Why do you need self-care?

SELF-CARE MEANS taking care of yourself so that you can be healthy, well, be able do your job, care for others, and do all the things you need to and want to accomplish in a day.

If you think you have been hearing more about self-care lately, you are right.

According to Dr RivaneChybar Virgo, medical doctor, and holistic health and nutrition counsellor, self-care is part of the answer to how we can all better cope with daily stressors.

“It is work stress. It is the stress of trying to keep up with the pace of daily life, which technology has hastened more than ever. Just think how many emails come flooding into your inbox each day. People are feeling lonelier and less able to unwind and slow down, which makes them feel more anxious and overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks,” Chybar Virgo said.

A study published in 2018 took self-care to mean the self-initiated behaviour that people choose to incorporate to promote good health and general well-being. The study authors added that it is about being healthy but also about incorporating coping strategies to deal with work stressors.

In 2019, researchers published a self-care framework to specifically point out that in addition to self-care being the activities individuals do on their own to promote physical and emotional health, it also includes the ways that individuals interact with clinicians and healthcare systems to tend to physical and emotional health.

That means self-care includes things like getting a vaccine, scheduling cancer screenings, or taking prescription medications on schedule but healthcare providers and organisations play a role, too, in how well individuals engage in these self-care practices. In other words: There are a lot of people and factors that bear on any individual’s ability to engage in self-care.

According to Dr Chybar Virgo, self-care can be simple, small steps that include prioritising your needs, setting boundaries, replenishing energy and restoring balance. Self-care can help manage stress, lower risk of illness, boost mood and happiness, enhance overall well-being and the quality of life.

An effective self-care plan should be tailored to your life and your needs. It needs to be something created by you, for you. Customising your own self-care plan can act as a preventative measure to make sure that you do not get overwhelmed, overstressed, and burned out.

Assess which areas of your life need some more attention and self-care and reassess your life often. As your situation changes, your self-care needs are likely to shift too.

As you are building your self-care plan, the following steps can be helpful:

• Assess your needs: Make a list of the different parts of your life and major activities that you engage in each day. Work, school, relationships, and family are some you might list.

• Consider your stressors: Think about the aspects of these areas that cause stress and consider some ways you might address that stress.

• Devise self-care strategies: Think about some activities that you can do that will help you feel better in each of these areas of your life. Spending time with friends or developing boundaries, for example, can be a way to build healthy social connections.

• Plan for challenges: When you discover that you are neglecting a certain aspect of your life, create a plan for change.

• Take small steps: You do not have to tackle everything all at once. Identify one small step you can take to begin caring for yourself better.

• Schedule time to focus on your needs: Even when you feel like you do not have time to squeeze in one more thing, make self-care a priority. When you are caring for all aspects of yourself, you will find that you are able to operate more effectively and efficiently.

keisha.hill@gleanerjm.com

SOURCE: Health Talk Sundays