Self-care is one of the most important things we can do to maintain and boost our physical, emotional and mental health, yet many people neglect to make it a priority, either because they don’t have the time or resources for it or they believe it is selfish and worry that others will judge them for it.
Think of self-care as a car. If you constantly refill everybody else’s gas tank, but forget to refill your own, you will sooner or later run out of gas and stop functioning. In order to prevent this from happening to you, you need to make self-care a priority and put your own feelings first.
So next time you wonder if it’s ok to take care of yourself, make yourself a priority and say no to an obligation that just doesn’t feel right to take a walk in the park, read, meditate, take a yoga class or go to the gym, make sure you get enough sleep, enjoy a massage, have some fun, explore your creativity, see your therapist or simply rest, consider our below list of why self-care isn’t a reward or self-indulgent but a must and a necessity for your health and well-being.
Here are our TOP 10 reasons why you need to start increasing self-care and feel better inside and out.
#1 Self-Care Reduces Stress
Studies show that even if you take just a few minutes to yourself every single day you can significantly reduce your stress levels and get through your day a lot calmer, happier and more focused. When you take the time to meditate in the morning, get your workout in, journal at night or spend five minutes laughing out loud in your lunch break, you reduce the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, while at the same time increasing the level of happy hormones like endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine and with that feel stress melt away in no time.
#2 Self-Care Improves Focus
When we have a particularly tough day at work and feel like we are getting hit with demands from every direction, take a break, step away from whatever it is that you are doing right now and take a walk around the block, call your best friend or simply stretch out your legs or indulge in a funny 5-minute YouTube video. You will return to your task with improved focus, clarity and drive. Just make sure to keep your breaks short to avoid procrastinating, because that will only increase your stress and anxiety levels and your focus will disappear.
#3 Self-Care Prevents Us from Giving Up
When we are focused on achieving a specific goal and push ourselves beyond our limits, tire our body and mind and take on too much to make it happen, we won’t have the staying power to make it til the end and tend to easily give up when a challenge or obstacle comes our way. However, if you take care of yourself and make sure to recharge your battery on a regular basis, you will be able to stick to your goal and get through any roadblock that may appear. Additionally, when challenges come up, we tend to give up because of our negative inner voice that tells us we won’t ever succeed and our quest for success is pointless. However, if you make self-care a priority, your self-talk will take a turn for the better and by telling ourselves that we can achieve anything we set our mind to, we have the right mindset to move mountains and achieve our goals.
#4 Self-Care Boosts Happiness
A big part of self-care is to ensure that you get enough sleep, exercise on a regular basis, eat healthy, maintain emotional balance, read, watch your favorite Netflix series and indulge in a thriving social life, all of which allows you to feel a lot more relaxed and comfortable in your own skin. And with that you allow feelings of happiness to rise up because you significantly lower your levels of stress and anxiety. We honor our self-worth and enhance our self-confidence, we don’t resent people who demand our time and energy, we create energy reserves that allow us to function at our best and we feel alive and whole, all of which boosts our happiness and improves the quality of our lives.
#5 Self-Care Makes Us More Productive
When you make self-care your top priority and carve out time in your busy day to take a yoga class, have coffee with a friend or simply take the time to slow down and take a few breaths before an upcoming presentation, you bring yourself back into the present moment and you have a chance to re-focus on what is truly important to you. With that re-found focus and setting your priorities straight, you have a chance to be more productive and tackle every single task on your to-do list effectively.
#6 Self-Care Protects Our Schedule
Making self-care a priority means that we learn to say ‘NO’ to things that we don’t have the time for or don’t want to do because they don’t help us achieving our goals and dreams. And if we can learn to say ‘NO’ to things that aren’t important or simply suck our energy dry, we free up our schedule to fill it with things that we actually enjoy doing and that bring us closer to our goals and dreams.
#7 Self-Care Boosts Our Immune System
If we prioritize ourselves, make sure we get enough rest, take our vitamins, exercise, meditate and take a hot bubble bath, we will activate our Parasympathetic Nervous System. And when we activate our PNS, we put our body in ‘rest and restore’ mode, giving our bodies the chance to decompress from a stressful, hectic day. With that, we give our bodies the opportunity to build up its defense system and boost our immunity because those nasty cold bugs usually like to attack us when we are at our weakest.
#8 Self-Care Shows Us Who We Really Are
How much time do you allow yourself to figure out where your passions lie, what you love to do and what sets your soul on fire? Few of us allow ourselves to indulge in our goals and dreams and listening to our heart’s desire and simply follow the program. But if you make self-care a priority, you give yourself the time to find out who you truly are, what fulfills you and what is important in your life. It allows you to reconnect with yourself and find the answer to the above questions and figure out how to align your life with them.
#9 Self-Care Teaches Us Self-Compassion
It really is quite simple. The more you take care of yourself, the better you will feel. Start to pay attention to the voices in your head and if your self-talk is negative and you realize that you talk to yourself in a way you never would to a loved one or even a stranger, it is time to allow yourself to treat yourself with love, respect and compassion. Making self-care a priority will open up the way to be more compassionate with yourself, transform your self-talk and treat yourself with kindness.
#10 Self-Care Makes Us Give More to Others
Learning to take care of ourselves will make us realize that we can’t give to others what we don’t give to ourselves. When you allow yourself the time to recharge your battery and make self-care a priority you will realize that you will increase your capacity to give to friends and family. If you only give to others and forget about yourself, you will drain yourself and soon enough, you won’t be able to help others anymore. So give to yourself first and foremost and adding value to others will be the positive side effect.
When life gets busy, it is very tempting to take yourself off of your priority list and forget about looking out for yourself and fulfilling your essential needs. But keep in mind, taking care of your body and mind and the pursuit of health, happiness and success is far from selfish. When we put ourselves back on top of our priority list and take good care of ourselves, we will see a significant improvement in all areas of our lives and an added bonus is that if we take better care of ourselves, we have the tendency to also care more for others.
SELF-CARE IS NOT A LUXURY, IT’S A NECESSITY
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked