Self Care

Crystal L
Dec 28, 2022
6 min read

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is the action of an individual who implements healthy methods to relieve themselves, resulting in positive mental health. Additionally, executing healthy self-care can encourage your peers and family to try it. Please keep in mind that self-care may differ for each person and everyone has their own self-care methods.

Why is Self-Care Important?

Self-Care is extremely crucial when it comes to a person’s lifetime. Sometimes we overwork ourselves and completely forget about the importance of our mental and physical health. This is extremely fatal, especially in the long term. Studies have shown links to an increased rate of heart disease, high blood pressure, and even mortality. Sometimes is an unconscious underlying belief that we feel the need to always be productive non-stop in order to have a pass on vacation. However, sometimes this method may exhaust an individual to the point they may never feel at ease. It is crucial to remember once in a while to allow some time for yourself, especially in a very stressful environment. Relieving yourself can allow you to reset yourself to a healthy point where you can once again maximize your productivity to the full potential.

Benefits of Self-Care

There a numerous benefits of self-care listed below. Please keep in mind there are more that are not listed down below.

Can Boost Physical Health: Having healthy diets and regular exercise can significantly change an individual’s life in a positive direction. For example, it may lead to the prevention of chronic stress, having a stronger immune system, and better health in general.
Can Improve Mental Health: Taking time to care for yourself in addition to reminding or setting examples for others may make you feel good about yourself and life. For example, implementing healthy diets and exercise can allow one to feel fulfilled as if they achieve something important to them.
Makes You a Better Caregiver: Neglecting your own health can lead to unhappiness, depression, and low self-esteem. This can negatively impact other living organisms in general as you might feel burned out or restless.
Enables a Break From Stress: Taking some time to spend for yourself whether to bath in warm water, going to a spa, or getting your nails done these methods of relaxation can help you feel relieved from stress. In the end, it can allow you to come back to reality feeling fresh with a positive mindset.
Offers Time Alone: Having time to meditate alone, you can have some self-reflection. It can allow you to think about life and the goals you want to accomplish. Sometimes having time dedicated to thinking about goals you want to accomplish can make you feel productive and happy.

What Are Some Effects Of Not Taking Care Of Yourself?

There are a variety of negative effects of not taking care of yourself listed below. Please keep in mind there are more that are not listed down below.

Fatigue or Insomnia: You may feel no matter how much sleep you get, you may feel always tired and not motivated to complete daily tasks. In addition to having trouble falling asleep.
Feeling Inadequate: You may have low-self esteem where you have a negative mindset of feeling you are never good enough. This is extremely lethal to one as they are constantly hurting themself emotionally.
Putting Blames On Other: Putting off self-care can negatively impact your socializing. You may start to have more conflicts with your close friends, families, and co-workers. This can make you feel that the whole world is against you, but the truth is that you are responsible for your happiness.
Poor Hygiene: Sometimes staying up very late at night can be tiresome, and as a result you might pass on showering and brushing your teeth. Eventually, you might wake up too late to shower because of work. This can cause one to feel sluggish, leading to lower confidence.
Poor Relationships: Low self-esteem and fatigue can make it hard to keep up with relationships. Unfortunately, some of your relationships may disconnect and it can make you feel as if no one cares for you and isolated.
Brain Fog: When you have a lot of stress and poor diets, you may notice you might be more confused or forgetful than usual.
Addiction: When an individual does not have enough sleep, they may turn to drugs to suppress the feeling of tiredness, leading to addiction. Sadly, these addictions can be tough to reverse back and have many negative side effects.
Weight Gain: Having a poor diet such as constantly snacking on sugary donuts may lead to unwanted weight gain. It can lead to serious health conditions like diabetes. This is sometimes due to a busy schedule where they neglect exercise and resort to eating convenient food, which most of the time is unhealthy.

Different Types of Self-Care You Can Implement

Pay attention to your physical health: Studies have shown regular exercise
Get enough amount of sleep: Sometimes you may be very sleep deprived which can take a negative toll on both your mental and physical health. Data has shown an adult should try to get between 6-8 hours of sleep to function healthily. Children and teens on the other hand may need a little more.
Be a healthy eater: Eating more nutritious food is a method of self-care that can help you positively. For example, eating healthy food like carrots and corn can strengthen your immune system.
Identify things that matter to you: Sometimes you may have a heavy load and feel overly stressed. It is important to figure out which things matter to you and possibly quit other things as it will improve your mental health immensely, ultimately allowing you to breathe and be more sufficient.
Change your mindset/ Gratitude: Many times we focus on the negatives of life such as poor grades or breakups. We should think about the gratefulness that has happened in our lives. Additionally, cherish the good memories and the moments of happiness in our life while we can. As some say, “Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that is why we call it present.”
Learn to say no: Sometimes saying yes too often to make other people happy can burn you out, making you feel unhappy and fatigued. This is why identifying what is important to you can help you say no to certain situations, which can then allow you to not overload or over-stress yourself.

Why Your Self-Care Is Not Working?

Sometimes your self-care may not always be working effectively and that is totally normal. Below are some factors. Please keep in mind there are more factors that have not been listed.

It is easier said than be done: Similar concept to saying that you will get the essay done in ten minutes, it is much easier said than done. Within these short ten minutes, you may be easily distracted by noise or electronics. Along the way of your journey, you may encounter obstacles you may have never thought of. Try to endure through and especially give time as it can take a while before your self-care will work. If it does not seem to have given you any benefits, you may want to consider trying other methods of self-care.
Copy and paste: Strategies of self-care may vary from person to person. Sometimes using the same self-care method as others may not work for you. Therefore, always keep an open mind and try your own creative self-care methods!
You are working against the clock: Sometimes you may be constantly putting yourself under time pressure which affects your journey to maximizing your self-care effectively.
Self-care is just the beginning: Self-care is only a fraction of self-love. Self-love also includes but not limited to: recognizing your self-worth, showing kindness towards yourself, fostering self-growth, etc. Sometimes you may be missing other aspects that may make it seem your self-care is not effective.

How You Can Advocate For Self-Care?

There are many ways you can advocate for self-care. Here are some ideas below! Remember you can always be creative and advocate self-care in your own appropriate methods.

Try your best to believe in yourself!
Decide what you want and things that matter to you!
Get the facts so you can help effectively to educate your peers!
Gather supports and possibly form a club or program regarding self-care!

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Self Care

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