Unfortunately, in today’s world, where work is often continuously piling up, one has little time to pay attention to oneself. But did you ever think that by taking just a few minutes of your day for yourself, you can possibly help enhance your mood, feel less stressed, and generally be happier and healthier?
Looking after one’s self, is the bedrock of positive mental health and is not some new age concept. For working individuals with limited time or a student juggling between books and life, or any lay person who is looking for a way to deal with the daily grind, self-care cannot be overemphasized. But where does one start?
The Connection Between Self-Care and Mental Well-Being
When we speak of self-care, it means the conscious effort of taking care of the psychological, social, and physiological aspects of a person. These actions can in fact have a very deep influence on how we feel and perform in our day to day life.
How Self-Care Practices Positively Impact Mental Health
Participating in activities such as exercise, practicing mindfulness, or even getting enough sleep will greatly enhance the state of mind. For instance, exercise assists in the production of endorphins, which are the body mood-elevating chemicals and hence assists in decreasing anxiety and depression. It turns out that even a 10-minutes-walk can do it. Likewise, Mindfulness techniques like meditation are helpful in managing stress as it directs people’s attention towards the current rather than contemplating an uncertain tomorrow or regretting the yesterday.
Various studies provide compelling evidence that practicing self-care is useful in protecting and promoting mental health. In the research study carried out by Myers et al. (2012) the study looked at the correlation between self –care measures and perceived stress among graduate students in psychology. The research evidence indicated that sleep regularity, social support, and emotion regulation within the mindfulness context were associated with lower levels of stress perception. Thus, the nature of self-care, that can be incorporated into everyday activities, seems to be especially helpful in stress-related situations.
Interestingly, Dr. Kristen Neff, a renowned scholar on self-compassion, also observes that self-care is aligned with self-compassion, which has to do with being nice to the self particularly when going through some challenges or experiencing failure. This link is important because people with higher levels of self-compassion are likely to employ self-care practices that benefit their mental health.
The Importance of Integrating Self-Care into Daily Routines
Integrating self-care into people’s lives can be quite challenging despite its numerous advantages. However, getting involved in self-care measures does not have to be a daunting process or take lots of one’s time. It is possible to find that minor steps undertaken daily can make a tremendous difference in one’s mental health. For instance, dedicating five minutes in the morning to deep breathing can assist you in clearing your head and minimizing stress for the day. It also helps to take short breaks in the middle of work such as stretching or listening to music which helps to rejuvenate the mind and enhance concentration levels.
The important thing is to ensure that one incorporates self-care activities as part of the daily routine as with activities such as brushing or taking meals. Regular self-care doesn’t only assist in averting work-related stress and consequently, the experience of burnout but contributes to building the right and healthy mental habits.
Easy Self-Care Practices for Busy Individuals
In the present generation, people mostly allow work to dominate their lives while forgetting that health is wealth. It may be important to incorporate small, uncomplicated approaches into your daily regimen that can positively affect your health. For example, being able to spend five minutes in mindfulness exercises, such as the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, allows you to immediately focus on the things around you, minimizing anxiety. These include the neck rolls at work, or the full body stretch before retiring to bed.
Another strong practice is journaling; writing a few words in the morning or before going to bed is helpful for regulating emotions and cultivating positive outlooks. It is therefore important to incorporate the above practices in your daily routine- even a few minutes can go a long way in improving your mental health.
Self-Care Ideas for Improving Mood and Reducing Stress
To reduce stress levels and improve the mood, meditation, nature walks, and creative hobbies are good self-care methods. Only 10 minutes of meditation is enough to help one focus and reduce stress while a 20 minutes’ walk in the park will definitely improve your mood. In a stressful period such as the current pandemic, if one cannot get to a green area, a small walk outside can do the magic. Drawing or knitting or any such creative work is a way of throwing over quite a burden of one’s own thoughts and emotions, and helps to give the mind a rest. It can be implemented at any time of the day and night, you can start with the morning meditation and continue with the creative activity in the evening.
Self-Care Activities for Students
With limited funds and academic pressures, student self-care is not just desirable – it’s a necessity. Reading can also be used as a wonderful way to escape from reality or find inspiration in something, many libraries offer eBooks and audiobooks for free. Besides such activities, students can use mental health resources which are free of charge. Some apps such as ‘United We Care’ that helps in the management of overall mental health care or ‘Calm Harm’ that assists with the management of the urge to self-harm, or “MindShift” that offers tools to deal with anxiety can be accessed for free.
Most universities offer free counseling to students, as do many local organizations and it is possible to find a lot of free events such as concerts, fitness classes or art shows that offer not only social interaction but a break from stress as well. It is important to highlight these enjoyable and pocket-friendly activities so that a student can cope with academic pressure and get help for a worrying mind during tough moments.
How to Create a Personalized Self-Care Plan
- Start with defining your key sources of stress that can be work, school, or interpersonal relationships. Think of what you do that makes you at ease and feel fresh.
Example: If work stress is substantial, one may think of evening walks or breathing exercises.
- Choose Activities: Choose activities which are appealing to you and can be incorporated in your schedule without much strain.
Options: Exercise in the form of yoga, artistic activities such as drawing or writing, or even meditating.
- Develop Your Plan: Develop a reasonable schedule containing regular physical, emotional, and mental self-care activities that fit into ordinary life.
- Flexibility: Always consider the possibility of having a flexible self-care plan in case any changes arise. It only takes realizing that you are no longer the same person that practiced a particular self-care routine as a change in life to warrant a change in self-care regimes. Always review and modify the plan as you progress to meet your requirements and goals.
Tip: Pay attention to the fact that during stressful periods at work, engage in stress-relieving activities only, or change to social/relaxation activities as the situation allows.
Conclusion
In conclusion, self-care is an important concept that should be practiced regularly when caring for one’s mental health. When you slowly work to develop a plan that incorporates self-care strategies into your lifestyle, you are building a healthy framework for coping with the everyday pressures of life. Self-care strategies should be individualized, realistic and responsive to the state of the person who needs them.
Begin today by posing the question, what do I require for my mental wellness, and promise yourself to be intentional about being good to yourself. Which is why, as Audre Lorde very rightly pointed out, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation. ’ It’s time you began to believe that your well-being is important and that it is certainly worth that time invested.
