What is Self-Care? Meaning, Types, and Benefits of Self-Care Practices

Do you know, no one can care for you like you care for yourself? The only way you can easily fight against illness and diseases is through conscious self-care practices.

Self-care doesn’t mean loving yourself alone, it cuts across physical, mental, social, emotional, and even financial care.

In this article, I’ll take you through what self-care means, types, and how the practice can benefit your overall health.

What is Self-Care?

According to WHO, self-care can be defined as the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent diseases, maintain health, and cope with illnesses and diseases with or without the help of a health worker.

Self-care is about being intentional about your overall well-being. It means eating healthy and balanced meals, sleeping adequately, creating time to de-stress through recreational activities, doing away with unhealthy thoughts, establishing meaningful and healthy relationships with people, etc.

Types of Self-Care

Self-care can be categorized into several phases. These phases are — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social.

Let’s delve into each one:

Physical Self-Care

Physical self-care involves engaging in physical activities that can enhance your physical appearance and make you healthy.

Physical self-care practices include

• exercising
• getting enough sleep
• eating well-balanced and nutritious diets
• staying hydrated
• grooming

Physical self-care practices are important in boosting your immune system and giving you the energy needed to go through your daily tasks.

Neglecting your physical health will bring about stress and different illnesses that can pose a threat to your health.

Emotional Self-Care

Emotional self-care involves recognizing and understanding your emotions/feelings. It encompasses activities that tend to support your emotional well-being and manage your emotions.

These activities include:

• journaling
• practicing self-compassion
• engaging in hobbies that give you joy
• saying “NO” to things that can stress you
• meditation

When you practice emotional self-care, you’ll be able to put your emotions under control and implement coping strategies that will help you avoid stress.

Mental Self-Care

Your mental health matters a lot. You shouldn’t neglect your mental health as it’s a great way to maintain and nurture your cognitive well-being.

It involves activities that keep your mind stable and sharp. Stress, anxiety, depression, and other factors can affect your mental health if you don’t take proper measures to care for it.

To practice mental self-care, you should:

• read books
• practice mindfulness
• listen to motivational podcasts
• focus on positivity always
• set realistic goals
• seek professional help when needed

Spiritual Self-Care

Spiritual self-care involves activities that help you have a deeper sense of self and purpose. It encompasses practices that enhance and promote your spiritual well-being.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be engaging in religious activities, though we all have our beliefs and traditions. It’s about finding the real “YOU” and aligning yourself with your spiritual values and aspirations.

Spiritual self-care practices include:

• connecting with your faith community
• volunteering
• meditating
• practicing gratitude
• going for a retreat
• self-reflection (taking time to understand who you are and how you act)

Social Self-Care

As humans, we need to relate with people. That’s why we have family and friends who show love to us and vice-versa.

No one can stay alone in this world without the help of others, more reason why social self-care practice is important. Staying alone with no one to relate with can lead to mental conditions like depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, etc.

Social self-care means building meaningful relationships with people to enhance your health.

Here are some examples of social self-care practices:

• go on vacation with family and friends
• make new friends
• connect with a support group
• go on dates
• engage healthily on social media

Benefits of Self-Care

Practicing self-care has diverse benefits to your overall health. Some of these benefits include:

• Self-care helps improve your physical and mental health.

Self-care practices like healthy diet, exercise, mindfulness, gratitude, and adequate sleep can positively impact your physical and mental health. You can be able to fight off sicknesses and diseases that can pose a threat to your health.

• It reduces your stress levels.

Stress is an inevitable part of human life as a lot of work, family, and financial issues can heighten your stress levels. With self-care, you feel calmer and can reduce your stress and anxiety.

• It enhances your productivity.

When you care for yourself by getting enough sleep and reducing stressors, you stay productive and find it easy to do your daily tasks.

• It boosts your self-esteem and self-confidence.

Taking care of yourself helps you stay confident and increase your self-worth. With daily practice of positive living and self-thought, you can boost your self-esteem and stay strong in the face of challenges

• Self-care also provides you with a feeling of belonging

Social self-care helps you have a sense of belonging and love as you relate with those who matter to you like your friends, colleagues, and family. This is highly beneficial to your mental health and dealing with mental conditions like depression.

How to Practice Self-Care

Self-care practices doesn’t have to be difficult nor does it cost you a lot of money to start. Here are a few tips to help you practice self-care without breaking the bank:

• Ensure you get enough sleep
• Attend fitness or yoga classes
• Create time for family or friends’ vacation
• Volunteer in an organization
• Engage in reading
• Do a social media detox
• Practice gratitude
• Try journaling
• Replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
• Eat a balanced and healthy diet
• Stay hydrated always
• Practice meditation
• Take a walk in the park
• Play with your kids or pets
• Set healthy boundaries and learn to say NO to unnecessary stress.
• Reach out to a therapist if need be

Wrapping Up

The more you take care of yourself, the happier and healthier you become. Irrespective of how busy you may be, don’t neglect self-care practices.

When you practice self-care you improve your physical and mental health, stay productive, reduce your stress levels, and boost your self-esteem and confidence.

Which of the above self-care practices do you engage in? Share in the comment, I’d love to hear from you.

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