July 24th is observed as International Self-care Day. This day highlights the importance of self-care and encourages individuals to make self-care a part of their everyday routine and make it a priority.
Table of Content
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Why is Self-Care important?
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Self-Care Types
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Factors that prevent you from self-care
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Realistic tips to start self-care
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Dos & Don’t of self-care
Why is Self-Care important?
Self-care is a significant way to prevent oneself from lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. As per World Health Organization (WHO), 74 % of global deaths are caused by lifestyle diseases*.
Self-care is pivotal for our overall mental, emotional, and physical health. When we spend time caring for ourselves, we feel energized and at our best. Self-care helps in reducing stress, increases our life expectancy, and improves our moods.
Self-Care Types:
There are several types of self-care, but we should focus on the three most important types that are mental, emotional, and physical self-care.
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Mental Self-Care includes managing your mental health and controlling all stress factors. This can involve practising meditation, getting therapy, and learning how to manage stress.
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Emotional Self-Care largely includes taking care of your emotions. This can include practising increasing self-awareness, spending time with friends and family, mindfulness, journaling, setting healthy boundaries.
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Physical Self-Care involves taking care of your physical fitness. This can include exercising, eating a healthy diet, and getting enough sleep.
Factors that prevent you from self-care
Self-care is one of the important aspects of our life, but many of us do not practice self-care. This is because of certain factors. Here is a list of factors that prevent you from taking good care of yourself. Identifying these factors and managing them can help you focus on self-care.
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Not considering yourself important
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Lack of time for self-care
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Feeling guilty about focusing on your needs
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Lack of energy
Realistic tips to start self-care
Starting self-care for those who have never considered it important can be challenging. Here are three important ways to start self-care.
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Set a specific time for your self-care. This way, you can have a mind share about spending some time in self-development and care. and be prepared to devote some time towards self-care.
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Start small, and be selective while planning your self-care routine. Don’t include a bundle of activities; limit yourself to one or two things that may help you gain positive vibes.
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Find a Partner. When you have somebody joining you for something, chances of you backing off due to over-commitment are reduced. Having a company can keep you motivated.
While you plan your self-care routine, knowing the dos and don’t of effective self-care is important.
Dos of Self Care
1. Disconnect: Take 30 minutes or 1 hour or however long you need to have some quiet time. This means silencing your phone and other devices and having QUIET ME time.
2. Self-Indulge: Do one thing every day that makes you happy. It can be as little as watching a TV show you haven’t seen in a while or indulging in a long wished hobby.
3. Unwind: Instead of coming home from a long day and jumping right into doing other tasks, change into comfy clothes, lay across the bed or the couch, and chill out for about 20 minutes, then resume your daily chore.
4. Make healthier food choices: Instead of buying fast food for lunch and ordering take-out for dinner, prep at home and bring your lunch to work. Eating a healthy diet will reduce “brain fog.”
5. Ask for help: If you feel overwhelmed with a task, don’t try to do it all yourself. ASK FOR HELP. This may help you to keep the extra stress at bay. If you have any kind of addiction example alcohol/smoking seek help without hesitation to overcome the addiction.
6. Journaling: Writing your feelings and emotions can be helpful. Reflection is a great tool when trying to collect all the thoughts running through your head.
Things that you should avoid while doing self-care.
1. Over-indulging: Yes, you can have a spa day or do something just for you to keep your thoughts stable. But do not neglect other responsibilities. When you over-indulge, you may miss something important, and everything will come crashing down on you, and you’ll end up in the same negative mind space you were in before.
2. Over-exercising: Don’t over-exert yourself in the gym or in your run outside. Pushing yourself past your limits can cause injuries and an unhealthy mindset.
3. Mindless eating: In an attempt to treat yourself, do not eat just for comfort. Mindless eating may make you satisfied, but this would be temporary with permanent nutrition loss.
4. Trying to impress people: Don’t overextend yourself to make yourself look better or impress others. Live for yourself and make yourself your top priority, not others. Set realistic goals for yourself.
5. Overthinking: Don’t keep replaying the negative things that have happened to you in your head. Accept it and move on. This may help to control emotional stress.
Try incorporating one of these self-care items into your daily, weekly, or monthly routine. You can start slowly by doing one or even two at a time because your physical, emotional, and mental well-being is worth investing time in.
*Data Source:https://shorturl.at/ekmR9
