Self-care is an incredibly important aspect of mental health. The lack of self-care from a person’s life can result in one being severely depressed, exhausted, and unfulfilled.
Self-care is rather self-explanatory in terms of what it means for you. Your own self-care is going to be directed towards your own priorities and wellbeing. Make sure that you’re in tune with what makes you happy, what doesn’t, and how much stimulus you can handle before it’s too much so you can most accurately care for yourself.
If you’re completely unfamiliar with the idea of self-care, here’s what you need to know.
What Do You Like?
The most important thing to keep in mind when figuring out your own self-care routines is how you feel. Is this making you feel good? Or no? That’s going to be the biggest question. For example, let’s say you have a friend who is trying to help you and they offer a spa day. Is that what you like? Or is it what they like?
You’re going to want to do whatever makes you feel best. For those who benefit from a spa day, most aestheticians agree that you should get a professional facial once per month. Perhaps this means your new monthly routine includes a day to the spa for yourself. You’ll have to decide if that’s worth your while.
Figuring out what you like is important because it will help you to establish the most beneficial routines.
If you know you feel better every time you take a hot shower, you’re going to start taking hot showers more frequently when you’re overwhelmed or depressed. Similarly, if you know you’re someone who benefits from interactions with others or outward stimuli, you’re going to want to leave your house more frequently than someone who is more introverted.
The average person spends 90% of their time indoors. If you’re someone who is more extroverted, you’re going to want to be more intentional about making plans and going and doing things outdoors.
What Don’t You Like?
Another key part of self-care is avoiding things that you know cause you pain, distress, or simply don’t help you to feel better.
For some, this may mean taking a break from social media. For others, this may mean avoiding certain situations with people in their lives or limiting tasks that cause too much stress. It also means identifying triggers and working on them.
For example, if you are someone who is overwhelmed with work and is struggling each week to get through without a breakdown, you need to figure out what exactly it is that’s causing the stress and how to move forward.
It may mean that you need to alter your work environment, for example. For instance, if you’re not feeling productive in your workspace and it’s causing you to become overwhelmed, try to make your workspace more productive.
Ways you can do this are by adding plants or even artwork. The global art market was valued at almost 64 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. Allow yourself to really pick and choose what alleviates the stress and what doesn’t, and then cater to that.
Self-care is all about you.
You have to be honest with yourself about what is serving you and what isn’t and then catering to the things that are.
At the end of the day, all you have is yourself, so it’s important that you’re doing everything you can to make sure you are as healthy and happy as can be!
Do you have a favorite self-care ritual?
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