Complete Self-Care
Taking care of ourselves is essential to feeling our best. Some of us are already blessed with good health and happiness and want to keep it that way, yet, the rest of us might know that we need to implement some changes to our lifestyles to increase our well-being. Regardless of where we are on our journeys toward optimal well-being, we can’t achieve or maintain a healthy lifestyle if we don’t care for ourselves.
Unfortunately, many of us fall short of committing to our self-care. We promise to replace our bad habits with healthier alternatives. So, we make resolutions to start a new diet or exercise routine in the future, such as the following Monday or the first day of next month or year. We may even try these new behaviors for a few days or weeks, only to give them up later. Often, we continue treating the needs of others or our careers as priorities and ignore our physical and mental health. Thus, most of us do the bare minimum for self-care, and eventually, our self-neglect starts chipping away at our well-being.
We can improve our general health, mood, and social, and financial well-being with adequate self-care. Since self-care involves living a healthy lifestyle, it may even extend our life expectancy. There is more than one way to practice self-care, and if you asked people around you what self-care entails, chances are you’d get a different answer every time. Why? Because everyone has different needs for taking care of themselves and different options to choose from.
Then, how can we define complete self-care? Simply put, self-care includes any behaviors associated with positive physical and mental health outcomes, as well as behaviors and habits that promote emotional, social, and financial stability. In other words, a complete self-care practice takes care of all aspects of our well-being.
Neglecting Self-Care Can Impact Your Well-Being
If you’ve ever been on an airplane, you’re probably familiar with the oxygen mask instructions that you find under the tray tables. These instructions tell us to put oxygen masks on our own faces first and then help our dependents and other people that need assistance. The logic behind this instruction is loud and clear: we must take care of our needs before we can effectively help others. If we try to assist our dependents and friends before ensuring our own safety, we jeopardize our survival and theirs.
It may be tempting to disregard these straightforward instructions when the masks come down. We might look at our children or the elderly couple sitting behind us. We might reach over and grab their masks and push them against their faces while our oxygen levels drop low. Furthermore, we might even pass out from lack of oxygen, ultimately endangering the well-being of anyone who still needs our care.
Our everyday lives aren’t much different from the airplane example. We all are in for a bumpy ride, and whenever warning lights come on and the oxygen masks start dangling above our heads, most of us choose to focus our efforts on something or someone else instead of pulling our own masks toward our faces.
Maybe we don’t notice the damage we do right away when we neglect our needs. Or perhaps, some of our unhealthy habits feel good or are easier to do than better alternatives. Whatever the reason we neglect our self-care, one thing is certain: The damage we do to ourselves accumulates over time and impacts our well-being. And the longer we act this way, the more effort we need to dedicate later to reverse these damages.
Complete Self-Care Is The Essential Ingredient For A Fulfilling Life
Scientists have long been researching the effects of lifestyle on people’s health and wellbeing. For instance, an extensive analysis of multiple studies that collectively included over 500,000 individuals looked at the link between mortality and five different lifestyle-related factors, which were obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking, diet, and physical activity. They found that the subjects with a combination of at least four healthy behaviors had a 66% lower mortality risk (Loef and Walach, 2012).
A similar study tracked the same factors in over 120,000 participants for three decades. According to this study, women with healthy habits lived an average of fourteen years longer than their peers with unhealthy habits (Li et al., 2018). Similarly, men with healthy habits lived nearly twelve additional years than men with unhealthy habits (Li et al., 2018).
Of course, a longer lifespan isn’t the only benefit of healthy habits and proper self-care. When we take care of our needs, we get to detect and address any issues right away. Besides keeping us healthy, this self-intervention saves us a lot of stress and anxiety down the road. As a result, we get to enjoy our lives without unnecessary worry and feel absolute joy in everything we do.
Moreover, when we take care of our bodies and minds, we can even slow down the effects of aging. Indeed, that’s what another study with elderly subjects has found. In this study, individuals with healthy lifestyles were faster in physical agility tests and less likely to display symptoms of depression (Visser et al., 2018). They also had slower declines in cognitive function and social interactions (Visser et al., 2018).
In short, people who take care of themselves and adopt healthy lifestyles feel healthier and are less likely to be depressed. Furthermore, they might even live an additional decade. You, too, can stop neglecting your needs and establish healthy habits. Luckily, self-care and healthy living are within your reach.
Complete Self-Care: A Science-Based Course
Self-care is undoubtedly one of the most popular health and wellness-related topics. The good news is, there is a lot of scientific research on self-care and wellness. More studies are added to this knowledge base every year. Thanks to this expanding literature, we can make informed decisions about our lifestyles. The bad news is that there are many misunderstandings when it comes to interpreting scientific literature, especially in mainstream news reports or on social media. This is why we have decided to create this science-based course on self-care with six easy-to-understand modules: so that you get the most accurate information about taking care of yourself and achieving your wellness goals.
The six dimensions of complete self-care:
- Physical
- Emotional
- Mental
- Social
- Spiritual
- Career & Financial
Self-care isn’t only about relaxing and pampering yourself. Making healthy changes for effective self-care starts with a step-by-step approach. It is vital to find a balance that allows you to address every dimension of your well-being to take care of yourself. Keep in mind that you might need more self-care in some dimensions than others. The key, however, is to know how to identify which dimension needs your attention and how to balance your overall self-care needs. In this course, you’ll discover complete self-care strategies by focusing on each of these six dimensions. Every module will focus on one and present clear lessons, exercises, and thought experiments. By the end of this course, you’ll have a firm grasp of the many ways of taking care of yourself so that you can live your best life.