This article was submitted to us by guest contributor Jennifer McGregor
A recent article by Energy Fitbox notes that busy people are the most likely to neglect self-care and suffer from burnout. As the world around you accelerates, it can be difficult to even think about slowing down. Fortunately, you can practice some well-needed self-care by making simple tweaks to your daily schedule, as opposed to adding more things to it. Let’s look at some ways you adjust the little things and reap big benefits.
Start Your Day the Right Way
You can do more with your mornings than dread the day ahead and rush through the house so you can be where you need to be. In fact, the author of this Thirteen Thoughts article extols the virtues of developing a self-care morning routine. If you can get out of bed at least 20 minutes earlier, it makes it easier to find time for activities that will calm your mind and get you ready for the day ahead. You can listen to an audiobook or a self-affirmation tape while getting ready. Meditation is also an excellent and relaxing way to start your day. It can help you focus on the activities ahead without feeling overwhelmed before you’ve even started. If all this seems too much to start with, you can try placing self-affirmation tips throughout the house in areas where you will see them. Putting them up will be the only thing that takes time, but reading positive or funny things to yourself first thing in the morning helps put you in a good mood.
Few joints are as multipurpose as the human shoulder. We can walk on our hands, crawl and do push ups. The shoulder is a very sturdy join. Yet no joint in the human body is as mobile. Known as a “ball and socket” joint, the shoulder is essentially a pool ball freely rotating in a tea cup saucer. This allows for free rotation of the arm in all directions. You can literally wave your hands and arms in perfect, large circles as though they were helicopter blades. In comparison, your knee only folds and straightens. It is called a hinge joint for that reason. Even your cervical spine (neck), which does allow for tremendous free movement, does not have as much range of motion as the famous shoulder joint. 
This restricts the amount of movement the legs have, but it replaces it with sturdiness so you can ran and jump without dislocation your hips. This is the down side of the free wheeling shoulder; because it is such a shallow joint, it requires ligaments and tendons to keep it from dislocating. And because we use our arms for heavy lifting and pushing, we are susceptible to injuring shoulders easily.
Now, the scapula’s only connection to your skeleton is where it touches the end of your collar bone, which then tags your sternum at the top of your chest. This small collar bone (i.e.: clavicle) is the only relay for the scapula and arm to the skeleton. The rest simply float in pools of muscle. This game of relay between your scapula and your clavicle and then your sternum does not provide stability, it simply provides a “spacer” to prevent too much movement of the scapula (i.e.: shoulder blade). In fact, it is common for weight lifters who bench 300 lbs or more on a regular basis to have the outside third of their clavicle bone (i.e.: collar bone) completely resorbed and replaced with pure muscle and connective tissue. So clearly, the star of the show in arm and shoulder strength and stability is purely muscle, not bone. This is why the shoulder is one of the joints that benefits the most from manual therapy and exercise rehabilitation. 
For example, the ancient Chinese used it to correct for pain and inflammation. As humans are wont to do, if something works we keep doing it. 
Unfortunately, the body tends to over do this response. As a result, other nearby joints suffer as well and the problem can grow. For an easy demonstration try walking around without bending one of your knees. You will be forced to change how the whole body chain works in order to compensate for one single locked joint.
