You know, if I’m going to be talking about self care, it’s probably a good idea for me to clarify what I am talking about when I say self care. So, in this post, I am going to do just that.

I am going to define what self care is, give a brief overview of different areas of self, define some other important terms that will come up, and give you a little bit of insight into what self care looks like for me, personally.

Let’s dig in!

“Self Care” Defined

I personally feel that this is a fairly self explanatory term. Still, I want to pick apart what the words mean, and what the phrase means all together.

I’ll start with the easier word. Care.

Now, when you Google the meaning of the word “care” a number of different definitions comes up. These variations are based on the form and context of the word usage, but they all have a a similar idea at heart.

The Cambridge Dictionary, however, provides the clearest and most pertinent definition for this use of the word “care”. It defines “care” as

The process of protecting someone or something and providing what that person or thing needs.

Then, the second word in this phrase is “self”. Now, the concept of self is a massive, complicated philosophical question. However, here, in this context, self means yourself. Or myself. Also relevant is this definition of the word as provided by the Cambridge Dictionary:

The set of someone’s characteristics, such as personality and ability, that are not physical and make that person different from other people

Take these two things together, and we see that “self care” means to protect and provide for (look after) oneself (yourself). And because each person is different, that means what they need for self care will also be different.

Sure, there are some self care things that are pretty universal. For instance, brushing your teeth everyday constitutes as self care because you are looking after yourself, but it is also something everyone should be doing if they can.

Then there are aspects of self care that varying from person to person. For example, I love to paint my nails. For me, that is an important self care ritual. For my sisters, however, it is stressful and unnecessary. Also, they are studying in medical fields, so it is a hindrance. Therefore, painting their nails is not self care.

Different Types of Self Care

Over time, I will post about each of these areas (and others!) and explore them in depth. Still, I want to show you how broad and all encompassing self care really is. I also want to challenge you now to start thinking about ways you can take better care of yourself in these areas.

Hygiene

This is so important for your physical and mental health. This includes things like showers, brushing your teeth, making sure your clothes and bedding is cleaned regularly, keeping your house/bedroom clean. Just doing those little things, regularly, to make sure that you are keeping your body and your environment as clean and healthy as you can.

For me, this means things like changing my sheets monthly and brushing my teeth daily.

Food

This is something that comes up a lot, and that I think can be a problem for people. Or, if not a problem, something that is really stressful. It is so important to have a healthy relationship with food. Things that can be done as self care in this area can include: cooking, trying new recipes, seeing a dietitian. Really, it’s about making sure that you taking as much care of yourself as you can be with the foods you are eating.

For me, this means sharing the cooking with my parents through the week. We all get a chance to cook, we all cook with fresh, healthy ingredients and we cook a wide variety of food types. This means that we get delicious, healthy, homemade meals every day, but we aren’t overwhelmed with the need to cook daily.

And I’m not afraid to bake a brownie every once in a while!

Finances

Now this isn’t an area people talk about a lot when it comes to self care, but that I have realised is massively important. Money is so important and can be a huge source of stress in people’s lives. Therefore, I have come to believe that it is important to have a system of managing ones finances in place that helps to reduce some of that stress.

For me, this means having a system by which I track all of my spending and all of my income, and a strict budget for where my money goes. Knowing what’s happening with my money has made things so much better for me, and I’ve gone from having regular money induced panic attacks to pretty much none.

Emotional

This one can be so varied, but is so important! I’ll definitely dig into this one more later. For now, I’ll just say that as part of self care, checking in with ones emotional and mental health is important. As is knowing how to take care of yourself when you’re not doing so well. Of course, we don’t just want our self care to be reactive - we want it to be proactive.

Important Terms

Reactive self care

This is the type of self care that reacts to a problem that has arisen. A common type of reactive self care is going to see the doctor when you are sick. You have a problem - you’re sick - so you react by going to a doctor. This is a very short term, in the moment kind of self care. But that does not mean it isn’t important!

Proactive self care

This is the kind of self care that looks much longer term and says “how can I be establishing habits and routines that will help me to take care of myself in the long run?” This is much more about identifying areas that may become problems and making a plan to avoid the problem, or to face it head on. A common example of proactive self care is daily teeth brushing.

Trigger

Aside from the term “self care” itself, this is probably the most important term that I am going to define in this post. I hate the way “trigger” has become a kind of a joke, when actually, triggers and being triggered are very serious things.

In this context, a trigger is a psychological term which mentalhelp.net defines as

external events or circumstances that may produce very uncomfortable emotional or psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, panic, discouragement, despair or negative self talk

Triggers are most often associated with trauma, and are often unique. When talking about triggers, it is important to realise that everyone experiences trauma differently, and as a result are traumatised by different things and have those traumas triggered - reawoken, poked at - by different things.

So, in this context “trigger” is both a verb and a noun.

The noun is the thing that is causing the trauma response, be that panic, discomfort, despair, anything along those lines.

The verb is the trauma response itself.

So, far instance, I was in a car accident last year. Ever since then, I find being in cars difficult and traumatic. In this case, the triggers (noun) are sudden stops while driving, a car rolling forward, fast driving. What it triggers (verb) are panic attacks.

So, here is a little taste of this wide, wide world of self care, and what sorts of things I will be talking about in more detail in future blog posts.