If weekly manicures or monthly spa days are beyond your means, they will likely add stress to your life in the long run, so there are plenty of other self-care practices you can adopt. It might seem indulgent, but if the activity helps you de-stress and carve out time for yourself, it counts as self-care, Amsellem says. RELATED: Is Social Media Busting or Boosting Your Stress?Ĭonsider a manicure or a massage or any other pampering activity. The underlying rule is that it’s something that brings you sustained joy in the long run, Courtney says. And though there are plenty of examples of self-care that seem to tread a fine line between a health-enhancing behavior and self-indulgence, self-care doesn’t have to be about padding your calendar with luxurious experiences or activities that cost money (though it certainly can). There’s no way to say exactly what counts as self-care because everyone’s definition is their own and unique. “That can be something that’s relaxing or calming, or it can be something that is intellectual or spiritual or physical or practical or something you need to get done,” she says. “Self-care is anything that you do for yourself that feels nourishing,” says Marni Amsellem, PhD, a licensed psychologist based in the greater New York metropolitan area. In other words: There are a lot of people and factors that bear on any individual’s ability to engage in self-care.Īs self-care has become more mainstream, the definitions have started to become more about general wellbeing and tend to focus on tuning in to one’s needs and meeting those needs. That means self-care includes things like getting a vaccine, scheduling cancer screenings, or taking prescription medications on schedule - but healthcare providers and organizations play a role, too, in how well individuals engage in these self-care practices. In 2019, researchers published a self-care framework to specifically point out that in addition to self-care being the activities individuals do on their own to promote physical and emotional health, it also includes the ways that individuals interact with clinicians and healthcare systems to tend to physical and emotional health. Here, we explore the trend, where the definition of self-care comes from, and what it can do for your long-term health. RELATED: A Guide to Understanding Stress - Including How to Manage ItĪt Everyday Health, self-care is taking steps to tend to your physical and emotional health needs to the best of your ability. “People are feeling lonelier and less able to unwind and slow down, which makes them feel more anxious and overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks,” Patel says. It’s the stress of trying to keep up with the pace of daily life, which technology has hastened more than ever (just think how many emails come flooding into your inbox each day). Self-care is part of the answer to how we can all better cope with daily stressors, explains Kelsey Patel, a Los Angeles-based wellness expert. “We have an epidemic of anxiety and depression,” she says. Paula Gill Lopez, PhD, an associate professor in the department of psychological and educational consultation at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, says the need for self-care is obvious. One indicator: According to Google Trends, the number of searches for “self-care” has nearly quadrupled since 2018. If you think you’ve been hearing more about self-care lately, you’re right.
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