Why Is Self-Care Important For Your Health?
Self-care is essentially living your best life! But what does that involve?
What Is Self-Care?
Self-care is proactive action to maintain and improve one’s personal health. It involves protecting one’s own wellbeing physically, mentally and emotionally, especially during times of stress.
An ideal self-care routine should be holistic. For example, holistic medicine attempts to treat both the mind and the body. A well-balanced self-care routine should interconnect your physical, mental, emotional, recreational, and social needs.
Self-care should aim to be preventative and therapeutic. For example, self-care can involve regular exercise and healthy eating, which makes you stronger and healthier, boosting your immune system to prevent illness as well as repair and fuel the body for its maximum potential.
Natural and gentle self-care activities like having a full body massage or a hydrotherapy treatment (e.g., Turkish hammam, Moroccan hammam) work wonders for soothing and refreshing the body and mind. For more on the natural health benefits of water take a look at our blog Water & Wellness.
Essential Self-Care Ideas To Put Into Action
Before we dive into more about why self-care is important, here are several examples of what self-care can look like for you:
- Expressing oneself is a form of self-care
- Making time to rest from work and enjoy your spare time
- Having a good work-life balance
- Meaningful social contact with family and friends
- Taking time off work for a spa day
- Spending time on just yourself
- Treat yourself to a massage or hammam hot scrub
- Deliberately putting your wellbeing first
- Doing things that make you calm and happy
- Allocating time to rebound from negative experiences
- Setting healthy boundaries
- Eating well, exercising, and getting plenty of rest
- Pamper yourself with a hammam spa Turkish bath
- Make time for self-reflection and meditation
Myth: Self-Care Is Selfish
For the sake of your future health, let’s dismiss right away why self-care isn't selfish. Being selfish means you want to take from others, which may cause them distress.
Self-care is the act of caring for your own wellbeing, without the intention of taking from others or harming others. The aim of self–care is to replenish your physical energy as well as restore your emotional and mental balance. As mentioned above, self-care involves protecting your own wellbeing physically, mentally and emotionally, especially during stressful times.
A focus on self-care means you are self-aware; you are taking time or setting time aside to focus on your personal health, rather than someone else’s concerns. The world's largest mental health and behavioural science publication Psychology Today says: Self-care is a regular, intentional process of devoting oneself to protecting and sustaining mental health. It is backed by science and not just feel-good, self-indulgent sentiments.
Normalising Self-Care For Optimal Health
According to The International Self-Care Foundation self-care is a multifaceted and highly interconnected practice that involves ‘Seven Pillars’ — mental, emotional, physical, environmental, spiritual, recreational, and social self-care. A well-balanced self-care routine involves each of these. The overarching aim of self-care is to enable individuals to take better care of themselves. Above all, self-care needs to be an integral part of people’s lives.
Practice Self-Care Every Single Day
With our permission to practise self-care free of guilt, we have put together several healthy self-care tips to get you started on the right path!
- Give yourself permission for self-care. You are not selfish or unworthy if you choose to self-care. It is okay to take time for yourself — you are worth it!
- Choose one activity this week that you think will bring you joy and relaxation. Set a reminder on your phone and treat it like an important appointment.
- Create breaktime rituals during busy parts of your day. Embed them into your schedule to help stay energised and motivated and avoid burnout.
- Plan a self-care day at home. We have just the thing to help you unwind, our Este guide for a Hammam Spa Day at Home!
- Spend time with a loved one. When was the last time you and your partner had a shared experience? Something luxurious and sensual might be the self-care you both need to reconnect — find out how a hammam spa massage for two can improve intimacy.
Self-care can include so many different types of activities and treatments; it can be just about relaxing, pampering and treating yourself. You can take time to read a book, play a game, or go for a walk, it’s that simple. Use the self-care ideas and tips we have provided above to put self-care into active practice.
Benefits of Self-Care
It has been clinically proven that active self-care can reduce anxiety, depression, stress and increase happiness and motivation. Self-care can help you recover more easily from setbacks and strengthen your resilience. Your relationships with family and friends will also benefit from a more relaxed and happy you!
Reasons To Get Behind Self-Care
- Improve your physical health (e.g., eat healthy, exercise daily, massage)
- Protect your mental health (e.g., speak to a counsellor)
- Better interpersonal relationships (e.g., don’t fixate on a relationship)
- Raise your self-esteem (e.g., acknowledge your worth, invest in yourself)
- Reduce/Eliminate stress and anxiety (e.g., social media detox)
The Holistic Self-Care Benefits Of A Hammam Spa Day!
Discover why treating yourself to regular hammam spa treatments can be part of a holistic self-care routine. Turkish hammam and Moroccan hammam treatments are a well-balanced way to address the ‘Seven Pillars’ of self-care: physical, mental, emotional, environmental, spiritual, social, and recreational. Check out these Top 10 Hammam Self-Care Benefits.
Hammam spa services in Birmingham will be available at the new Este Spa & Hammam in Edgbaston. Other self-care spa services include: Ayurvedic Turkish massage, medical and sports massage, and aromatherapy massage. For a full list of body and facial treatments visit our website.
A hammam experience is truly one of the best ways to care for your body and mind in a holistic way.
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