While keeping up with our bustling lives, prioritizing self-love seems to make its way to the bottom of everyone’s to-do lists. Thankfully, more light has recently been shed on the importance of self-care, and it has been a more widely adopted practice. As we know, this concept of love only continues to grow with the spirit of Valentine’s Day around the corner.
February is National Self-Check Month, and this Valentine’s Day, your loved ones shouldn’t be the only ones getting all the action — our bodies and minds need some love, too. To help me reach my full self-care and self-love potential, I plan on getting my annual check-ups this National Self-Check Month — and so should you!
Understandably, life can get hectic sometimes, so it can be hard to prioritize yourself. More often than not, we overlook our medical appointments and fall into the habit of pushing them back so far that when we try to push them back again, the year has already ended! We also sometimes lose our self-care habits in the chaos of life. As a college student, I am very much guilty of this — so much so that one of my resolutions for 2025 was to get back on track for consistent mental and physical health. Here are some ways you can start, too!
Getting started
Getting yourself back on track to prioritizing your physical and mental well-being can be tricky. When making time for your annual check-ups, don’t feel any pressure if you’re finding it difficult to make every appointment all at once — even just attending one appointment is a great starting point. Establishing a plan for yourself or finding a friend to be your accountability buddy can push you in the right direction.
Something that helped me was taking note of any doctor’s appointments I had recently rescheduled or missed and making those my first priority. I like to put those at the top of my to-do list to get those tedious appointments out of the way. In fact, just the other day, I reached out to a dermatologist I had been meaning to coordinate with since the beginning of last year.
Self-Checks at home
I thought it was a bit unhinged that some of my friends already had full calendars only halfway through January until my calendar started filling up by the end of it, too. Fitting in appointments, especially for those specialty offices that require a bit of a drive, can be quite complicated for some. This can become tedious for college students juggling internships, jobs, clubs, friends, or partners. That is why this month, it is also encouraged to do self-wellness checks at home.
This can be through performing routine breast cancer self-exams, keeping an eye on any new moles that have popped up, checking your heart rate, and monitoring any abnormal menstrual pattern changes. Recording any instances that you observe as out of the ordinary for your body can be incredibly helpful for you and your physician. By remaining attentive to these sorts of things, it can become easier to identify if you need to see your licensed physician sooner rather than later.
Don’t forget mental check-ins
Self-checking isn’t limited to only the physical aspects of our body. Alongside our physical health, we should also consider our mental health. The two go hand-in-hand, like sweet tea and a hot day or an iced coffee and some journaling. So many new resources for mental health have been established since 2024 and have opened the world of mental self-care to broader horizons.
The beauty of it all is that you can start with something as simple as jotting down your responses to some reflection prompts in a journal (one of my favorite forms of journaling last year was bullet journaling) or even just giving your bestie a call and doing a weekly debrief to see how you both are doing so far in the semester. Checking in with yourself regularly can help you monitor your feelings and flag if something is impacting your mental well-being.
According to a mental health article from Utah State University, emotional regulation can also be done by catering more to our interests and hobbies. Bringing in that serotonin through activities you already know and love can be another way to kickstart your wellness journey and participation in National Self-Check Month. Start with the basics and continue flourishing from there.
Prioritize yourself and remember that your happiness and well-being come first. Happy National Self-Check Month!