Self-Care For The Modern Man

As the world is starting to make a much-needed shift towards focusing on mental health awareness, the term self-care has begun to flourish. We all know that we need to take better care of ourselves. We already know that we need to check in with ourselves periodically, so why care about self-care? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines self-care as “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and to cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider,” but what does that mean?

Essentially, self-care is the process of focusing on taking care of oneself with small daily behaviours (eventually turned into habits) that promote healthier thinking. Healthier thinking means healthier living. The issue arises with the how (and where) to start. Self-care regularly needs to be addressed with physical, mental, emotional, creative, and spiritual practices. These pillars all need to be tackled on a daily/weekly basis to help us from constantly feeling like we’re drowning. The world is a scary place, and none of it makes any sense. We need to check in with ourselves, honestly, to make sure we’re not in over our heads. And if we are, finding a way to ask for assistance is the next crucial step.

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Self-Care Building Blocks

When addressing self-care, here are some starting points to get the brain moving:

Physical Self-care:

When was the last time you took a nice long walk?
Do you ever use the stairs instead of the elevator?

Mental Self-care:

What’s holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself?
What changes are you going to make to improve your current situation?

Emotional Self-care:

When was the last time you had a good cry?
Tell someone you love them.

Creative Self-care:

Draw, colour, write, sing, dance!
Art is subjective, go and create something!

Spiritual Self-care:

Are you in tune with your vibrational energy?

What’s best practice is to take an honest inventory of where you stand in each pillar. If you’re great at physical self-care, take more pride in an area where you lack. Being fully functional in all aspects is the ultimate goal, but that takes time. Pick one item, one area and focus on that. Have that old guitar sitting collecting dust, pick ‘er up and give it a whirl a couple of times a week. Still have a couple of extra holiday pounds, park a little farther away from the grocery store every other time you get groceries and enjoy a brisk walk to the front entrance.

We have an “all-or-nothing” mentality, which often backfires when it comes to taking care of ourselves. If we try to do too many things at once or try to change too many things at one time, we will get overwhelmed and eventually just quit. Small minor changes are the only way to accomplish these goals.

Gentlemen take a few moments each day and check in with yourself; that’s all we ask. Please continue to improve on what you like and keep working on the things you do not. Self-care isn’t rocket science.

Feature image credit by Surface