In the past year “Self-Care” has been a buzzword for people who are suffering from being quarantined at home or have stress and anxiety from pandemic-related issues. It is a term that relates to the overall wellness of a person.
What it means to practice self-care:
- Taking a break and doing something nice for yourself that can be helpful for your mind and body.
- Doing something that brings you joy and relief.
- Self-care can be very individual. What works for one person may not work for another. That 20-minute stroll in nature that quiets your mind may be anxiety-producing for others. Practice and experiment to find what works for you.
- Accepting your life and accepting the way that you are is an important first step to making self-care work for you. If you find that part difficult, then you may have other work to do before traditional self-care practices make sense. Give yourself time to figure it out.
- Know when self-care will not work for what ails you. Self-care may include seeing a professional who can help you through.
What self-care does not include:
- Withdrawing and disengaging from the world around you. You need to care for yourself and also be present for others. Social connectedness is an important part of caring for yourself. You need to nurture those social connections too. Self-care should never be harmful to other people.
- Self-care is not doing and eating whatever you want when those things are detrimental to your health.
- Creating more anxiety for yourself. When your self-care routine becomes something that you feel like you should do as opposed to something that you want to do, then you are not accomplishing what you set out to do. You just added to your to-do list instead!
- Self-care is not a selfie-taking, social-media-worthy event if you begin to worry about how your self-care looks to others.
Be healthy, be well and be good to yourself.
Best Practices in Self Care