One of the most important people we neglect is often ourselves and our own wellbeing. We take care of our children, our family, our friends and our colleagues, but what about self-care?
What Is Self-Care?
Self-Care is quite self-explanatory (excuse the slight pun).
It means to take care of yourself. It means to do things that promote wellness for YOU. By taking care of yourself, you are then able to take care of others. The more successful you are at taking care of yourself, the more you will grow.
As an example, let’s say you’re constantly suffering from pain in your hip joints from sitting at a desk all day long and not doing any exercise. The pain will affect every aspect of your life.
It will slow you down; it will soak up your energy; it will prevent you from enjoying yourself.
If you take some time to deal with the pain by getting into a regular habit of moving about during the day, adopting an exercise routine that gets movement into your hips, and so on, you will start to feel better. You will have more energy and from there, you can do more.
What Are Examples of Self-Care?
Some examples of self-care are:
- taking an exercise class
- going for a walk
- reading a book
- getting a facial/manicure
- doing some breathing exercises
- getting enough sleep
- eating healthy food
- drinking water
- listen to music
- relax in a warm bath
- watch the sunset
- meet a friend for coffee
The list is endless!
Is Self-Care Selfish?
When we hear the word ‘self’, it can often be associated with selfish and so when we hear the term ‘self-care ‘, it is similarly associated with being selfish. However, it’s not selfish to practice self-care.
As mentioned above, the more successful you are at self-care, the better your wellbeing and the more you will grow and be able to care for others.
There is a point where self-care could turn into selfishness. That is when a person uses it as an excuse not to help and care for others. Or when a person concentrates so much on self-care to the exclusion of others. There is a balance that can be achieved so that you’re practising self-care but not being selfish.
Is Self-Care Important
If you think of yourself as the starting point of everything that happens in your life, then you can get an idea of how important it is.
You are the kingpin of your life.
Your circle grows outward from you – it’s just you; then it’s you and a partner; then it’s you, your partner and your children; you and your extended family; you and your friends; you and your work colleagues; you and social groups etc.
Do you see the constant?
It’s YOU! Without you, there is nothing.
And a you that’s not in good condition will not be able to support the rest.
Example: As a mother, you are depended upon to provide meals for the family but you haven’t been sleeping well so you’re cranky and you can’t be bothered to cook anything special. You just cook a pizza and, whilst it’s nice to have a pizza occasionally, it’s not the healthiest option.
Whereas, if you slept well you would have more energy and feel more inclined to put some effort into meal planning and create healthy meals for the family.
Example: You let your immune system get run down by not eating well, not sleeping, working very long hours, etc. This leads to you getting ill and having to take a week off work. This causes problems for your colleagues as they have to take on your work.
Whereas if you had eaten healthily, taken some extra supplements to help boost your immune system, which is under stress from the long working hours, and if you had taken more time to de-stress, you may not have gotten sick.
This is why self-care is important.
How Do You Practice Self Care?
Practising self-care can come in many forms. Simple things like eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, taking some time out to breathe (lying on the beach!) are all examples.
It depends on your situation and what you need.
For me, the area that my self-care needs to improve is physical activity. Sitting at a desk for hours on end (mostly using a computer) I get very stiff and after years of doing this, I regularly experience neck and back pain. When I take the time to do regular exercise and stretches the situation improves. Taking extra supplements like calcium and magnesium also helps.
It may seem like a good idea to work non-stop in order to meet a deadline but it’s actually a false economy. By doing this I end up a physical wreck and then have to take time off and not use a computer which, in the long run, prolongs the job at hand.
Being self-employed is a lifestyle that can affect one’s self-care. You might think it’s easier because you set your own schedule and you can do what you want when you want but it’s not quite like that!
There is often a “feast and famine” situation – one minute you have so much work you’re working all hours to get it done, and then the next you have no work and rather than just take some breathing time (after the long hours you just worked) you worry about where the next job is going to come from and so you concentrate on that.
It’s all about balance, but it also has a lot to do with Habits.
How Do Habits Affect Your Life?
Habits can be good and/or bad. A good habit would be cleaning your teeth every night before bed. A bad habit would be eating cake before bed.
The trick is to develop good habits and make them part of your daily/weekly routine.
By developing habits to do with self-care you are much more likely to continue them and they become so much part of your life that you don’t have to think about them – and they don’t get forgotten
Taking vitamin supplements could be a self-care habit to develop. I take supplements from time to time but then I forget for a few days and I start to notice the difference. I need to get it into my daily routine so it always happens and doesn’t get forgotten.
What area of your life do you feel needs some self-care attention?
Develop a Self-Care Checklist
One way to establish good self-care habits and routines is to write a checklist.
A self-care checklist would have a list of the various actions you want to get done in a day and you can tick them off.
You might find that after a month of using the checklist it becomes second nature and the self-care routines have become a habit.
Some of these self-care habits are daily, some could be weekly and others could be monthly.
You could have a Self Care Sunday and spend the day pampering yourself.
Summary
Self-care is good. Self-care is important. Self-care isn’t selfish.
Develop your own habits and routines to include self-care into your daily life and you will notice a change in the way you feel about yourself and the energy you have to give others.
Healthy Habits Challenge
If you want some help to start changing your habits, and improve your well-being, check out this 5 day self-care habits challenge.
Start today and in 5 days you will have adopted some healthy self-care habits!