Self-care is predominantly portrayed in an inaccurate fashion. To start off, self-care as a concept is almost solely targeted towards wealthy women who can afford certain expensive beauty products. In addition to this, it is promoted as solely pertaining to the element of beauty and appearance.
Self-care is characterised as an indulgence, promoted through expensive bath products, luxurious chocolates and spa appointments. What about the basic elements of self-care that we rarely see promoted on television, such as whether we are getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis.
Self-care requires a thorough level of discipline and mastery, with a mature level of understanding of what your life priorities are. Self-care is deciding to switch off your laptop instead of watching another Game of Thrones episode when your alarm is scheduled for 05.30 am. It means having the discipline of saying no to a third drink at the office party. Self-care is managing your financial sustainably and engaging in regular exercise to remain healthy.
To be frank self-care, is much less interesting than how it is portrayed on mainstream media. It is more of a discipline rather than an indulgence. It takes a certain degree of control to do things which benefit us in the long-term than what makes us happy here and now. It requires consistent efforts and it is not something achieved once and is done.
In this regard, many are those who simply select to forget that they should be taking care of themselves more regularly. That said we must admit, that maintaining a degree of wellness in today’s fast paced lifestyle, where 60 hour work weeks have become all the more regular is challenging.
In this article we share some tips on promoting wellness, which are not necessarily related to off the shelf products.
- Try Yoga
- Practise a sport
- Long walks in the countryside
- Fix a small annoyance that’s been on your mind for a while
- Do one thing which makes you happy daily
- Unplug for an hour
- Get out of your comfort zone and try something new
- Sleep well for a good number of hours
It is the constant repetition of many tiny habits which together combined, soothe the mind and the body, making us function at our optimum.
