self-care

The definition of self-care is any activity that we do to help us take care of ourselves.  Self-care is good for your mind, body, spirit, life, and soul and NOT selfish.  It is making yourself a priority, a lifelong practice, imperative, and a ritual you should incorporate in your lifestyle.

It is important that you have a self-care plan in place. When you practice adequate self-care, every aspect of your life can be improved upon. However, while it is a simple enough concept, it can be difficult to put into practice.

Did you know there are different types of self-care you can focus on? If you really want to achieve the benefits of self-care, you are going to need to ensure you are utilizing the different types. The question is, what are the different types of self-care and what do they consist of?

5 Types of Self-Care

1. Emotional

Your emotional wellbeing has a huge impact on your happiness and quality of life. Therefore, if you want to improve your wellbeing, you are going to want to focus on emotional self-care.

This type of self-care enables you to better deal with your emotions. You will be able to control the way you feel, rather than letting it control you. You will learn to become more aware of your emotions and express them in a healthier way.

Emotional self-care can include seeing a therapist, listening to music, and keeping a journal.

2. Physical

To stay healthy, it’s important to look after the body’s physical needs. That is, making sure you get enough sleep, drinking plenty of water and exercising regularly. However, physical self-care is so much more than just healthy eating and staying active.

When you are focusing on physical self-care, it includes ensuring you are not adopting any unhealthy coping methods such as binge eating or missing sleep to binge watch a series. It means taking time out when you are sick and going to medical appointments whenever you need to.

3. Spiritual

Spiritual self-care is often associated with religion. However, it is basically anything which nurtures the spirit.

This is just as important as your physical and emotional wellbeing. If you want to lead a truly healthy and happy life, you need to make sure your mind, body and spirit are equally taken care of.

Examples of spiritual self-care include surrounding yourself with nature, reading a great book, meditating, and taking time out for personal reflection.

4. Social

Your relationships and social skills can play a large role in your happiness. We all need healthy, strong relationships to be genuinely happy. It is also important to remember that the people we surround ourselves with make a big difference to how we feel about ourselves and how we act.

How is your social circle right now? Think about the type of people you prefer to be around. Consider your romantic relationship, or lack of, and how it can be improved.

Social self-care includes learning to say no if you need to, as well as making time to spend with family or taking that chance and going on a date. It focuses on strengthening your relationships and doing what you need to do to meet your individual social needs.

5. Practical

Another type of self-care you will want to focus on is practical self-care. This relates to the practical aspects of your life such as your finances, career, and organizational skills.

By focusing on practical self-care, you will potentially avoid stressful situations in the future. Taking care of your finances for example, will greatly reduce your stress levels and ensure you are well-equipped to handle any potential future cash flow challenges.

Some practical self-care tasks include creating a budget, taking a course to progress in your career and organizing your closet.

These are just five examples of the different types of self-care. If you are committed to improving your quality of life and becoming happier, you will want to make sure you’re taking care of all of your needs.

However, with so many things to focus on, it is easy to become overwhelmed. So, it is a good idea to start by focusing on one or two self-care tasks until they become a regular habit. Then, you can move on to other tasks to gradually improve your life. 

The Consequences Of Not Caring For Yourself

Ignoring your needs and not taking care of your self has serious physical, emotional, spiritual and lifestyle quality ramifications.

Physical

One of the greatest consequences of a lack of self-care is chronic stress, which numerous studies have shown to play a critical role in chronic disease, including heart attacks, stroke, overweight and obesity and others.

As the stress hormone cortisol surges through the body it causes serious complications, including reduced immunity, deteriorating organ function and accelerated aging of both the mind and body.

Hectic lifestyles that lack some type of self-care component also result in unhealthy diets and lack of exercise that further increase risks for chronic health problems, one of which is type 2 diabetes, which is at epidemic levels in the United States.

Emotional

When we do not take care of our needs, we become exhausted, angry, bitter, and anxious. Often, these feelings can lead to resentment that can spill over into personal relationships, such as marriages. Studies have shown that women who follow a regular self-care routine have happier marriages.

Mental

A lack of self-care can result in depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. In fact, women suffer from depression at a four times higher rate than men do. Burnout, overwhelm and brain fog are some of the disastrous consequences of a hectic lifestyle that does not address self-care.

