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No doubt you have encountered the term self care before and have heard people harp on about how good self care is. You may even be wondering “What is self care and why is it so important?” Well, we are here to give some great reasons why self-care is important and what benefits you may get for engaging in self care. So without further ado, here are the benefits!
The Benefits of Self Care:
Your Mental and Emotional Well-being Benefits
The importance of self-care in mental health should definitely not be overlooked! A number of self care activities have core focuses of improving aspects of your mental and emotional wellbeing, so these areas really see benefits when you engage in self care.
It helps reduce stress and improves your stress management skills
Breathing, going for a walk in nature, listening to your favourite song, meditating and journaling. These are all examples of self care activities that help you reduce stress, by boosting your mood and calming you down and altering your mental state. The beauty of them is that they are short easy activities that you can add into a self care routine to keep daily stress in check. They can also be used as quick strategies to managing sudden stress. Finding a self care activity that helps combat sudden-onset stress is a great tool to add to your stress management skillset.
It helps enhance your mood and improves emotional regulation
Self care involves practices like expressing, analysing and reflecting on emotions. This is great because once you are label an emotion it becomes more workable for you. Once and emotion is labelled it becomes easier to identify its causes and start finding ways of dealing with the emotion when you experience it. Self care also teaches you gratitude and makes you focus on yourself and the things that you connect to and enjoy- all of which are wonderful mood enhancers.
Increased self-awareness and self-compassion
With extra bit of internal focus on yourself that self care provides, it enhances your self awareness and self compassion. By becoming the focus of your own attention, exploring the things you enjoy, learning what you are grateful for and discovering what improves you own health and wellbeing, you start to become more in tune with yourself (cue the increased self awareness). If you start directing more positive attention toward yourself and start caring about yourself, you will likely naturally become more compassionate toward yourself. At the end of the day, we show concern and the want to take action toward the people we care about.
You Experience Physical Health Benefits
It improves your immune system functioning
By helping you limit stress and improve your stress management, self care helps you improve your immune system. According to The American Psychological Association while acute stressors enhanced some of the more quick acting parts of the immune system, long term stressors suppress almost all aspects of your immune system.
Self care activities like getting regular exercise, increases the oxygen levels in the blood, and eating a balanced diet provides your body with essential nutrient which improves overall health and immune system functioning.
Another part of self care is ensuring sleep needs are met which also greatly helps immune system functioning. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outline how there are many different areas of the immune system that can be impacted by sleep deprivation. This effect on the immune system can give rise to a range of different diseases. The CDC also states that: “Sleep loss is also related to a higher risk for infection.” So by increasing sleep through self care you are helping your immune system.
It helps you get better sleep quality
Self care helps you reduce your stress levels and increase your quality of sleep. When you are stressed your brain shifts your body into flight or fight mode by activating your sympathetic system. This causes you to be more alert and ready for action by temporarily shutting down other functions in your body. This stress response does not equal good quality sleep. When stress is reduced, the parasympathetic system is able to kick in. The parasympathetic system is your rest and digest system
Increased energy levels and reduced fatigue
The equation is simple: getting better quality sleep + reducing stress + good exercise and nutrition = increased levels of energy and reduced fatigue. The great thing is, all of these parts of the equation can be improved with self care!
Self Care Improves Your Relationships
It increases your capacity for empathy and compassion toward others
Self care helps you reduce the stress, emotion, and fatigue that is impacting on your mental load. This increases your ability to listen and handle the emotions of others. Self care also helps you be more empathetic because it helps you manage your emotions and therefore stops them from clouding your ability to consider what the other person is going through. With greater empathy comes greater compassion. If you have looked after yourself and are in a good place you are able to give more yourself to showing concern and helping others when they need it
Self care allows for better communication and conflict-resolution skills
To put it simply the skills you learn through practicing self care allow you to start having more open and honest conversations with others. It can also help you manage your conflicts better.
As mentioned earlier, self care improves your ability to reflect and become aware of your emotions and needs. Being able to recognise, understand and be comfortable articulating your needs and emotions helps you better communicate them to others. Communicating your emotions and needs to others can give them perspective and understanding. This is great because it leaves less room for misinterpretation and misunderstanding (which can be a root cause of a lot of conflicts). These skills of reflecting and emotion recognition can also help increase your ability to identify the emotions of others and reflect on their perspectives. This increases your ability to be a considerate, empathetic and compassionate communicator.
Also by having increased emotional regulation skills you are more likely to keep your cool in a conflict and be more likely to then resolve the conflict using a more assertive approach. By recognising both your own needs and the needs of the other person/people, you can ensure that the resolution to your conflict meets the needs of both parties.
It enhances your ability to set boundaries and prioritize personal needs within relationships
In order to have self care routines, self care days and generally keep a bit of time aside to look after yourself you will likely develop the skill of setting boundaries (kind of a must if you want to practice self care). This comes with saying no to events with friends, communicating your needs and really being clear about your boundaries. If you are serious about your self care then you will definitely get to practice this skill.
Added bonus: It can increase respect within your friendships and also encourage your friends to look after themselves and feel comfortable setting their own boundaries.
It Can Lead To Increased Productivity
Feeling drined, stressed, burnt out and preoccupied with emotions really limits your mental capacity and seriously makes it difficult to function at your best. However, as discussed in the previous points, self care can lead to having a less stressed, well rested, calm and happy mind. This leaves a lot more room for your creativity and problem-solving abilities to thrive. It also helps improve your focus and concentration because it helps reduce the amount of thoughts swirling through your mind (or you could learn to let go of them completely through meditation).
Also by looking after yourself by making sure to rest, exercise and spend time re-energising yourself through things you enjoy doing, you are less likely to burn out. This means you will have more energy and motivation to power you to be productive!
Enhanced Self-Reflection and Personal Growth
Through self care, there are so many opportunities for self-discovery and self-reflection. You can really learn about yourself and gain an understanding of makes you tick. Discovering who you are and developing a clear and positive idea of your identity can really improve your self esteem and your self confidence.
Through self care you can learn so much about your strength and weakness and what you can and can’t change. You can also begin to understand what you are truly capable of and learn how to be there for yourself and show up for yourself. This can lead increased feelings of self-acceptance and wow can it be self-empowering!
Self Care Improves Your Quality of Life
Self care teaches you to focus on the little, simple things in life. When you stop glazing over such things and start to pay attention to them, you may start to develop an appreciation for them.
When you start noticing and appreciating all the little things that fill your life, your overall life satisfaction increases. Also that skill of noticing and appreciating transfers to your experiences. Being grateful for all the little and big events that come your way helps you enhance your ability to enjoy and appreciate life’s experiences (which further increases your life satisfaction).
As you can see, self care can benefit so many aspects of your life. By engaging in self care you can see benefits in your spiritual, physical, mental and emotional health and all the way to your social relationships. Your whole life can be enhanced through self care.
So if you haven’t already, invest in your well-being and start practicing self care so that you can experience the transformative effects of self care!
