By richardtherapist July 10, 2025
Therapy doesn’t stop when you walk out of your therapist’s office. In reality, most of the important changes occur in the in-between moments — when you’re reflecting on what you’re learning, when you’re trying out new ways of responding, or when you’re practicing tolerating whatever difficult feelings arise. That’s where self-care practices comes in.
So much more than bubble baths and candles, real self-care provides emotional safety, establishes structure, and helps you apply what you’re learning in therapy. Whether its keeping a journal, setting healthy boundaries or simply staying organized, these tiny acts have a way of keeping you on the path to growth.
Here, let us discuss some important self-care strategies that support your therapeutic growth. We’ll also discuss how a few basic tools such as payment processors help ease financial burden or digital organization systems to help manage your life. Let’s find out how to take care of your mind, body and progress between sessions.
Self-Care Tips #1: Practice Daily Emotional Check-Ins
As simple as it sounds, checking in with yourself every day is one of the most effective ways to remain connected to your internal world in therapy between sessions. By consistently tracking your emotion, you’ll have a better sense of your patterns, triggers and mood variations.
These little check-ins can prevent emotional buildup, diminish overwhelm and decipher progress over time. Rather than arrive for therapy lost and uncertain of what to discuss, you’ll know exactly what’s been going on emotionally over the past week. This is one of the important self-care tips.
How to Do It?
- Begin by taking out just five minutes a day, ideally at the same time each day, a moment before bed or first thing in the morning. You can:
- Record your feelings, what caused those feelings and how you react to those feelings in a journal.
- Use mental health apps like Daylio, Moodnotes, or Reflectly to track emotions digitally
- Rate your mood between (1-10) and list a sentence or two on what made you feel the way you did
Consistency matters more than depth. Over time, these check-ins will help you realize patterns such as “I get anxious every Sunday night” or “I tend to shut down after tough meetings.”
Self-Care Tips #2: Set and Honor Emotional Boundaries
Emotional walls are necessary to protect your energy outside of therapy. When you observe who or what repeatedly leaves you feeling anxious, depleted, or overwhelmed, you learn which spheres require boundaries.
Begin by seeing everything that happens to you in a normal day:
- Which conversations leave you mentally exhausted?
- Do certain people trigger guilt or pressure to say “yes” even when you’re drained?
Give yourself permission to say no without guilt. Remember, every “yes” to others is also a “no” to something you may need—like rest, space, or emotional recovery.
Create a Safe Routine
Structure is a form of self-care that can be extremely effective. You might experiment with planning in buffer time before and after activities that train your morale —a meeting at work, a family gathering, or other social obligation. This might be 30 silent minutes for a walk, journaling or just doing nothing. This is one of the effective self-care tips to follow.
To make it easier:
- Use time-blocking apps like Google Calendar or Notion to visualize and to defend your downtime
- Treat your emotional recovery like an unmissable appointment
- Treat emotional recovery like any other important appointment
Bonus Tip for Practitioners
If you are a therapist, coach or healing practitioner, respecting your own boundaries is the key to not burning out and this is one of the essential self-care tips.
- Use POS systems and client self-scheduling tools to avoid back-and-forth emails and prevent accidental overbooking
- Streamline your intake forms and digital payments so sessions start with calm—not paperwork
- Consider adding buffers between clients so you can reset emotionally and mentally
Boundaries aren’t just about protection—they create space for presence, healing, and intentional action. They support both your personal well-being and the work you do with others.
Self-Care Tips #3: Use Somatic Grounding Techniques
Talk therapy focuses on thoughts and emotions—but healing also lives in the body. Somatic grounding techniques help release stored stress, tension, and even trauma by reconnecting your mind with your physical sensations.
When you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or disconnected, these body-based practices can regulate your nervous system and bring you back to the present moment. They’re especially useful between sessions to maintain emotional balance and clarity.
Easy Practices
You don’t need fancy equipment or a gym membership. Here are simple techniques you can do anytime:
- Box breathing: Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold again for 4. Repeat 3–5 cycles to calm your system.
- Progressive muscle relaxation: Slowly tense and release muscle groups from head to toe. This builds awareness and helps release tension.
- Yoga or nature walks: Gentle movement paired with breath can ground your energy. Walking outside barefoot, also known as “earthing,” offers powerful sensory input.
