Self-care

This week I’ve been feeling a little under the weather. I noticed it when I was out for a run and it just seemed harder to maintain a reasonable pace, then later when my press ups caused me to leak more than the average waterfall! 

Almost with amazing synchronicity one of my Instagram photo-a-day challenges had the theme for the day of “self care”. 

I decided to spend a little time thinking about what self-care could be, and how often it should be practised.  

Typing self-care into a search engine, or into an artificial intelligence art program will produce a number of different visual images, many of which seem to involve empty bathrooms, more candles than a church and enough rose petals floating on the water that it’s amazing there was space for any water.  To be fair, such an image does evoke a calming ambience so if you have the time to clean the bathroom of detritus to enable such a scenario (and a decent lock so you wont get disturbed by the partner/pet/children/all of the above) it might suit. 

I think an important point to self-care is that it shouldn’t be something that requires weeks (months!) of planning to happen. This is important for a few reasons. Firstly, self-care should be an almost immediate activity. Secondly, no-one can tell how they will be feeling a few weeks down the line and thirdly, the anticipation of the activity and the expectation that you WILL be relaxed and IT WILL CALM YOU may result in unrealistic results, especially if the activity doesn’t meet the advertising leaflet. 

Practicing self-care can be a scheduled activity and depending on your approach can be almost anything. The key is to ensure that it enables you to escape from the day to day and relax.  I think it’s also good to have more than one self-care activity; in that way if it’s not possible to undertake your preferred self-care activity you can switch to another easily. 

I’ve started to build a suite of activities that I find can take me away from the day to day; some might work for you, some may not: 

• Running – as well as a weekly Parkrun 5K event, I try to run a few times during the week, the distances varying between 5 to 12k depending on the time of day, what’s in the diary 
• Rowing – I’ve got a rowing machine that I can spend 30 minutes on; as it’s got a video screen I can escape to a gym or the river without leaving the house 
• Photography, and in particular toy photography – much as it’s nice to get out and photograph landscapes, having a small toy (such as a LEGO or Playmobil figure) can reduce the “world” to a desktop. And if you think you’re too old for LEGO have a look at Blind box toys for alternatives! 
• Drawing – One of the most calming drawing methods is using Zentangles to create quite complicated abstract doodles. Unlike cartoon drawing, or waterpainting etc you only need to have paper (I use A6 or A5 sheets) and an ink pen (again, I use three thicknesses to add a little definition to my images) 
• Distraction meditation – for many, meditation is sitting in silence. If you’re someone who will struggle with just letting your thoughts go, using audio meditations (even just calm music) with your eyes closed can be assistance. 

Before the list, I noted that some may help. I’ve tried a number of audio meditations, some are quite short (check out Just a Minute meditations by the Brahma Kumaris world spiritual university), others can last 30 minutes plus. I have found some that work really well for me, and others where the presenters voice, accent, or style just didn’t relax me at all. Key thing is looking for things that could work and fit in with your day. 

A challenge that some may have is that it seems it’s just not possible to take a full break. A key factor to consider though is the airplane mask approach, where you are instructed to fit your own mask before helping others. The reason for this is that often when we  focus on others we neglect to look after ourselves and we cannot continue to do that and be effective. It’s important to recognise that self-care isn’t about being selfish, it’s about giving yourself time to recharge to continue to give your best. 

 

How often should you practice self-care is another personal choice, but the simplest answer is before it’s needed. By that, there will be times when you need to just down tools and practice self-care, but if you can build it into a regular pattern then it can work as a preventative measure and if the activity is interesting enough it can sometimes affect the priority order of events to enable you to have time to do that activity. 

Before lockdown as I was travelling for much of the working week I had to focus time to break away from work and spend time in self-care. Working in London I took the opportunity to get out for a run around the landmarks. When the pandemic hit, I was able to find more time for running and build up a regular exercise pattern. Post pandemic I am now going back to the office (albeit at a less frequent rate) but when I do I still make sure that I include that time going for an evening run).  

 

So what’s your view on self-care; what do you think could be your stumbling blocks to achieving your own self-care?