No matter your age, what job you do or which stage of life you are at, everyone deserves a self-care moment to incorporate into your life. Without taking the time to care for yourself, you can spend your life perpetually stressed, sick, and exhausted. Let’s learn what is self-care, why is it important and the self-care ideas below to achieve physical, mental, emotional or spiritual health for yourself.
What is self-care?
Self-care is not synonymous with self-indulgence or being selfish. It means taking care of yourself and making healthy lifestyle choices so that you can be healthy mentally, psychologically and physically. Self-care is something that when you do it, you wake up the next morning feeling better. While WHO’s definition of self-care is:
“The ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider”.
Why is it important?
Why should you make self-care a priority? Taking time out to care for yourself can make you feel good about yourself and convey to others that you value yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re more likely to feel fatigued and stressed.
Self-care ideas to try
1. Meditation, yoga
Practicing yoga is known to come with many benefits for both mental and physical health. It incorporates breathing exercises, meditation and poses designed to encourage relaxation and reduce stress. Also, yoga has the potential to increase fat loss, develop muscle tone, and build flexibility, leading to a more lean-looking beautiful body. It helps not only mental, but also the physical health for our only me-time.
2. Get more sleep
When it comes to self-care, sleeping is one of the important topics. You will become happier and healthier when you are getting enough sleep. You can try to cut out caffeine, like certain soft drinks and chocolate, later on in the day, finish your last meal of the day a few hours before bedtime and stop doing the heavy exercise late at night to create the good sleep hygiene. It is a simple and effective way to relieve stress while boosting both mental and physical health.
3. Eat or Cook yourself a nice meal
Cooking is often positioned as a chore and so that people might think of it as hard, stressful and time-consuming. But it is found that sinking your hands into some cooking is a great way to gain care for yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. You can try simple tasks like buying a new ingredient and making a new taste combination that can make us less stressed, happier and more fulfilled.
4. Read a book or Listen to an audiobook
We all know that Reading can make us smarter, but it also is the best way to calm our nerves. It is found that it only takes 6 minutes for a reader to ease tension and lower its heart rate when they start reading. Also, a book can turn us into better problem solvers, communicators, and critical thinkers, it is a self-care idea for your long-term development.
