Quick Guide: Self-Care

I figured since we did a video on relationship care that it was only fitting that I take time to cover self-care for those of you who haven’t heard enough about it yet.

Just so you know, I stand beside everything that we spoke about when we did our video, I just know how important taking care of yourself can be, especially for someone who struggles with depression.

As we spoke about in the video, self-care is one of the many things I used to overcome the depression and learn to really tune in to what my body was lacking in when I feel the depression creep back in on me. In the midst of my depression, I was not able to truly help anyone else before I first started to help myself.

Self-care, according to psychcentral.com, is “any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.” One of the key words in this definition is deliberately. Self-care has to be deliberate! Especially for women, who are so used to always taking care of everyone else and often times forget that they need to be taken care of, too.

First, let’s cover some things that self-care IS, then we will tackle some things that self-care is NOT.

Self-care IS deliberate.

Self-care IS an action.

Self-care IS necessary.

Self-care IS important.

Self-care IS pro-active.

Self-care is NOT selfish.

Self-care is NOT lazy.

Self-care is NOT a weakness.

Self-care is NOT always huge.

Self-care is NOT centered around spending money.

It seems simple, but when in the mire of anxiety or depression (or sometimes just in dealing with life), taking care of yourself can seem like a really difficult thing to do. So, here are some examples of things you can do as self-care to get your creative juices flowing:

Take a bath/shower

Shave

Get a manicure/pedicure

Get a massage

Read a book

Go to bed early

Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea

Buy yourself some flowers

Schedule your yearly exams

Go for a walk or do some yoga

Crank up your favorite music and have a dance party

Write in a journal

Go to your favorite restaurant

Have a date night (spouse, kids, friends, etc.)

Write a letter to a friend

Get a haircut

Workout

Color/Paint/Draw a picture

Take a deep breath

Meditate

Do a spot check to see how you are really doing

Feel free to add anything to this list that makes you happy, these are just some basic ideas. The idea behind self-care is to do it on a regular basis. That can be daily, weekly, or monthly, but you need to do it on at least a monthly basis. Make sure you schedule it; otherwise, you will not do it because other things will come up that are more important.

I know you have a million things pulling you in a million different directions, but if you don’t allow yourself some space to breathe, you will forget how to breathe. . . . metaphorically, of course!