An old fashioned view of self-care may be that it’s self-indulgence, but research shows that looking after ourselves can help with both our physical and emotional wellbeing in the short and longer term. Did you know that there is even a National Self Care Week, which runs from 14-20 November. The World Health Organisation defines self-care as “the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability”. But put in more simple, day to day terms, you might think of self-care as: Exercise; Finding purpose; Diet; Sleep; Spending time outside; or anything else that gives you a sense of well-being. Some of these may be hard to achieve on your own. If you would like help with getting out and about, or with shopping and cooking healthy meals we have lots of great people on the Home & Company team who would love to help you.
Self-care is very personal; what makes a difference to one person may be very different to what works for another. Some may find practising mindfulness is helpful, others may feel it’s more important to make sure they speak to a friend or family member regularly.
There are some useful tips on the Self Care Forum particularly for those of us managing long term conditions.
For many people it’s important to them that they take care of their appearance too. That might mean having a regular hair appointment or perhaps a beauty treatment. Would you like to have your hair done before Christmas? It’s a busy time of year for our lovely mobile hairdressing team but if you’re quick we’ll do our best to get you booked in. The same goes for our beauty team, if you’d like to get your nails done or treat yourself to a facial before the festive season begins do give us a ring.
Whatever floats your boat, make sure that you prioritise time, energy and, on occasion, some resources to looking after yourself and feeling good.