A Dive Into The Emerging Trend
When you hear the words: self-care, what comes to mind?
Maybe it’s bubble baths, face masks, or popping the cork on a bottle of wine.
While this type of self care is by no means inherently BAD, true, life changing self care goes much deeper than this. With self care becoming a growing trend on most social media platforms, the authentic definition of self care can become skewed.
So, what is self care and how can it help your mental health? Let’s talk.
Defining ‘Self Care’:
At its core, self care is simply defined as ‘any actions taken to improve one’s own health.” Sounds simple, right?
Well, it can be a bit more complicated than this. If you struggle with depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness, it can be easy to put yourself on the back burner. When you do this, you neglect parts of yourself that need to be nurtured and cared for.
This can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. True self care means making yourself your top priority in order to play an active role in your own healing, wellbeing, and happiness.
Self care means acting in your own best interest, rather than continuing down the road of self betrayal and boundary crossing.
Self care is not selfish. It’s necessary.
Top 5 Ways To Practice Self Care:
When it comes to mental health, self care practices not only attend to your current mental state, they help support internal healing and growth from wounds or struggles that may be holding you back.
Here are a few ways to practice self care:
How Does Self Care Improve Our Mental Health?
Our mental health affects every single aspect of our lives, from the way we behave to the way we handle stress, to our relationships.
Even small acts of self care can help us regulate our emotions, improve our sleep, increase our energy and boost our immune system. But how?
Self care is entirely dependent on self awareness. 95% of our lives are spent in our subconscious mind meaning our internal voice is running the show from behind the scenes. When we learn to practice self care we become much more in tune with our inner self.
When this happens we are able to recognize triggers, patterns of behavior, and negative thought processes that may be holding us back from living a happy life. In addition, when we spend time nurturing ourselves we are able to identify what activities are necessary for our mental health, as well as become equipped to soothe symptoms of depression or anxiety easier.
Sources:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/caring-for-your-mental-health
https://www.wth.org/blog/why-self-care-is-an-essential-for-your-mental-health/
