Self-care is holistic and not selfish

With modern days busyness of everyone, it is highly likely that we become preoccupied with our work, personal responsibilities, family affairs, social obligations and other part of life, while overlooking and ignoring self. Amid the wrap & weft of life’s overflows, self-care is critically a necessity. Self-care is certainly putting self only first and forget about others at all. This quintessentially means prioritizing self on resources, time, value and everything else you have it you get. A situation where you matter first, there you think, care and protect yourself first, you honor, respect and value self. Self-care is putting self as priority in whole ecosystem of personal, professional and social life. Self-care could be in – personal space, workplace & professional space, digital & web space, and social life.

You communicate what you value by how you treat yourself, allocated your time and precious resources. Selfcare means you have more to give others. “Don’t give until it hurts – just give until it feels good.”, the wisdom of maintaining an alignment between helping others and taking care of yourself. Do you give until you bleed and put yourself into painful situations that have no chance of improving? Do you think self-sacrifice and the pain that inflicts on you is an expression of love? You don’t have to hurt, cut and kill yourself to show love. Come on, you are living in the modern age of AI, Digital & Knowledge Economy and Industry 5.0 – and not in the ancient age of Juliet-Romeo, Laila-Qais and Shereen-Farhad. Notwithstanding, if you are in the victim’s position, you have set yourself up for the pains, sorrows, sufferings and series of stresses.

?

What is self-care?

Self-care, as the word stands self-explanatory, is all what we do to take care of ourselves. Self-care means prioritizing and ensuring to do things that?help individuals live well and improve their physical and mental?health. Self-care is the practice of taking care?of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual & social aspects of life to promote?overall health and wellness.

Self-care has a variety of connotations and differentials of meaning and objectives, varied from culture, geography, faith and community. In our context here, self-care involves conscious participation in activities that promote healthy functioning and enhance a person’s well-being and quality of life. It helps reduce stress, boost self-confidence, and improve overall happiness. All activities that promote better mental health by providing an opportunity to relax, recharge and?help that bring fulfillments and life’s goal – would be our meaning of self-care.

The WHO (World Health Organization) defines self-care as “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider.”

Practicing self-care does not mean you are choosing yourself over your family, friends, coworkers and social network. It?means that you are simply being mindful, careful and conscious of your own needs first. You act carefully about what really matters to your existence in life and then be able to help others around you and beyond.

Why self-care matters?

The right key to thriving career and fulfilling life is your health & wellness. Your good health – physical and mental both entirely depends on how you care, carry and culminate yourself in every aspect of life. Self-care is an essential enabler for being able to live a healthy, proactive and participating life. Self-care is not being selfish; it's being responsible for self and others. Let's normalize self-care as not a cornered subject and very much acceptable in personal and professional spaces. Majority of us would say that self-care is greedy, self-centered, and egocentric, whereby I would contend quite the opposite. Let us reflect on some pragmatic example cases – an airline attendant instructs us to take our oxygen masks first, and then help other to wear their O2 masks, as you can’t help others if you yourself die. You can’t donate charity if your own pocket is empty, you can’t hold others hand if your own hands are weak. If you do not take care of yourself, you would become a burden, a liability, and end up being a risk to others. Taking care of yourself means someone else doesn't have to and this ensures that you still do have resources left over to help others. The pinnacle of self-care is making yourself safe, secure, and protected to be available to help others around you.

Self-care is existential salvage - let's delve into the wisdom and rationality of this statement. When you take care of yourself first, it shifts everything in your life and you have more reserves to be better for everyone else. There’s nothing selfish about being careful about self. Think about it - Are you giving constantly? Do you often repress your needs, feelings & emotions? Are you living life only for others? This could your spouse, your children, your work, your projects, your business trips, your clienteles. You give to the point that your cup is bone dry. You have nothing more to offer. You are exhausted, burnt out, perhaps even resentful, you can’t go on long being like this. As eventually someone else has to pull you up, how come? because you didn’t care for yourself throughout. As Oscar Wilde has to say profoundly in the context here — ‘'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” We need not to survive but live life and not just live but to thrive, progress, evolve and develop to the best of potentials and abilities.

