Self-care
It’s a term you may have heard before and you’re likely to have ideas of what self-care is.
Put simply, self-care is noticing and listening to your body clues and taking actions that will support your mental health and wellbeing.
Self-care means taking care of yourself so that you can be healthy and well, and so you can do your job and help others. Self-care enables you to do all the things you need to and want to accomplish in a day.
It’s important because it can improve your physical, emotional and mental health. By prioritising self-care you’ll manage stress more effectively, lower your risk of illness, and increase your energy levels.
Taking time for yourself enables you to deal with every day life stressors and brings calm and joy to your day.
The consequences of not practicing self-care may involve low energy, feelings of hopelessness, less patience, increased headaches, stomach aches and other physical symptoms of stress, difficulty falling and staying asleep and binge eating or an increase in unhealthy eating habits.
These can then lead to worsening mental health symptoms, burnout, difficulties concentrating, relationship challenges or strains, reduction in performance and less motivation to engage in social activities. Generally life is less happy by not prioritising self-care.
Now that you’ve considered why it’s important to practice self-care it’s time to ask yourself are you doing a good job of it? Maybe consider the following questions to help in your reflection...
Are you putting your needs last?
Do you lack clarity on what makes you feel happy/well?
Have you stopped doing things you enjoy and that make you feel better?
Do you feel overwhelmed and lack headspace?
Following that thinking time do you believe you need to improve upon your self-care? If so, then we have some ideas to help you develop good self-care practices.
Sometimes it can be challenging to recognise when you need to take some time for self-care, particularly when you’re busy helping others, you’re likely to be focussing on their needs over your own.
You might compare yourself to others and feel you don’t have the same problems as them, and therefore feel guilty about taking time for yourself. Whatever the barrier is to making self-care a priority, there are simple little changes you can make to practice more self-care.
Self-care looks different for everyone, and it’s important to find what you need and enjoy. Discover the things that work best for you and create your own self-care plan.
