Have you spent time on yourself today?
Feeling “off” is perfectly normal. According to Lyra Health, 84% of workers have reported experiencing at least one mental health challenge in the past year. Additionally, nearly three in five U.S. workers reported some form of burnout in that timeframe.
As the late American writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde famously stated, “Self-care is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.” One of the root causes for these feelings of depression, anxiety, and burnout is the tendency for people to be so focused on helping others they don’t set aside enough time to focus on themselves. And the stats bear that out—only 30% of Americans dedicate time to self-care.
Today is Internet Self-Care Day, a holiday dedicated to using the Internet to find resources to help people take care of themselves. So, what is self-care?
“Self-care” is when a person makes consistent, proactive efforts to maintain (or restore) their physical, mental, and/or emotional well-being. There are seven primary self-care types—physical (sleep, exercise, nutrition), emotional (stress management, coping abilities, therapy, journaling), social (support systems, relationships, communication ability), spiritual (meditation, prayer, nature, alone time), personal (hobbies, goals, identity), financial (saving, budgeting), and work (time management, breaks, boundaries).
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