Self Care
As someone who works in healthcare, whether on the clinical or administrative side, you likely have one overriding career objective: to provide the best care possible to your patients. While that’s a laudable goal, it can sometimes come at a personal expense — you spend so much time and energy providing care for other people that you neglect to care for yourself in the way that you should.
How to Practice the Self-Care You Need … and Deserve
January 29, 2021
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As someone who works in healthcare, whether on the clinical or administrative side, you likely have one overriding career objective: to provide the best care possible to your patients. While that’s a laudable goal, it can sometimes come at a personal expense — you spend so much time and energy providing care for other people that you neglect to care for yourself in the way that you should. And if you expend the same type of energy caring for others outside of work that you do at the office, you may be even more depleted.
Add in the myriad circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and you may find yourself completely tapped out, without so much as a hint of what you can do to practice the types of restorative activities you so badly need. Even worse, if you get too entrenched in neglecting your own needs, it can start to feel indulgent or selfish to take care of yourself. And that definitely comes at a high price.
So please, if you’ve fallen off the self-care bandwagon, make a pledge — today — to start implementing the practices you need to tend to your own health and wellness. We’re here to help you get started.
What Is Self-Care?
While the phrase “me time” might conjure some uncomfortable visions of indulgence, taking time for yourself doesn’t have to be extravagant. It simply means figuring out what you need to do to care for yourself and then taking (or making) the time to do it.
According to experts at Wright State University, there are six components of self-care1
- Emotional: Tending to your mental and emotional health
- Environmental: Maintaining your physical environment, especially where you live and work
- Internal: Being mindful and practicing self-compassion
- Physical: Caring for your body, such as eating healthfully, getting adequate amounts of exercise and sleep, and managing your stress
- Social: Maintaining relationships with friends, relatives and co-workers who can support you emotionally (even if you can’t physically be with them right now)
- Spiritual: Pursuing religious or other types of spiritual interests
Why Is Self-Care So Important?
Common sense tells us that it’s essential to care for our own health and wellness. But research also underscores the importance of self-care. For example, according to a 2019 study published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies, self-care offers a number of benefits, including an improved sense of well-being, a lower risk of morbidity and mortality, and reduced healthcare costs.2 And a 2018 study in BMC Medical Education found that medical students who engaged in self-care activities in the areas of health responsibility, interpersonal relations, nutrition, physical activity, spiritual growth and stress management reported less stress and a higher quality of life. This is an important finding since medical training is highly correlated with burnout, anxiety and depression, which can affect physicians throughout their professional careers, the study authors say.3
Other experts underscore the importance of self-care. Christiane Northrup, M.D., a specialist in women’s health and wellness, describes good self-care as “the single most important aspect of our health, period.” She adds that self-care’s opposite, self-sacrifice, eventually leads to illness due in part to the creation of high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol.4
Chronically high levels of cortisol, and the resultant stress response, can have negative effects on our health. In fact, according to the Mayo Clinic, an overly active stress-response system can affect nearly all of our body processes.5
How to Practice Good Self-Care
The first step in instituting a practice of self-care is to realize that taking care of yourself is not selfish. We’ve all heard it before, but it bears repeating: If you’re burned out, you can’t be effective at work, at home or anywhere else — and you certainly can’t be an effective caregiver for others. You need to come to believe that it’s perfectly acceptable — and necessary — to prioritize your own health and wellness just as much as you prioritize other people’s. As the old saying goes, you can’t care for others if you don’t care for yourself.
The second step is to avoid self-criticism. Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Santa Barbara, Calif., has written that many people have an “inner critic” that pushes them to be productive, and that tells them anything they do for themselves is selfish.6 This critical inner voice can also drive you to constantly put other people first, and to ignore your own needs in the process.
