Self-Care

Self-care (n): Any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health (PsychCentral)

Movies & Books

For those days when you just want to escape from the world and not think about anything, these are some of our favorites.

Movies

The Sandlot | In the summer of 1962, a new kid in town is taken under the wing of a young baseball prodigy and his rowdy team, resulting in many adventures.
Always Be My Maybe | Everyone assumed that Sasha and Marcus would wind up together, except for Sasha and Marcus. Reconnecting after 15 years, the two start to wonder--maybe?
Mamma Mia | The story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular 1970s group ABBA.
The Parent Trap | Hallie Parker, a hip Californian, and Annie James, a proper London miss are identical twins who don't even know each other exists -- until they accidentally meet at summer camp. Now they're up to their freckles in schemes and dreams to switch places, get their parents back together, and have the family they've always wished for!
The Holiday | Two women troubled with guy-problems swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love.
Pitch Perfect | Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition.
Midnight In Paris | While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.
Chef | A head chef quits his restaurant job and buys a food truck in an effort to reclaim his creative promise, while piecing back together his estranged family.
You've Got Mail | Book superstore magnate, Joe Fox and independent book shop owner, Kathleen Kelly fall in love in the anonymity of the Internet both blissfully unaware that he's trying to put her out of business.
Little Miss Sunshine | A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.
Wall-E | The story of a robot designed to clean up a polluted Earth
Hidden Figures | An incredible and inspiring formerly untold true story about three women at NASA who were instrumental in one of history's greatest operations—the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian | The film tells the story of Brian (Graham Chapman), a reluctant would-be messiah who rises to prominence as a result of a series of absurd and truly hilarious circumstances providing ample opportunity for the entire ensemble to shine in multiple roles as they mock everyone and everything from ex-lepers, Pontius Pilate, and the art of haggling to crazy prophets, Roman centurions, and crucifixion.
Eddie the Eagle | The inspirational true story of Eddie the Eagle, a British ski-jumper whose Olympic performance wins the hearts of fans around the world.
Finding Nemo | A young clownfish is captured and taken to a dentist's office aquarium. It's up to Marlin, his father, and Dory, a friendly but forgetful Regal Blue Tang fish, to make the epic journey to bring Nemo home from Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | Ben Stiller directs and stars in this inspiring story about an ordinary man who finds the courage to discover his destiny and leap into the extraordinary adventure that is life.
Groundhog Day | A weatherman (Bill Murray) is trapped in a personal time warp on the worst day of his life. Co-stars Andie MacDowell.
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Books

The Bookshop On The Corner | Nina is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more. Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away.
Bridget Jones's Diary | Bridget Jones's Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud account of a year in the life of a thirty-something Singleton on a permanent doomed quest for self-improvement. Read it and laugh—before you cry, "Bridget Jones is me!"
To All The Boys I've Loved Before | This is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette | Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
A Gentleman In Moscow | In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.
Cloud Cuckoo Land | This novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
Taste | Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them.​
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill | The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.
Rules of Civility | On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | After a tumble down the rabbit hole, Alice finds herself far away from home in the absurd world of Wonderland. As mind-bending as it is delightful, Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel is pure magic for young and old alike.
My (not so) Perfect Life | Part love story, part workplace drama, this sharply observed novel is a witty critique of the false judgments we make in a social-media-obsessed world.
Neverwhere | Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her—and the life he knows vanishes like smoke.
Love and Luck | Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding, and hoping she can stop thinking about the one horrible thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken—and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments and even a fistfight between the two once inseparable siblings. Miserable, Addie can’t wait to visit her friend in Italy and leave her brother—and her problems—behind.
Life of Pi | Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals, bound for new homes.
Harry Potter | The son of a powerful wizard and witch who are killed by an even more powerful sorcerer is sent to live with his Muggle (non-magical) aunt, uncle, and cousin. Harry is treated poorly without knowing why. On his tenth birthday, Harry learns that he is a wizard and is to go off to Hogwarts, a prestigious school for wizards and witches. Harry and his friends, Hermione and Ron, soon discover that something shady is going on, and they must save Hogwarts from the very sorcerer who killed Harry's parents.
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We strive to create an inclusive environment and hope to respect everyone’s experience as we create these lists.

If any of these books or movies are triggering for you, please contact us here and we will revise the list.

More Self-Care ACTIVITIES

  • Watch a funny YouTube video.

  • Get a mani/pedi.

  • Knit/crochet.

  • Try acupuncture. Read up on it if you’ve never tried it.

  • Get a book from the library (free) or bookstore about some topic you’ve been interested in

  • Use a planner or a calendar to intentionally schedule “me time.”

  • Listen to music that inspires and motivates you.

  • Write a list of things you’re grateful to have in your life and post it somewhere you can see it often. We have a tendency to focus on the negative, so remind yourself of the good stuff.

  • Go through your closet and purge the clothes you haven’t worn in years. Donate them to a charitable organization.

  • Engage in some type of exercise. This could include walking, biking, hiking, running, swimming, a fitness class, yoga, and/or strength training.
  • Share a kind smile with strangers on your way to and from work. Some people may go all day without anyone acknowledging their existence.
  • Start a cycle of encouragement. Tell someone near you what you appreciate about them. They may return the favor when you need it most.
  • Buy yourself a fancy coffee instead of making your own
  • Call someone you care about to talk
  • For fun, dress your pet in a silly costume and take them on tour to make others smile.
  • Learn a new hobby, such as sewing.
  • Learn a breathing exercise and practice it for a few minutes each day.
  • Intentionally reestablish contact with someone you’ve lost touch with and would like to reconnect.
  • Try out a form of martial arts.
  • Take a moment at the end of each day and consciously list a few good things in your life. This can help refocus your emotions on all the positive things that happen each day, even when it doesn’t seem like it.
  • Turn off your phone and step away from the computer.
  • Work on a puzzle or play a board game.
  • Go out with friends.
  • Start/write in a journal how you are feeling and what is going on in your life.
  • Engage your creative mind with a form of art. This could also include coloring in an adult coloring book.
  • Take a long shower, dry your hair, and put on clothes that make you feel good.
  • Meditate.
  • Watch the sunrise or sunset.
  • Ask someone for help.
  • Attend therapy: individual or group.