Edited by: Vlada Taits
For many of us, we add self-care blocks into our weekly routines and sometimes daily by performing little acts to “treat ourselves,”; but we fail to acknowledge the deeper value. If I Google search ‘self-care,’ the main results are skincare products and physical things supposed to make us feel special and nurtured. Feeling our best doesn’t need to be because of materialistic things all the time, but don’t get me wrong, I love a good splurge here and there to spoil myself.
I want to highlight that it actually is healthy to put yourself first since we often forget when we get caught up in life and others around us. I think brainstorming a list of ways in various categories like emotional, physical, social, and intellectual helps break down our feelings. This will allow us to think deeper into what our body needs in certain moments.
Emotions are tied to our feelings. Our self-care can relate to all emotional well-being, such as meditation, listening to uplifting music, and maybe writing positive affirmations to yourself. These few things can easily flip how you feel and cheer you up without a doubt.
Physical is related to us being active or doing something with our bodies to benefit us. I love working out to feel pumped up, so I recently changed my routine to be home-friendly due to the gym closures. Some more ideas can be, not limited to, eating a favorite meal or treating yourself to something you’ve been craving or cleaning, walking, getting ready; literally anything where you’re forced to be productive.
Social self-care links to our interactions and connections with others around us. I know the pandemic made it a bit tricky with social distancing, but there are so many ways around it. You can have a group Facetime or Zoom call, interact on social media, and even grab a coffee to greet the workers. We all need human interaction, which is so important for our mental health as well.
Intellectual, is a key point I feel like I’ve been lacking on personally and want to incorporate more into my routine. This has to do with our minds and knowledge too. Anything to stimulate our brains, like reading a good book, noteworthy podcasts, or learning skills, can help relieve stress, which is needed for us students.
By breaking down what self-care is and seeing how it affects us in the bigger picture, for example, if we feel unmotivated or slumped, we can identify which activities can be beneficial to us. Pampering isn’t the only way to treat ourselves, we have so much more to explore when it comes to unwinding.