These self-care tips and practices work well during moments of stress or as part of a daily wellness routine.
Keep It Consistent
The key to grounding is consistency, not intensity. A few minutes daily can make a major difference in how you feel and respond emotionally.
Try the following to stay on track:
- Add grounding to your morning or evening routine
- Use smartphone reminders, alarms, or smart devices like Alexa to prompt you
- Keep a yoga mat or reminder sticky note in your most-used space
Over time, somatic grounding becomes second nature—a reliable anchor in moments of emotional drift or overwhelm.
Self-Care Tips #4: Create Structure with Accountability Tools
When life is in emotional disarray, structure is like a lifeline. When you have clear routine like morning check-ins, a weekly reflection on your therapy, you establish a rhythm which supports emotional stability.
- Keep a planner or therapy goals journal to log habits, insights and to-dos
- Structure reduces decision fatigue and creates space for deeper emotional processing
Easy habits like “journal after dinner” or “walk every morning” could help you feel in control and focused in between sessions.
Set Reminders and Small Milestones
Big goals (such as “manage anxiety” or “set boundaries”) can feel overwhelming. Break them into bite-sized, weekly goals that are easier to track and celebrate than longer-term goals with a set deadline.
- Use apps like Google Tasks, Trello or Notion to create visual checklists
- Set reminders on your phone or calendar for daily grounding, hydration, or checking in.
- Just celebrate those wins to draw that momentum.
Over the time, these small small self-care tips add up together to create big emotional movements.
Self-Care Tips #5: Create Structure with Accountability Tools
Therapy unlocks insights—but reflection helps you absorb them. Taking time between sessions to journal or speak your thoughts aloud can lead to breakthroughs.
- Keep a journal, voice memo log, or reflection notebook
- Ask yourself simple questions like “What did I feel today?” or “What am I avoiding?”
- These small reflections can lead to major self-discoveries
Extra Tip: Streamline Your Mental Space
Declutter Tech and Life
- Sometimes the best self-care is not adding more, but having a clear space.
- To declutter your digital life, unsubscribe from emails, mute unnecessary notifications, and delete apps you don’t use.
- Avoid overcommitting yourself with issues that sap your energy or detract from your plans for taking care of yourself.
- Automate what you can—reminders, to-do lists, or meal planning can help you save mental bandwidth.
When your tech and schedule are cleaner, your mind is lighter as well.
Financial Self-Care
Money stress may be secretly sabotaging your mental health.
- Keep your personal payments and business payments in order to minimize stress
- Rely on secure payment gateways/stripe/square/razorpay – to automate paying, and managing your accounts.
- For therapists or coaches, automated billing takes away the embarrassment of talking about money, and holds emotional boundaries in place.
Clean finances = a clear mind and fewer distractions from your emotional work.
Conclusion
Therapy is powerful, but small, intentional practices between sessions are where the real transformation happens. These self-care practices like emotional check-ins, boundaries, grounding, structure and reflection form the path between insight and change that sticks.
Protect your mental clarity and energy by introducing simple tools — such as reminders, planners, and auto payment systems. Even if you’re a practitioner, creating more efficient back-end work for yourself contributes to your own healing journey as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How often should I do emotional check-ins between therapy sessions?
Daily check-ins, morning or evening are ideal. Even 3–5 minutes of journaling or mood tracking can increase emotional awareness and make your next session more productive.
2. What if setting boundaries makes me feel guilty?
That’s normal, especially if you’re used to people-pleasing. Start small and remind yourself that boundaries protect your well-being. Therapy can also help you work through guilt and reinforce your right to say no.
3. Are somatic grounding techniques useful for anxiety?
Yes. Techniques like box breathing and progressive muscle relaxation calm your nervous system and help reduce anxiety symptoms in the moment.
4. Which digital tools are best for therapy-related organization?
Google Calendar, Notion, Trello, and dedicated therapy journals work well. For therapists, tools with POS integration, session tracking, and self-scheduling features help manage client load and avoid burnout.
5. How can payment processors support mental health professionals?
Automated payment processors reduce billing stress, prevent awkward fee discussions, and ensure smooth transactions—letting practitioners focus on care, not admin.