the difference is made by the person. There are "gurus" who are nothing more than smooth-talking salesmen (and sometimes not even that) and competent professionals, able to offer different and interesting perspectives with useful food for thought. All that's left is to choose the field you're interested in and dive in: you can learn, reflect, and grow even without buying courses worth hundreds of euros.

9. Personal growth books (borrowing them from the library costs nothing)
As an avid reader, one of the first steps I took toward personal growth was to add many psychology, spirituality, and economics books to my reading list, all falling under this broad category. From the great classics to books by contemporary influencers and creators, I've found many interesting reads. I almost always find the spark for the next book within the one I'm reading, which lets me dig deep enough into the topics that interest me.

10. Podcasts
Just like books, personal growth podcasts can cover different areas too: from psychology to meditation, through motivational stories. Compared to written texts, they have the advantage of being enjoyed while doing something else, like driving, cooking, or cleaning the house, and in most cases they can be listened to for free on dedicated platforms (I mainly use Spotify, but there's also good content on YouTube, RaiPlay, or Apple Podcasts for Apple device owners).

11. Free courses
In person or online, covering crafts, creative skills, languages, sports, and more. There are countless free courses organised by non-profits, municipalities, companies, and private individuals, which can enrich our skills and maybe even help us meet people and build new relationships. To avoid getting lost, it's best to start from what you're interested in learning, look for available courses in your area or online on the topic, check reviews (or at least make sure you don't fall for scams where you're later asked for a payment that wasn't clear from the start), and finally dive into this new adventure.

12. Inspiring creators
Social media is full of junk, as we all know, but there are also creators who produce valuable content, which has the advantage of being quick and easy to consume and often proves inspiring for exploring a topic, developing new ideas, or reflecting on a particular subject. My advice is to do a bit of decluttering among who you follow on social media too, so you mainly keep people who create value for you, even when you open (voluntarily or unconsciously) a social network.

Relationships

Human beings are social animals: Aristotle wrote it in the 4th century BC and I certainly won't be the one to contradict him today. Interpersonal relationships are essential to our wellbeing, and learning to choose them wisely and take care of them is something we should all do to live better. Here are a few simple gestures that can have great power over our wellbeing.

13. Call someone dear to you
A phone call to the friend who always manages to make you smile, to a parent you have a great relationship with but rarely get to see, to an aunt, a cousin, a relative you maybe haven't spoken to in a while but to whom you're attached, can be a real pick-me-up to improve your day, reminding us that we're not alone and that someone cares about us.

14. Write a letter to someone you want to clear things up with or open up to
Sometimes direct conversations are difficult, and you may feel stuck, unable to express what you feel out loud. In these cases, there's a valid alternative to keeping everything inside, which only creates or prolongs unresolved feelings: writing. A handwritten letter remains the most cathartic method, but an email or a long message works too; what matters is putting into words what you feel, explaining your point of view to the other person, telling them what you've experienced and how it made you feel. This gesture might lead to clarity or a (re)connection, or it might not. It doesn't matter, because the simple act of putting on paper something that's been swirling in your head and causing emotions is already an act of self-care.

15. Organise a special evening for someone you care about
Receiving is nice, but giving can be even nicer, which is why planning an evening dedicated to someone you care about will make both of you feel good, giving you both quality time together. So here are a few easy-to-organise ideas:

• A themed dinner: for example, if they love a certain type of food or a specific country, you can prepare dishes from that place or style. American night, a veggie evening, fried food night.
• A night under the stars: at the seaside, in the mountains, in the hills, or even at a scenic spot in the city — wherever you are, just pick a quiet place where you can admire the sky, somewhere comfortable to sit or lie down, and something nice to drink and snack on, and there you have a magical evening at almost no cost.
• A massage and cuddles night: you can give 20 minutes of a massage you do yourself, maybe focusing on a specific area like shoulders and back, creating a relaxing atmosphere with candles, music, and dim lights, or organise an evening where you take turns for 10 minutes each giving a massage or cuddles, maybe during a TV series marathon.

I hope I've left you with some useful ideas, and above all some food for thought on the fact that taking care of ourselves doesn't necessarily mean buying something. Sometimes it simply means stopping, looking around, and choosing a different way to feel good.