The power of loving yourself

How putting yourself first can change your life.

Connor MacLennan
New Writers Welcome
2 min readFeb 7, 2022

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Loving yourself can boost your ability to accomplish your dreams. Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash

Self-love may sound less like a necessity and more like a privilege. However, its cultivation can fundamentally improve your life. For this week’s post, I am going to be digging deep into five ways loving yourself can help you.

Self-love can reduce the severity of anxiety and depression

Yes, you read that right. Loving yourself can actually prevent you from experiencing depression and anxiety. Psychologists have linked low self-esteem to these conditions. By loving yourself, you can boost your mental health and ability to cope with mental health conditions.

Loving yourself can improve your self-esteem

Researchers in Vietnam found that children who had lower self-esteem were at a significantly higher risk of self-harm, having anxiety, and experiencing severe depression. By cultivating self-love, you are directly increasing your self-esteem.

Self-love can increase your future earnings

Psychologist Emma Seppala at Stanford University uncovered that self-love is actually linked to higher earnings. People who care deeply about themselves are able to recover better from mistakes and empower others more than those who did not have as much self-compassion. This is because self-love increases our ability to bounce back from hardship.

Valuing yourself can protect you from entering bad relationships

People that love themself have a better idea of their own value. They know when it’s time to walk away from a relationship that isn’t meeting their needs. Furthermore, higher self-love is linked to better relationship quality.

Self-love allows you to love others better

The old adage is true… Those who love themselves are much more readily able to empower others to achieve their dreams. It’s a beautiful cycle that is backed by science.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, it may be worthwhile to start loving yourself. Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash

Self-love is a powerful tool that can dramatically make your life better. By putting yourself first, you are effectively taking charge of your own destiny. Loving yourself may be a scary, daunting task at first. It may be tough to be though it is ultimately a worthwhile journey that will quite literally pay dividends.

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Connor MacLennan
New Writers Welcome

Connor is a dual degree undergraduate student majoring in Chemical Biology at UC Berkeley. and Political Science at SFSU conducting biomedical research.