Self-care is a concept that seems to attract more people lately and for good reasons. During the pandemic, with everything going on in our lives, stress, anxiety, and fatigue strike us hard. We all had to transform our homes into offices and schools and juggle with a new reality.
Yet, professional expectations have not decreased: Wrap up the project faster, find a new business model to balance the impact of new restrictions, and make sure to increase sales.
Ultimately, your calendar is jammed with things to do, tasks to complete ASAP while hoping to provide for the family. Progressively, you find no time to eat, sleep, and recover from all the stress accumulated.
In that maelstrom of things, where is the room for you? When can you take care of yourself?
Think about the last time you could decompress and reconnect the pieces of your wellness together. It has probably been a while back.
Self-care: Why Should I Care?
Unfortunately, the accumulation of stress is detrimental to your health, more than you think. Stress impacts your gut’s health, your hormonal production, which in turn can have devasting consequences. Over time, you develop diseases you never had before, and your entire metabolism changes:
- Fatigue
- Lower immunity
- Heart problems
- Digestive issues
- Headaches & migraines
- Anxiety and depression
- Poor sleeping patterns
- Weight gain
The list goes on and on. The vicious circle dragging your health down goes on, too. Until the day you get a wake-up call. Don’t think, “It won’t happen to me.” It will happen before you know it. So, before putting your wellness and health on the back burner, remember that your life is precious.
Self-Care is a Way of Life
Let’s cut off all the fancy hype around the term and bring it down to what it implies. Self-care scopes your mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
Your well-being depends on your health. When your body and brain function well, you can do and be so much more.
Ultimately, it is a health contract with yourself. Paradoxically, it is an act of selflessness because only when you are well, you can be fully there for others. Before neglecting your needs, remember that your needs are just as important as the ones you love.
Self-care is not just about the way you look. It’s about caring for your health and wellness. It incorporates your physical activity, your eating habits, the number of hours you sleep, and so much more.
Self-care is About Your Lifestyle
In other words, it is about the strategies and plans you implement consistently to be in control of your cognitive, physical, and emotional health.
As constant stress and anxiety are detrimental, you should plan to break that vicious circle. Hence, your approach should be holistic and encompass different complementary approaches.
Eating the right foods, avoiding the ones bad for you, taking the time to do intentional breathing and exercise will reduce the inflammation in your brain and body and progressively increase your immunity.
Self-care is the way to bring yourself back to existence instead of subsistence. Sure it is important to work, pay the bills, and give your share back to our community. That said, excess work can lead to a lot of stress and anxiety.
Therefore, offer yourself some time out during the day and weekend. If “workaholic” was the fashion back in the day, self-care outsmarts it. It is the best way to run your life marathon.
Before You Go
Don’t procrastinate with self-care. Don’t push it back to a later time. Create new habits that will boost your health and well-being now! You truly will begin to see a difference in your life.
