Reasons to focus on yourself this winter
Note: This article is by Teresa Endres. Website issues are causing the wrong name to display.
As winter is just around the corner, it’s important to begin thinking about self care.
Self-care is the practice of taking care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and wellness. Self care is important both short and long-term.
In the short term, people often see three main positive changes. The first one is reduced stress. Stress levels can be reduced with lots of rest, but sleep can also help with reducing stress as well. The second benefit is increased self-worth. The best way to increase self-worth is to take good care of ourselves, which in turn raises self esteem. The third benefit is the feeling of belonging. The more time spent with our family, friends and the people we love, the more we feel good about our mental health.
Although short term self-care benefits are great, long-term effects of self-care are more focused on. There are three main benefits of long-term self-care. The first benefit is managing chronic conditions. By practicing physical and mental self care strategies, conditions such as diabetes and heart disease can be more managed effectively. The second benefit is healthier relationships. The more we focus on our personal needs, the better engagement we have with our family, friends and significant others. The third benefit is improved job satisfaction. The more we practice self-care, the higher job satisfaction we will have.
Self-care is important to me. When I first started doing self-care I honestly thought it was super boring, but as I continued to do it I realized that it helped me relax my body more and I had less stress after I did it. Some things that I do for self-care is writing in my journal, writing my book, watching TV, coloring in my coloring books, listening to music and reading the Bible and journaling about what I learned from reading the Bible. But the two main things that help when you do self-care are relaxing and sleeping. When we relax, our bodies physically and mentally calm down in a way that helps us sleep at night.
This is why I think self-care is important to do, especially when winter brings the low mood that many of us suffer from.