What is Self Care?
The word “Self-care” is thrown around a lot in today’s world, it was even added to the Oxford dictionary in 2017! Self-care is no longer seen as selfish, in fact, it is now seen as necessary to maintain your health and happiness.
However, what IS self-care? Often it brings up images of bubble baths and face masks, which for sure can be a form of self-care! Self-care is any deliberate, self-initiated activity that promotes health and wellness for an individual.
Firstly, we need to understand WHY we actually need to incorporate self-care into our modern lifestyles.
We will need to understand a little physiology. Put very simply, our body’s brain and spinal cord together are known as our central nervous system (CNS). This is how our brain communicates with our body and vice versa. One section of the CNS has two general modes that it “switches” between.
One mode is “fight or flight”. Otherwise known as our sympathetic state, when our brain receives a signal of a threat, it sends out electrical signals to the areas we need for survival. Our muscles get blood, adrenaline is released and we are hyper-alert as we use our primal amygdala of our brain rather than our pre-frontal cortex. Now this mode was very useful when our lifestyles involved looking out for and running away from wild animals that would eat us! But in this day and age, the overload of stimuli from work stress, deadlines, technology, lack of sleep and busyness causes a similar response in our brain, all the time! So many people live every day switched “on”. This can cause so many problems, from anxiety, tight muscles, fatigue and burnout, critical thinking, and dependence on stimulants to keep going at that high level. Your fight or flight mode is important and has its place, but also very taxing on our brains and bodies.
The other mode is “rest and digest”. Also known as parasympathetic, this is the mode where our brain sends resources to our digestive organs, reproductive organs and our pre-frontal cortex where we make decisions and think creatively. When relaxed, the body knows it is safe and can spend it’s energy on thriving, rather than just surviving. Again, in our natural state, once a threat had passed, our lifestyles would involve walking around, relaxing, cooking, eating and playing. However, in our modern lifestyle, the “threats” never stop!
The reason I am so passionate about this is because I was running off fight or flight mode for so many years. I would go through taking on too many things, living off coffee and then crashing and burning. And I had no idea why I had chronic acne, anxiety, hormonal imbalances. It wasn’t until I became aware of my “modes” and how I could influence them that I finally found balance within my body again!
I believe the reason WHY self-care is so necessary in our lives is to return our central nervous system to a rest and digest mode each day. It is a maintenance strategy to keep us healthy.
The HOW of self-care I have divided into actions that replenish your physical, mental and emotional health.
PHYSICALLY
Physically, you can deliberately get your body into a parasympathetic state, then it sends those signals back to the brain that it is safe and able to relax. This can help relax your muscles, reduce overthinking, improve your digestive and hormonal health.
1. Get enough sleep
The importance of sleep is underestimated. Sleep is when your body recovers, balances hormones, repairs itself and helps you process thoughts and emotions. 8 hours of sleep is recommended every night. Quality of sleep can be improved by doing the next habits:
Spending the 30-60 mins before bed winding down - shower, brush teeth
Drinking warm tea
Deep breathing
Dim lights and turn off phone
Take magnesium
On the alternate side, not getting enough sleep means that you are more likely to be irritable, tired, lack focus and concentration and can encourage hormonal imbalances.
2. Nutrition
What you eat has a physical response on your body. Eating whole foods in the right quantity with vitamins and minerals and fiber nourishes you. Whereas eating processed foods or eating way too much can cause stress on your body. Stimulants such as caffeine, alcohol and some medications can cause stress on your body which makes it hard to stay in rest and digest (hello heart palpitations from too much coffee!).
Eat 3-4 regular balanced meals with a source of:
Protein (lean meats, chicken, beef, fish, egg whites, tofu/tempeh if vegetarian etc)
Carbohydrates (rice, potato, sweet potato, quinoa, fruit etc)
Fat (nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil etc)
Veggies (broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, capsicum - all colours of veggies)
Drink 2L+ of water
When you do not each nourishing food and instead fill up on processed foods and stimulants, your body will struggle with digestion, have low energy and poor concentration.
3. Exercise
While high-intensity physical activity such as lifting weights and cardio do stimulate a fight or flight reponse, it is important because it stimulates you to be faster, stronger and build muscle, which helps you become more resilient. Movement is a key aspect of self care. The key is balancing your high-intensity workouts with exercise that creates a parasympathetic response:
Yoga
Walking
Low-Intensity Swimming, cycling
4. Breathing
The only way we can consciously control our physiological functions is through our breath. Deep breaths oxygenate our body and send signals to our brain to relax. Just taking time to take 10 deep breaths into your belly can help you to reduce stress, and bring you out of your head and into your body.
