These foundational self-care concepts are quick and budget friendly

Don’t Forget to Look After Yourself

Abby Delouya

Many of us have now entered the Whirlwind Zone with our Pesach preparation. Making lists, planning, shopping, cleaning, and cooking is physically and mentally demanding. Family expectations and dynamics can impact our emotional resilience and most of us make it to the finish line exhausted.

Even with the little sleep and enormous bills, there is one nonnegotiable in this: YOU. Attend to yourself, both physically and emotionally. Yet when time is tight and money is tighter, self-care can start to feel like a luxury item, something you’ll get to “later,” after the bills are paid and everything on your to-do list is done.

But real self-care, the kind that actually sustains you, doesn’t need to be expensive or time-consuming. It can be incorporated into real life. Taking care of yourself isn’t about escaping your responsibilities; it’s about enhancing your ability to meet them.

These foundational self-care concepts are quick and budget friendly:

Grounding: Start by letting go of the idea that grounding requires long stretches of silence or perfectly predictable routines. Grounding can happen in seconds. It happens when you pause at the sink, feel the warm water on your hands, and take one slow breath before moving onto the next task. It happens when you notice the weight of your feet on the floor while folding laundry, reminding your body that it’s supported. These micro-moments have the power to calm your nervous system.

Connection: When life is full, connection often looks simple and unremarkable. It’s sitting next to your child instead of scrolling while they talk about something small. It’s making eye contact with your spouse for a few extra seconds in the kitchen. It’s texting a friend one honest sentence instead of disappearing because you don’t have the energy for a full conversation.

Creativity: When money is limited, creativity becomes your greatest resource. Nature is one of the most grounding tools we have, and it’s free. A few minutes outside — on a porch, a sidewalk, or a patch of grass — can regulate your body. Feel the air on your face. Look at the sky. Let your shoulders drop. Notice colors and smells around you. And if you can, go for a quick walk brisk enough to get your heart rate up.

Permission: One of the most overlooked forms of self-care is permission: permission to rest without earning it, to say no without explaining, to be good enough on days when you’re not your best. When time is scarce, guilt becomes loud. Notice it, but don’t let it run the house. You’re allowed to be human inside your family, not just functional.

Routine: Grounding also means routine. Simple rhythms — like some fresh air in the morning, evening quiet, a familiar song while cleaning — create anchors in chaotic days. Children feel this, too. When you regulate yourself, even imperfectly, you offer your family a calmer emotional environment.

Communication: When everyone is stretched thin, schedules are different and demands are high, so it’s so easy to get lost in the noise. Ideally, keep your designated couples time, even if it’s hard to maintain. Have a buzz word or sentence that quickly communicates to your spouse that you need a few minutes alone to breathe or you need a couple minutes of connection time with him/her to talk.

Finally, remember that caring for yourself doesn’t mean doing more. Often it means doing less, slower, with more intention. It means choosing one moment a day to come home to yourself. Not the future version of you with more time and money, but the you who is here now, doing the best she can. That version of you deserves care. And she doesn’t need much — just a breath, a pause, and the reminder that she matters, too.

Abby Delouya LMFT, CPTT maintains a private practice specializing in addiction and trauma. She is also a group facilitator and the Director of Intake and Care Management for Ray of Hope.

Worth Some Mileage

Rachel Burnham with Bassi Gruen

“I see that I really like out-of-town types of girls,” a guy recently told me, “but I don’t want to travel.”

“Well, guess where the out-of-towners live?” I replied. “Out of town! If this is important to you, then you have to get a car, fill it with gas, and drive. Or, if she’s really far, buy a ticket, and get on that plane.”

I see this a lot. People not only want a girl who checks all their boxes; they also want her to live within 40 miles of them — or at least be the one traveling in.

Expecting the girl to make all the effort and come to you sets up an unhealthy precedent. Getting married and having a family is actually the man’s chiyuv, and putting in some effort to meet a potential spouse makes sense when you consider that.

It’s incredibly attractive to a girl to have a boy make the effort and travel to see her. It shows her that this is a person who takes responsibility seriously, and is willing to put in effort for something that’s important to him.

Don’t let distance make your decisions about who you date or whether you continue dating. If you’d date her again if she was down the block, date her again even if she’s a plane ride away. You’re dating a person, not a zip code.

And if it feels like a hassle, consider this: If the relationship doesn’t work out, you won’t be traveling that much. And if it does work out, you’ll soon be living together, and you won’t have to travel at all. This is a short-term inconvenience for long-term happiness.

Rachel Burnham is a dating coach and speaker. After marrying at 34, she dedicated herself to helping singles date from their most authentic selves, navigate singlehood with dignity, and make it proudly to the chuppah.

Walking Away Diabetes

Dr. Jennie Berkovich

ATthe risk of sounding redundant, movement is medicine. Even short bouts of walking can lower blood glucose by 0.5–1.4 mmol/L in pregnancy, with even greater drops in women with gestational diabetes. That was pressure-tested when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Despite an active lifestyle and a healthy diet, genetics won, and I needed insulin. After the initial shock (me? diabetic?!), I started experimenting with how movement would affect my blood sugar. Consistency mattered more than timing; steps accumulated throughout the day improved overall and overnight glucose control. Walking wasn’t a wellness luxury; it was a powerful, accessible, evidence-based intervention that gave me back a sense of control.

Dr. Jennie Berkovich is a board-certified pediatrician in Chicago and serves as the Director of Education for the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association (JOWMA)

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 984)