Spirit

Our spirits can suffer profoundly from a lack of self-care, as our needs go ignored as we place all our attention and energy on everyone else’s needs. Anna Quindlen summarizes this consequence well in her book, Being Perfect, “Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere…. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be.”

Final Thoughts

Self-care isn’t just about doing what you want. You need to focus on the things your mind and body needs. Knowing the difference between what self-care is and what it isn’t, will help you to establish the most effective routine.

Selflessness and selfishness are two very misunderstood terms. People mistakenly think that selfishness means doing things with the intention of taking care of your-self and they also think that selflessness means doing everything for other people that they want, taking everything on board, and never doing anything for your-self.

It’s always important to understand the balance in all of these actions in order to see the reality of the situation.

Imagine This

All day long, you do things for yourself, only based on what you want. If someone else needs something from you, or asks you to get something that they need which might ‘put you out’ a little, you refuse. Your time is your time and you want to keep it all to you.

This is pure selfishness.

Now imagine the opposite.

All day long, you run around for people getting everything they want, not having a second for yourself to get things done or to focus on what you need. You are constantly being told where to go and what to do without ever having the ability to sit down and think for yourself. People use you to the point of exhaustion, every day like a servant to the needs and wants of others.

This is pure selflessness and it is exhausting.

In all of this, it is vital that we find the balance.

Balancing Yourself

When we take care of the needs of others, we must do so while maintaining what we need also. When we need a break, we must be able to say no. When a person’s requests or demands are getting to be too much weight on our shoulders, again we must learn to say no.

While looking after and taking care of others, we must also make it a high priority to have time to ourselves, to relax and not have to deal with any added stresses and pressure.

Doing this, taking time out for ourselves, to give ourselves what we need, actually allows us to better serve others. If there is not balance, very quickly we will become exhausted and drained of our ability to do anything.

In this state, we would quickly become depressed and overwhelmed, or perhaps even start to get irritable and angry. This is all because there is no balance between selfishness and selflessness.

Real Selflessness

What we are trying to achieve here is ‘Real Selflessness’. The kind of selflessness that is balanced, that gives both ourselves and the other person or people what we all need. Living in this way actually makes us more capable of helping others, because at the same time we maintain our own requirements along with the requirements of everyone else.

It is important that we take as good care of ourselves as we do others. If we don’t, we actually lose the ability to take care of others properly.

Developing the right kind of balance means we can go on living through ‘Real Selflessness’ for as long as we continue to live.

How To Be Truly Selfless

We must be honest with ourselves and with others. We must have boundaries in place that don’t allow other people to take advantage, unknowingly or not.

We must recognize when things are becoming too much to handle, and when we need a little space to relax and let go of the stress.

Once we recognize this, we must put everything down, essentially say ‘no’ to the world for a little while so that we can rest, recover, recuperate and reset to come back reinvigorated and ready to serve once again.

Living in this way means that we aren’t just taking care of others, we are simultaneously taking care of ourselves in the same moment.

People will respect this and appreciate it because everyone knows how it feels to be stressed and exhausted and at the same time, they will appreciate that you are still helping them, or that you will continue to be your giving self once, you have had enough of a break to focus on yourself.

Learn to have boundaries in place and effectively implement them. By doing this, you will learn how to be the right amount of selfless and the right amount of selfish, without falling into any extremes.

The middle way is always balanced. Learn to walk the middle way and take care of yourself as much as you do others.

 

 

A Self-care routine is essential for both mental and physical wellness. It fosters a healthy lifestyle, which ensures that your body functions optimally. Self-care involves self-love, self-respect, self-awareness, and self-understanding. In other words, it involves doing what you feel is right for your health. Although self-care may be elusive, especially if you have a very busy schedule, it is important to note that prioritizing your needs is essential for your wellness. This article explores a few steps to guide you on how to incorporate self-care into your busy schedule.

Healthy Eating

Healthy eating ensures that your body gets adequate nutrients to function at an optimal level. The nutrients reduce your vulnerability to diseases and infections by keeping your immune system strong. To ensure you eat healthy, it is important to plan your diet in a way that incorporates carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, and other nutrients that are important for body processes. Avoid fries and other foods that raise the level of cholesterol in your body. Any cholesterol surplus in the body is deposited as fats, which are harmful to your body. It is important to adopt a balanced diet to avoid too little or too much of a particular nutrient in your body.

