Looking after yourself is not selfish. Not looking after yourself is.
Self-care: simply means, looking after yourself. It helps maintain your physical, mental and emotional health. It’s about identifying your own needs and taking the time to do some activities that take care of you.
When people first hear of self-care, they often think “I don’t have time for that”. It seems that in life there are many roles that we each play and have people to look after.
In order to look after and help others we must first look after ourselves. When we ride on a plane, the flight attendants tell us that if the oxygen masks are needed, we must take care of ourselves first. If we do not take care of our need for oxygen then we become useless to others.
When we neglect our own care needs in times of stress, it can lead us to feeling like we are running on empty, it is essentially like forgetting to put on our oxygen masks. The constant stress impacts our ability to make decisions, process and cope with emotions and more importantly to support others. So, whether we are on a plane or faced with a stressful situation we must look after ourselves in order to be there for others.
When we are stressed, our brains go into fight or flight mode. Each person has their own way of coping with stress. Some things we do to deal with stress are helpful and create a sense of peace and calm, and others actually increase our stress.
Stress can cause us to feel tired and unfocused, and can impact our ability to make decisions. It impacts our sleep and eating habits and so much more. So it makes sense that self-care is vitally important for not only us, but others as well.
Many of us don’t have a list of self-care resources to draw on and may not know that there are more helpful ways to cope with stress. Self-care is simply balancing the stress of daily with activities that bring us a sense of peace and wellbeing.
Studies show that people who neglect their own self-care needs often become unhappy which also impacts their sense of self and often leads to increased stress levels.
Self-care is about taking time to recharge, and we all do that differently.
Here is a list to help you brainstorm some self-care ideas. Take some time to reflect on how you take five minutes for yourself.
Self-care ideas:
? take a deep breath and count to 10
? take a hot shower or bath
? listen to music
? get enough sleep
? eat a balanced diet
? exercise
? journal
? list 5 things you are grateful for
? meditate
? talk openly to a friend
What are you going to do to self-care today ?