Every once in a while, you just need to stop and stare. I don’t mean at nature, or a beautiful painting – or even a beautiful person. I mean literally stopping and just staring into space for a bit.

Some of my friends use apps like Headspace, or timers on their laptops that force them to take two minutes out of every hour to just think and breathe. I tend to ignore all of their advice, and carry on regardless until the bottom of my world falls out and I have to take time off work.

Now, is one such time. But this time I’m determined to take care of the situation before it takes over completely, and before something goes awry. Here are my favourite ways to keep my self-care in check, without veering into the realms of self-indulgence.

This is nothing against my boyfriend, but we have little to no free time, or ‘me time’ in our current set up. Okay, I wake up at least an hour before him (two and a half if I’m gymming alone) which gives me a bit of space to just breathe and be, and hang out in my pyjamas looking a state. But once we’re home from work, even if we’re both working on separate things, we’ll be next to each other in the living room, or lying together in bed. We may not be doing anything with one another, but enjoy knowing the other person is there. Him sitting in the bedroom and me in the living room would feel weird – there’d be no reason for the distance. However, this does mean that we have no ‘private time.’ We’re the best of friends, and 99.99% of the time, don’t want any private time, but once in a while a girl needs to just veg in front of Netflix with a bag of crisps and a family sized bar of Dairy Milk – and I’m embarrassed to do that in front of him. Maybe he’s the reason I’ve managed to lose weight after all.

However, it’s high time we started being two people in love, rather than one, solid unit. So I’ve made a resolution to get up even earlier at the weekend and pack in some ‘me time.’ Maybe I’ll go for a walk, maybe I’ll run some errands, maybe I’ll buy those shoes I’ve had my eye on. But whatever I do, it’ll be by myself, and I’ll try not to feel guilty about it.