At no cost to you, this site may contain affiliated links or ads to offset the expenses of operating a website. Please see the disclosureto satisfy your curiosity.
It’s that magical time of year when everyone is exhausted from last year and wanting to recover and restore from sugar, stress, and strain. A new year and new yay is all about clawing back self-care which is healthcare.
Self-care is healthcare sounds best when a wallet and will is drained of resistance.
Statistically speaking, I’m average. As an average sentient being, I feel that I’m well-versed in what I need for self-care. During the throws of exhaustion from one too many yeses when there should have been some tall glasses of nos. As the self-care gurus remind me, frequently, no is a full sentence.
What is self-care?
Per the academics at Southern New Hampshire University, self-care is defined as,
“Caring for yourself. Self-care includes anything you do to keep yourself healthy – physically, mentally and spiritually.”
Self-care is feeling ready to tackle the day instead of being feeling tackled by the end of the day.
It’s a proactive approach in a reactive world. Think of all the resources we pour into police departments, fire trucks, and ambulances. Can you think of any resources we pour into the moments before the police, fireman, or EMTs show up?
Outside of what we can ask Dr. Google on our own time, after dinner, dishes, and paying bills, our society and reality is reactive.
Why is self-care healthcare?
Self-care is healthcare. I’m not just jabbering hippy insight over here, I have academics examining things. Important things:
“Engaging in a self-care routine has been clinically proven to reduce or eliminate anxiety and depression, reduce stress, improve concentration, minimize frustration and anger, increase happiness, improve energy, and more.
From a physical health perspective, self-care has been clinically proven to reduce heart disease, stroke and cancer.”
If I had a car where I never replaced the oil or air filter, neglected the tire pressure, and gave it diesel fuel instead of unleaded, I wouldn’t call it my car for long.
Instead, I would call it an expensive waste of garage storage.
Humans are like machines, organic machines. We have inputs and outputs depending on how the innards are working. If I eat an abundance of fast food, rarely move, and decide TV life is my new life, then my outputs will reflect that.
Self-care is human maintenance to ensure that our most valuable vehicle, our body, is well-tuned for a lifetime.
We only get one.
How can I go about adding more self-care to my routine?
Since each body is as unique as a snowflake that freezes to our face, self-care follows the same guidelines. As in there are recommendations, no requirements. Common suggestions include:
Sleeping 8-10 hours;
Eating fresh food over packaged;
Being active;
Engaging with friends, family, and the community;
Visiting professionals on an annual or biannual basis (doctors, dentists, optometrists, and the other ists on the lists)
Participating in hobbies;
Exploring and learning more through classes, courses, and reading;
Developing financial security; and
Many other free self-care ideas that only the stars rival their number and beauty.
Much of self-care is physical healthcare, like fueling up with good food and being active. Mental self-care is vital too. A healthy body can’t stop a mental collapse. It could delay or help prevent one, but a crash is still a crash, no matter how fit the body.
Robust mental self-care is how I justify library visits, financial education courses, and traveling to Iceland, even if my FSA rejects those expenses.
Fine FSA. I’ll keep buying heated period underwear and massages! You win!
Self-care is healthcare.
Self-care and healthcare are modern concerns.
Our ancestors didn’t need to worry about exercise because to eat they had to chase down their food.
They didn’t worry about being social because if they weren’t apart of a tribe their chances of survival were slimmer than a Slim Jim.
They didn’t worry about expanding their neural capacity because they’d expand their mental world by exploring new territories, food, or friendships.
Many lifetimes later, we benefit from all the advances our ancestors made. Now the price of modern life includes folding the basics into a schedule sandwiched between responsibilities and expectations.
However, I wanna slice it, self-care is mandatory because illness is always more expensive and inconvenient than preventive healthcare.
