Simone Biles’ Advice for Self-Care That Actually Works

The article originally appeared in the December 2020 issue of Men’s Health.

SIMONE BILES, like her fellow Olympic hopefuls, suddenly found herself in 2020 with TIME on her hands.

So she installed a massive pool at her home, posted Grams with her boyfriend NFLer Johnathan Owens, and found comfort in her two French bulldogs.

The biggest challenge this year has been keeping a positive mindset as well as making sure I’m taking all health precautions to keep my family, close friends, and overall community as safe as possible.

In the beginning, this meant staying away from my parents, which was really hard as we are super close and spend so much time together.

As time has passed, keeping a positive mindset has been tough for me. From COVID to social justice, it’s been a really challenging time.

Being back in the gym and returning to training has helped me. Having my sights set on Tokyo 2021 has also helped, but by no means is everything back to “normal.”

My family has helped immensely. They are always there for me to lean on and take guidance from. I’ve never been home for this amount of time before, so it’s forced me to adjust my mindset and focus in a different way than ever before.

I’ve spent so much time working on my physical self, I’ve tried to use this time to focus on my mental wellbeing.

I have focused a lot of my self-care on feeding my mind with lots of positive thoughts. For me, Pinterest is always a great outlet to find positive quotes.

I recently started getting massages again, which has helped release tension in my body and my mind (especially now that training has ramped back up).

I try to sit outside every night with my dogs and relax

A glass of wine never hurts on my off day.

Taking time for myself is so important. I’m a worrier so I try to take care of others before myself. So taking time to myself has been really nice and I think I will be taking that into 2021.

Activism has played a huge role in my life this year. I don’t think I would be as active with using my voice and advocating for others (and myself) if it hadn’t of been for this year. It has really opened up my eyes and views that not everyone has a platform and certainly not everyone is being heard.

Photo: Trunk Archive/Pari Dukovic

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