To counteract this critical voice, strive to replace critical, well-worn thoughts with nurturing ones; talk to yourself as your own best friend would, or as you would to your own child. In other words, be kind to yourself, be patient — and practice the art of self-compassion. Not only do you deserve kind thoughts about yourself, but research has shown that self-compassion is linked with less anxiety and depression, better social connectedness, increased emotional intelligence and greater life satisfaction.7
Other steps to instituting self-care:
1. Realize that self-care looks different to different people.
What you need may be different from your friends, your co-workers, your family. And what you need is just as valid, and important, as what they need. Whatever it is, the goal is simple: It should promote health and happiness for you.
2. Start with small, reasonable steps.
Take a few minutes every day to devote to yourself, whether it’s reading a book, going for a run or soaking in a hot bath. As you become more comfortable with giving back to yourself, try to add a bit more self-care to your days. Or start with one practice you can work into your daily routine, do it daily for a week, then add another.
3. Consider starting with the basics.
Protecting your sleep, eating nutritious foods and getting enough physical activity are the foundations of good self-care, according to psychologist Vaile Wright, Ph.D., senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association.8
4. Do something every day that brings you pleasure.
Northrup says that taking time for pleasurable and fun activities decreases the amount of adrenaline and cortisol in your body — hormones which, as mentioned above, increase the risk of several health conditions if they become chronically high. Plus, taking the time to rejuvenate yourself helps you tackle difficult tasks with more energy and a better attitude, she adds.4
5. Pay attention to your work-life balance.
It sounds reasonable enough: You need a break from work so you can be your best at work. After all, disconnecting from work — physically, mentally and electronically — is vital to recovering from work stress during non-work hours, research has shown.9 To help you unplug and protect your own sense of wellness, make every effort to leave work at work.
6. Learn to say no.
It can be difficult, but it’s vital that you draw a limit on the demands made of you. If you’re constantly giving of yourself for other people’s needs, you have less time and energy to devote to your own needs.
7. Adopt some go-to relaxation techniques.
Remember, what recharges your battery is going to be specific to you. Maybe it’s a walk in nature, a nice run at sunset, time spent chatting on the phone with your mom or sister or friend, or any other of a dozen things.
As you strive to incorporate more self-care into your life, keep in mind that this isn’t a once-and-done deal. Rather, self-care is composed of activities (and, yes, a mindset) that help you restore health and balance in your life, that you practice day in and out, month after month.
It’s about taking care of you, because you deserve it.
Footnotes:
1 “Self-Care.” Wright State University Division of Student Affairs. https://www.wright.edu/student-affairs/health-and-wellness/counseling-and-wellness/workshops-and-self-help/self-care#physical. Accessed Dec. 2020.
2 “Self-Care Research: Where Are We Now? Where Are We Going?” International Journal of Nursing Studies, Aug. 2019, p. 103402. www.sciencedirect.com, doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103402.
3 Ayala, Erin E., et al. “U.S. Medical Students Who Engage in Self-Care Report Less Stress and Higher Quality of Life.” BMC Medical Education, vol. 18, Aug. 2018. PubMed Central, doi:10.1186/s12909-018-1296-x.
4 Northrup, Christiane. “Do You Practice Enough Self-Care?” Christiane Northrup, M.D., 18 Oct. 2016, https://www.drnorthrup.com/practice-self-care-strategies/.
5 “Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk.” Mayo Clinic, https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037. Accessed Dec. 2020.
6 “The Unselfish Art of Prioritizing Yourself.” Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201708/the-unselfish-art-prioritizing-yourself. Accessed Dec. 2020.
7 Neff, Kristin D., et al. “Self-Compassion and Adaptive Psychological Functioning.” Journal of Research in Personality, vol. 41, no. 1, Feb. 2007, pp. 139–54. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2006.03.004.
8 “Self-Care Has Never Been More Important.” https://www.Apa.Org, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/self-care. Accessed Dec. 2020.
9 “Work-Life Balance Needed for Recovery from Job Stress.” ScienceDaily, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130205143327.htm. Accessed Dec. 2020.
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