I have been thinking a lot about self-care this past week. Mostly because most of the campus has come down with the flu or some infection, including myself. Over this past weekend, I have been barely able to get out of bed and coughing my head off. I know many of my fellow peers are in the same situation. Ox-Plague hit us hard this past week. While I was sick, I drank a lot of fluids, got a lot of sleep, took time for myself, and just relaxed. I really took care of myself because I really wasn’t feeling well. This made me realize that I shouldn’t just be taking this good of care of myself while I am sick. I should be taking this good of care of myself all the time (and then maybe I wouldn’t get as sick as often if I am not sleep deprived). I think it is really easy for us to understand that we can take time to take care of our self when we are sick, but it isn’t that obvious when we are healthy. However, self-care is just as important during your regular week.
Self-care is often assumed to be going to a spa and getting a massage, but as we have seen it can be much simpler than that. Self-care is drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, spending time doing something you love (i.e. hanging out with your friends or reading). These all seem like simple tasks, but everyone gets caught up in all the work with school that we forget to take care of ourselves sometimes. Self-care is put on the back burner because of saying such as “pain is temporary; GPA is forever”. We take this mentality and use it to justify unhealthy behaviors. When we are sick, it seems like common sense to do all of these things, but we need to start applying them to our everyday life.
I also noticed a problem with self-care is that we often continuously give to others when we don’t have much left to give. I was talking with my friend about if it is selfish to tell someone you can’t help them in that moment because you are sick or you have your own work to do. I told him that I thought if you needed time for yourself, it wasn’t selfish. My reasoning was that if you are so overwhelmed with what you are having to do, or if you are exhausted or sick, that you won’t be able to help that person as well. It is sometimes better to take a step back and take care of yourself before you try to help or handle other situations. Plus, that person will understand that you don’t have a lot to give in that moment. This includes telling members of a club that you can’t make it to the meeting, or asking a professor for an extension.
There are a lot of things we forget when it comes to self-care. We forget that it is ok to put ourselves before other commitments. If you aren’t taking care of yourself, you can’t put as much into other activities. We also forget that self-care can be as simple as taking a 15-minute break to take a walk or drinking enough water. Self-care seems so easy when we are sick and is really easy for us to do. We need to start making it as easy to practice self-care at every other point in our lives.