The Importance of Self-Care
Self-care can have a number of benefits, on our mental health and physical health, which is crucial in maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Preserving our physical and mental health can be done in a number of different ways, depending on our personal needs and capacities. Self- care can look like:
Setting boundaries
Making time to do things we love/that make us happy
Eating healthy/exercising
Prioritize sleep
Set realistic and achievable goals
Engaging in these behaviours can help improve our overall moods and physical and mental health. While some of these things might seem small or not very impactful, they can have a significant effect on our mental health. Engaging in self-care can enhance our self-esteem, improve our productivity levels, as well as improve our relationships with ourselves and others. While there are several different ways to engage in self-care, it is important to acknowledge and address our personal needs, and identify how we might be able to achieve them. While it can sometimes be difficult to make time for ourselves, it can highly improve our ability to do well professionally, as well as improve our ability to be present and energized within our personal life as well. Doing things to better ourselves, though it might not always be prioritized, is important to consider, especially when looking to prevent unnecessary stress or burnout.
Self-care is important to consider, for individuals in any profession, or group in society. For therapists, self-care is especially significant in order to ensure we are providing the best possible care to our clients. Taking care of ourselves should always be a top priority, as neglecting ourselves and our needs, can often result in other individuals in our lives experiencing the effect it may have. From a professional standpoint, it is important to ensure we are taking care of ourselves, before providing help and guidance to anyone else.
If you, or someone you know, is struggling to find ways to engage in self-care, or is struggling to make time for it, it is important to remind ourselves of the consequences which can occur, if we do not take care of ourselves. The physical and mental impacts which can occur from not engaging in self-care, can be highly influential on our ability to maintain a happy and healthy lifestyle. Making time for self-care, is one of the best, and most important, things we can do for ourselves!