Self-care could be anything you do that relates to your health and well-being.
Self-care isn't just days at the spa or lavish vacations; it is the simple practice of recognizing and honoring your physical, mental, and emotional needs. Self-care could include sleeping, visiting friends or family, and eating well.
Self-care looks different for everyone. Depending on your needs, how you practice self-care may look different than those around you.
Plenty of us don't practice self-care at all.
You may think taking care of yourself comes at the cost of selfishness or that you do not have time in your busy day. You might deliberately reduce hours of sleep to spend more time working or ditch plans for dinner with friends in favor of watching the TV.
So often, we overlook just how destructive ignoring our self-care can be. We tend to let our stress rise and rise until it becomes unwieldy chaos or heal burnout from emotional exhaustion.
We only rush to self-care when our anxiety, depression, or stress feels like too much to ignore. Neglecting yourself might seem like a good idea in the short term, but if doing so inevitably results in burnout, your health, relationships, work, and study suffer a heavy toll.
Self-care is not always straightforward — mainly if you reside with a persistent illness. For example, depression can make you feel so unmotivated that you do not want to get out of bed. Anxiety will give you sleepless nights, fatigue, and irritability.
Chronic pain, on the other hand, makes it hard to concentrate or even move. But some self-care can also go a long way in dealing with the situation
It is not hard to create a self-care plan, but it will necessarily involve giving some thought to what you need or want. By knowing the types of self-care, you can discover how to improve every aspect of your life and achieve holistic health.
Self-Cares That Positively Impact Mental Health
Self-care includes physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual aspects. Many of these forms have similar benefits. Exercising, like other forms of self-care, especially the physical ones, can help alleviate stress and eventually enhance mood. Spiritual self-care, like participating in a religious group, may also be beneficial for social health.
Here are the categories of self-care you may want to know.
Physical self-care
Anything that reinforces or replenishes the health of your body is beneficial. For example, getting better quality sleep can increase your ability to decide, learn, regulate your emotions, and focus. Exercise floods your system with endorphins and improves your mood while also reducing stress, depression, and anxiety.
For instance, eating food with omega-3s or probiotics may also lift your mood. However, consuming excessive amounts of sugar-laden or ultra-processed foods can be detrimental to your physical and mental health.
Emotional self-care
Emotionally focused self-care can involve the development of emotional awareness and learning when to notice your emotional level, as well as how to better deal with negative emotions. So many of us feel out of sync with our emotions, like we are prisoners of stress, anxiety, or anger. Sometimes, we say or do things from impulse control that we later regret (shopaholic) and/or feel emotionally numb.
But emotional self-care can teach you that the motions are temporary states and that you should accept them, even the ones that don’t necessarily feel good.
Journaling, meditation, or even setting aside time for therapy is also helpful in that it allows you to reflect on your past and recover from trauma; this process can be considered hurtful, exciting, cathartic-maybe all three.
Intellectual/Mental self-care
Mental self-care is any activity that helps you improve psychological wellbeing or maintain good mental health. Examples are:
Meditation.
Techniques for managing stress and relaxation.
Playing with a beloved pet.
Without making time for these practices, stress and anxiety can stack up, leading you on a path to burn out.
It might also be called intellectual self-care because it includes anything that engages your curiosity and creativity. For example, you could draw or paint, do a creative activity, or sign up for classes to engage your love of history.
Encourage your growth, bring life to you, instill meaning and purpose in this magnificent life, and push onward into healthy desire states.
Social self-care
Studies show that prolonged isolation and later loneliness can be harmful to a person's mental health, even indirectly impacting the body by raising depression levels and making your immune system more vulnerable.
Being socially active and connected to the community is one important form of self-care called social self-care, which can protect you from some consequences of isolation. That self-care can include cultivating existing friendships, family relationships, and/or romantic partnerships.
Then again, making new ones can be just as vital. Whether volunteering to help out a few random folks nearby or going on group outings with close friends, there are all sorts of pathways for tending to your social wellness.
Spiritual self-care
Spiritual self-care can involve engaging with a higher power or the natural world or an inward process of locating wisdom and understanding.
Even in these cases, spiritual self-care is beneficial for mental and emotional health. Reading and studying scriptures, for instance, can create a sense of meaning. Your connection to divinity can also make you feel more secure and able to handle whatever life throws at you through prayer, meditation, inner breath, and other practices.
Regular church attendance may help relieve loneliness by creating a sense of belonging. Spending time in nature can be a very calming activity that will ground you.
Positive Effects of Self-Care on Mental Health
Studies have shown that self-care reduces physical health problems, increases longevity, and enhances quality of life. But it can also help your mind in these ways:
Less stress. Taking time to nurture yourself can reduce overall stress levels. For example, if you had a rough day at work, spending a night out with your friends socializing will refresh you and make you feel less stressed the next day. And maybe after a long day of caregiving for an elderly parent, relieving stress by walking or running is part of your approach.
Decreased risk of burnout. Self-care, primarily through mindfulness practices, has been shown in multiple recent studies to improve job satisfaction and help prevent burnout. Self-careSelf-care activities can help you find a better state of balance between work and life.
Enhanced concentration, productivity, and mood. Certain habits like proper sleep lift your emotions and sharpen your concentration. Once you take care of yourself, you will probably find it easier to get back to business and in other areas of your life, too.
Better self-awareness. Self-reflection activities (like journaling or meditating) give you the time and space to focus on your needs, motives, and behavior styles.
Higher self-esteem and confidence. You can also boost your body image by treating your body to healthy meals and exercise. However, self-care also involves being kind to yourself and developing a softer inner narrative. Calming that inner critic can lead to feeling better and having higher confidence.
Speak to a Licensed Therapist
Albuquerque therapy practice, Healthy Families of Albuquerque, offer licensed, accredited therapists to assist with depression, anxiety, relationships, and more. Click here to fill in our contact form to set up an appointment with us today.
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