We all are often busy with our lifestyle in making careers in achieving life goals. In the entire process, we forget about ourselves. We often give priority to others (Family, Friends, and work) but not to ourselves. Self-care is equally important. Putting yourself on the priority list is not being selfish or self-indulgent; let’s understand what Self- care is and why it is important?

According to wellness expert Blossom Kochchar, ” Self-care is taking care of your physical and mental health”. It’s not only about meditation, a trip to our favourite places, or watching Netflix on weekends at home. It’s about consciously taking care of your well-being with meaningful activities. It is about finding time for activities that makes you happy, relaxed, and brings mental peace.

Self-care is very important for all of us because it increases resilience, motivation, and our ability to cope up with stress. It helps the brain in producing the neurotransmitter that is responsible for making us feel good. Self-care enhances your energy level, boosts your mood, increases your resilience, and most importantly reduces stress.

Without self-care, we may experience burnout and compassion fatigue; burnout is a state of psychological, emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual exhaustion from chronic involvement in work. And compassion fatigue is psychological and physical fatigue from showing too much empathy to others but not enough for yourself. We can prevent burnout from exposure to chronic stress by practising self-care.

Because we now know that self-care is important that is why we should practice it in our daily life. We can learn to practice self-care the same way that we learn anything else, through repeated practice. It’s a continuous process so it’s suggested to have a self-care plan.

This self-care plan can be different for everyone, it’s not a one-size-fits-all; for example, for me, it’s exercise, listening to songs, watching inspirational videos, etc. Activities that make me happy, I enjoy these moments the best and the most helpful thing which I have realized is that after doing any of the activities which I love to do makes me happy and gives a level of satisfaction which ultimately boosts my motivation.

For my elder sister, listening to songs of the 20th century makes her feel good and relaxed. Similarly, it could be anything for anyone else. I have seen many people enjoy writing, reading, exercise, following a diet plan, life coaching, etc in their “me time” as self-care routine and they say these activities help them in balancing their moods as well so there are many ways of it.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has threatened us mentally, physically, and emotionally which makes self-care more important than ever before. This pandemic has made us realize that practicing self-care is linked with caring for our loved ones, By caring for yourself, you are indirectly caring for others as well. You must have seen these lines written at public places ” I wear my mask because I care for you or maybe “Show your care with what you wear” in the context of Covid-19 and that’s why today, self-care is the new norm and it’s like a commitment to stay healthy.

Research has shown that there is a shift in people’s behavior since this Covid-19 started hitting us, now people, especially the Millennials generation have started realizing the importance of self-care and they have started investing heavily in themselves because it is important and they feel like keeping it in their daily routine.