Self-care isn’t just a spa day or vacation. It’s about how you treat yourself when achieving a milestone, consciously celebrating wins and successes, or just making it through an ordinary day. It’s about pedicures and manicures, not just to look your best, but because you love how it makes you feel.

One of the things that COVID robbed us of was experiencing the healing properties of hands on our bodies. “Of all the senses we depend on dearly to navigate the world, the sense of touch is the one that man [woman] cannot live without,” says Ron Horn MD, who is steeped in eastern philosophy and medicine in addition to his western medical training. Scheduling a massage is a great way to restore your self-care.

Everyday decisions on what you eat, where you source it, and how you prepare it are all examples of self-care. It’s the blanket you acquire because the weight of it soothes your stress while you rest. Daily walks, exercise, and stress-relieving activities are done regularly to keep yourself in tip-top shape. 

Self-care in the form of tension and stress relief prompts us to turn to meditation, yoga, Pilates, gym workouts, health club memberships, juicing, cleanses, a host of diets, breathing practices, adoption of wisdom traditions, and daily practices that minimize what harms us and maximize what heals us.

Psychologist Randi Kaufman had this to say about an often-misunderstood term related to self-care: selfish. “The act of being selfish is not the bad thing many associates with the word. Selfish means to be concerned with self.” When giving her comment more thought, it makes sense that one needs to be concerned with self for the sake of self-preservation. Our ability to be effective with concerns of the self is a training ground for effectively caring for others.

It grew in popularity and consciousness as a marketing tagline for safety first, “Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.” I’d want my savior to have the presence of mind to preserve themselves first in the event I stood any chance of making it out of a plane crash alive. They might at least breathe well enough to stay alive to save me!

Regular and well-orchestrated self-care regimes can make bouncing back from illness faster while keeping the most acute symptoms at bay or, to a greater degree, from occurring at all!