Healthy eating may also involve avoiding excessive alcohol intake. Too much alcohol has various side effects, including alcohol addiction and dehydration. Alcohol addiction may be difficult to treat, especially when you begin experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Alcoholism may affect your social and economic lifestyles.

Healthy Sleep

Getting perfect sleep should be an essential part of your daily schedule. Perfect sleep relieves stress and improves your cognitive ability by eliminating mental fatigue. Since every person is unique, it may be difficult to determine how long proper sleep should last. However, scientists generally recommend that you should sleep 7 to 8 hours a night. You can know that you lack good sleep if you experience certain signs and symptoms, including mood swings, sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, memory problems, and disrupted sleep cycle.

Meditation

Meditation connects you with your inner self. It alleviates stress and gives your mind the ability to focus on useful things. Meditation also fosters self-awareness and self-compassion. When meditating, be sure to focus on the good things you have achieved in your life. This gives you encouragement that you can achieve better things. Avoid thinking about past negative events because such events tend to cause stress and distract your focus on important aspects of your life.

Proper Exercises

Proper physical exercises should not be too light or too heavy, and they should be done on a regular basis. Exercises ensure proper self-care by keeping your circulatory system efficient. When the blood in your body flows optimally, nutrients and oxygen are properly transported in the body to keep you healthy. Proper exercises also boost your cognitive ability by ensuring increased blood supply to the brain. Additionally, it keeps your body healthy by toning your muscles and burning fat deposits in your body. To make the results of regular exercises even better, accompany your workout plan with a proper diet plan.

Overall, it is important to understand that you may not live to care for your loved ones if you fail to care for yourself. You need to avoid conforming to environmental and situational demands that compromise your self-care. Instead, think and act in a way that promotes self-care.

 

After the holiday season, you still have several months of winter left to cope with, so you must find ways to relax and de-stress. You may have been super busy throughout the holidays, giving you little time for reducing the stress of shopping and going to parties. Here are some winter care tips to help you feel better after the holidays end.

Create a Soothing Bedroom

First, you should create a soothing bedroom to cope with the cold temperatures at night. You may want to replace your old mattress and box springs by shopping at an after Christmas sale. In addition, January is a great time to find new bedroom linens at reduced prices so that you can have new items such as a thick comforter, heated mattress pad and soft flannel sheets. This is also an excellent time to replace lightweight curtains with heavier draperies so that there are fewer cold drafts in your bedroom.

Visit a Day Spa

Winter is the perfect time for visiting a day spa for relaxing treatments to eliminate the stress from the holiday season. You can request a facial to cleanse and moisturize your skin, or you might prefer a full-body wrap that includes an application of mud and herbs. A spa will have additional amenities such as whirling hot tubs or warm saunas to help you feel better. It is also possible to have an assortment of massages along with beauty treatments such as pedicures, haircuts and manicures.

Change Your Diet Plan

If you have gained weight during the holidays, then you will want to change your diet plan to lose a few pounds. You may have consumed a lot of bad carbohydrates such as cookies and noodles throughout the holidays, so you can switch to eating numerous fresh fruits and vegetables instead. Create new daily menus that include three meals and two snacks so that you can control what you eat rather than grazing mindlessly. With these menu plans, you can create a grocery-shopping list to avoid buying junk foods while you are at the supermarket.

Plan Your Exercise Routines

When you have avoided having an exercise routine, January is the perfect time to join a fitness center. This is the time of year that local gyms are offering discounts on memberships, and a fitness center is a heated indoor space away from snow or ice. You will have access to an assortment of exercise equipment such as elliptical machines, stationary bicycles and free weights. Most fitness centers also offer classes that involve group activities such as yoga or calisthenics. Joining a class at a fitness center is an excellent way to socialize with others while also increasing the strength of your muscles and bones.

Maintain a Regular Schedule

You may have had a poor daily and weekly schedule during the holidays because you were busy with Christmas shopping and holiday activities, but in January, you can begin to maintain a regular schedule again. To feel your best, you must go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning. You will also lose more weight if you eat your meals and snacks at the same times on a daily basis.