The Importance Of Self-Care
We inhabit a culture that celebrates, praises, and prioritizes busyness. The result is tiredness, moodiness, frustration, and an inability to rest. There are five main aspects of personal health: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual. Take some time to reflect on how each of these areas are being addressed in your life.
Regardless of whether we keep our pace, self-care becomes imperative in our journey towards wholeness. Taking time to re-energize, refocus and breathe. Four helpful factors to consider, when approaching self-care:
- Meaningful Social Connection: Belonging is a basic human need. Part of self-care is to find out where we feel most accepted, and to spend time with that person, or community. This should be a person or people group where you are recognized for who you are, a place in which you feel most like yourself.
- Exercise: Regular exercise improves mood, can help regulate stress, reduce anxiety, improve sleep, increase energy levels, and decrease risk of chronic disease. Find a type of exercise that you enjoy and seek to make it a regular part of your week.
- Competence: Our ability to achieve our goals, directly contributes to feeling significant; which contributes to our self-esteem. By concentrating on something you know you can accomplish, whether baking, writing, building, or another hobby/skill, your belief in your competence increases.
- Fun: What do you love? What brings you joy? Spending a day in the mountains, going on a hike, or watching a film. Whatever it is, make time to enjoy it. We all want, and need to have fun, to relax, to laugh, and to take a breath from our regular routine.
Health matters, and no matter how busy, self-care is integral to holistic well-being. Meaningful Social Connection, Exercise, Competence and Fun are only a few things to consider, but they are a great way to begin the long-journey of self-care. Slow down, consider your humanity, and reflect on what people, places, and activities can best contribute to cultivating self-care.
- Brianna Matchett, MC, C.C.C
Brianna Matchett, MC, is trained in many areas such as anxiety and self-esteem, plus many more. For more information on Brianna and her work, click here to link to her full bio page.