Meditation
On the note of breathing, going one step further into meditation has physical, mental and emotional benefits. Meditation is a practise involves sitting and focusing on your breathing and noticing when your mind drifts, to bring it back to your breathing and body.
5. Additional
Other forms of physical self-care include:
Rest and time out doing nothing
Massage/Self Massage
Sauna/Spa
Epsom Salt Bath
Hot/Cold Immersion
MENTALLY
The mental self-care actions are based on actions that help you be proactive, rather than reactive to the world around you. Being proactive means that you have set the intentions for a situation, rather than being reactive where you are reacting to the situation as it occurs to you. It is the difference between being a thermometer or a thermostat. While of course, it is important that you cannot control everything and to accept what happens, I am a great believer that you get to choose your life. Without your structure determined by you, it is very easy to find ourselves in a puddle of stress on the floor again.
1. Routines and Habits
Our brains love and crave habits and routines. Habits reduce mental strain as they become more automatic and require less decision making in a day. However, if left to our own devices, our brains tend to make up habits based on convenience, which actually don’t always serve you. Waking up a similar time and following a morning routine can get you in a great state in the morning, keeping disciplined on your self-care habits like exercise and nutrition, winding down in the evening. Having a routine also doesn’t mean you do the same thing over and over if it isn’t working, it also means you upgrade your actions repetitively to build habits that serve you.
2. Planning and Reflection
Taking time to plan your your week is a lifesaver. This stops you from being so reactive to every tiny thing that happens and instead be proactive. An hour of planning saves 10 hours of practise. Taking a little bit of time planning your week before it happens will save you a lot of time in the week.
3. Boundaries
Be very clear on what your boundaries are, whether it be at work, in relationships or commitments and state them. This is logical as our emotional heighten state often blurs the boundary lines. A good question to ask yourself when being presented with a commitment is “If it isn’t a hell yes, it’s a no”. Working on yourself makes you more aware of what you want in your life and what you should say no to.
4. Purpose and Vision
Having goals, dreams and visions guide you towards something bigger than yourself. Setting yourself goals, challenges and achievements to work towards gives you a purpose. This can be in work, personal development, exercise, and nutrition. The biggest reason people get through adversity is having a purpose.
EMOTIONALLY
Emotional self-care means doing things that serve your soul. Emotions exist to tell you something. Too often we ignore how we feel, or push our emotions to the side until one day they explode. Being in a fight or flight mode heightens your emotions, and having emotions that you are not expressing can cause you to feel stressed and like “something is wrong”. Being triggered and reactive is no way to go through life. A big theme is not feeling good enough, not loving oneself.
1. Journalling, Gratitude, Affirmations
Journalling is an amazing emotional tool to become more aware of how you are feeling and to reflect on your emotions. Activities such as gratitude, affirmations can also reinforce the way you would like to think of yourself. Higher self-worth and working on your journey towards self-love leads to a more positive and forgiving outlook of yourself and the world.
2. Self Expression and Creativity
Our right-hand side of our brains are only satisfied so far with “productivity”. I believe every human should have an emotional outlet through creation for the sake of expression. Be that art, dance, singing being able to express yourself freely is a huge emotional release.
3. Connection with a Like-minded Community
Humans are social creatures. Emotionally we connect, share and experience through sharing with others. Having a supportive network or a like-minded group, friends or a mentor is so emotionally healing. If you do not currently have a community that you can express and share, seek groups that do or a mentor who can provide you with the connection you seek.
4. Giving Back
Giving and contributing is a massive emotional healer. Whether volunteering, donating or supporting, having purpose that doesn’t revolve around earning an income is emotionally fulfilling.
Now just because I have listed quite a few subjects under each category, this doesn’t mean you have to do all of these things, and certainly not all at once! Start slowly with making time to find space in your week for just one act of self-care in each category, and then build over time. There is no point in stressing out and rushing through your self care because that will eliminate the purpose of it! Remember your state is just as important as your work, and you will find you can get more done in less time and preserve your health.
*This article contains self-care recommendations for mental wellness. For anxiety, depression or mental health concerns please see your psychological professional for advice.
