SELF CARE AND MENTAL WELLBEING

We live in a social setting where we’re intended to be more dependent on others directly or indirectly. Certain customs and beliefs of the construct do make us be some other person we really don’t wish to be. From standing up on expectations of others to a craving for the eligible social attention, we all do function. But the thing we really take for granted during this whole process is prioritizing oneself above others and valuing and voicing our thoughts and beliefs and sticking up to that.

As the pandemic has broken out, we all have been in our spaces and up with an opportunity of keeping ourselves up for a break and do what suits our mind. Whenever we hear a term self-care, we normally relate it to choosing activities that we personally like and decide to invest time in it. In general, people relate self-care with spa breaks, holidays and vacations, family time, etc. but I personally feel that we should start correlating self-care with psychological well-being.

Just to make my view clear, for instance, imagine in the name of self-care a lady takes a break from tiring work and chose to spend some quality time with her friends. Following the scenario what if her friends don’t make her feel good about herself and keep her criticizing for not being good enough and come out as a negative company who within that period of self-care didn’t help that lady. Considering the scenario I’ve mentioned above we all can trace out toxic people who we like but their company doesn’t seem warm. Criticism from people we like broke us from the inside and lead us to feel insecure about ourselves.

Self-care could be categorized into four domains, that is, emotional self-care, spiritual well-being, physical well-being, and psychological well-being. By emotional self-care, it reflects the feelings which don’t let you feel toxic and bounded. In order to promote emotional well-being, one should choose to stay in a company that efficiently promotes two-way communication so that none of the people would feel neglected or unheard.

By spiritual well-being, it means the evaluated process of venting negativity out of one’s mind and practice mindfulness. In order to adapt spiritual well-being, one should practice meditation and yoga and should write journals about what’s bothering them and what they’re grateful for. By physical well-being, it reflects adopting healthy eating habits and having food which really satisfies one’s body (can also refer to it as cheat days).

In order to adapt healthy eating practices, one should have appropriate carbs and more greens and vegetables. Finally, by psychological well-being, it reflects the phenomenon of having a positive relationship with others and a feeling of purpose and meaning in life and personal growth and development. In order to attain so, one has to keep a balance between challenging and rewarding life events.

By accounting such domains, it is been pretty evident that not only psychological but emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being does have an ability to disturb a balance of peace, and obviously finding peace by practising self-care is one of the major motives. It is all upon an individual on what domain he/she wants to lean on and invest one’s time and effort.

I personally feel self-care is something that should give you satisfaction while being in the process and after the process. In my opinion, the major element that depreciates the hype of self-care is toxicity, it can ruin the aura in which the person should trip in. So, the process of getting rid of toxicity is to identify one, address your concern, and if the address balances everything than it’s okay otherwise it’s never too late to gift yourself some peace.

Talking about convenient escapes from the daily-life hustle and pampering oneself, the music never fails you to feel elevated on every emotion. Music degrades the level of cortisol (hormones which trigger stress anxiety, stroke, depression), it releases dopamine ( the happy hormone in our body), it improves sleep pattern, improves running activity, etc. hence, we can label music as a really convenient escape from all the hustle and giving break to oneself.

Opting long showers do have an anti-depressive effect and can also improve immunity and help out in healing pain. Discovering or doing what you desired for or what you love do also make you feel good about yourself. Concluding on my part, I’d like to say that its never too late to prioritize oneself.