?

Tips towards achiveing self-care

Selfcare is incessant life-long journey. Not an event or even a milestone to record and move on. Self-care has to be practiced, acted, taken care of in every aspect of our life. Hereby, enlisting some major KPIs pertinent:

-?????? Physical activities and exercises: Maintain a healthy lifestyle.?By improving our physical health, we will be better able to maintain your mental health, and therefore may be more effective in supporting towards our self-care objective. Physical exercises are critical part of staying both physically and mentally proactive. Daily exercise produces stress-relieving hormones and improves your general health. Exercises would not need to hit gym, go through weight training and strict stretching sessions – this could be simple acts in daily life - walking, taking staircases instead of elevators, simple breathing and stretching as and when you can during any time of the day.

-???????? Eating balanced healthy diet, getting enough sleep: Good?food gives your body fuel to exercise. By eating mostly unprocessed foods, you can lower your risk for chronic illness and stabilize your energy and mood. Getting enough sleep?is also important in maintaining your physical and mental health. Healthy and fit people would require eight hours of sleep to repair, recover and recharge.

-???????? Avoid over indulgence to gadgets and social media: Turning off your handheld devices, smartphones and TV as and when possible. Useless scrolling and excessive screen time have adverse effects on our eye sights, mind and physical health. Do take digital and web detox as and when you can to unwind, rewire and refresh – for best results to brain health.

-???????? Stay away from bad habits: Avoiding use or misuse of pharma, drugs, alcohol and all sort of illicit & immoral activities. Those things are extremely harmful, worsen situation and in some cases may cost nothing less than life. Take professionally specialized help as and when necessary. As they say “Its OK to be not OK and seek help”.

-???????? Practicing mediation and spirituality: Starting a regular habit of meditation does help us to improve concentration, reduce stresses & anxieties, alleviate depressions and improves our overall mental wellbeing. Devoting small time to pray, meditate and spirituality – is not difficulty at all, however, forming a daily habit, maintaining regime, consistency and discipline would require tenacity and strong will-power.

Think about what self-care activities you enjoy most. Consider activities that feed your soul and boost your energy level. Those could be anything from grabbing your favorite refreshing drink, taking a two-brief-minutes breathing exercise, to a full-day outdoor or anything - whatever makes your heart joyous. Try doing that one of those things per day. It can be a very small or large act, however, when you do that, consciously acknowledge that this one is specially for you. Remember, you show the world how to treat you, by treating you yourself. All the more reason to treat yourself nicely well. Nobody knows you more than you yourself, you know how your brain reacts, how you get stressed, what makes you burned out and what could work best for you. Practice self-care with patience, persistence and passion. Be a good person inside out – lead by examples as generations ahead would be proud of.

Self-Care and Leadership

As an individual irrespective of our roles, titles and functional responsibilities - we are all expected to come to work - fully fit, interested, attentive and available. The best leaders, team members and employees are all about taking care of themselves in individual and team capacities —that’s what makes them great as collective as a unit, team and as a company. This therefore is a key challenge that needs to be added on top of every business objective and functional targets. Leaders who understand the importance of practicing self-care, not only lead a better work-life balance but perform, deliver and innovate better at workplaces, in the industry, in community, in society and beyond.

Self-care is putting self as priority in whole ecosystem of personal, professional and social life. Is this too much to ask for from life? Is this really bad to think about self? Is this being selfish to save, protect, help & care self, first and then help others? As Amelia Earhart says “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”, your decision towards self-care is the only way forward then all you can and everything you do in your routine daily life for caring self would come naturally. Be kind to self, be holistic to self and then be compassionate about others around you.

#selfcare #leadership #healthandwellness #healthyworkplace #worklifebalance

?