Self-Care is Health Care

Cruising in here on the last day of September in 2024! 

September is designated as self-care month!

Remember, it’s never too late to start or resume self-care.  

There are many ideas out there as to what it includes.  The bottom line is that it usually entails doing things, whatever they may be, hopefully with good intent or healthy choices, that make a person feel better physically or mentally.  Whether it is to do light, joyful exercise, go on a retreat or vacation, meditate, park your butt on a bench in a park, eat whole foods, or take a bath and lock the door, it’s self-care.  

First, let’s talk self-care basics.  When times were simpler, we did the following:

• brush and floss your teeth, 

• brush your hair, 

• perform body hygiene daily (ie. bath, shower), 

• cut your nails and hair regularly,

• eat, and 

• do some form of exercise/hobby/leisure activity.  

Ironically, somehow life became more complicated among all of our modern conveniences that were invented to make our lives easier. It seems more people are on the go, go, go and quality time with friends and family or ourselves seems to be fading.

With all the fast-paced lifestyles, self-care is now something

we need to schedule into our day.  

Self-care doesn’t have to be time consuming or complicated. Even a 15 second breathing reset during crunch time in your day goes a long way and counts towards self-care in my book because you are soothing your nervous system and helping it to self-regulate.

As self-care is being publicly recognized, perhaps it will help our society to be able to self-soothe their nervous system in times of stress and lives lived on the go.  

What would it be like if you:
- committed to yourself REGULARLY?
- moved better?
- felt better?

One option for self-care I would like to propose is for humans to get REGULAR bodywork. 

You can think of regular bodywork like the farmer who tends to the garden to make sure plants are growing well, or, as much as I dislike comparing human activities to mechanical or electrical objects, like the mechanic for your car to rotate your tires and change the oil.

Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s self-preservation!

Now, pickup the phone and schedule your bodywork!  Commit to yourself!  You are the only YOU in this world and like L’Oreal says, “You are worth it!”