On an airplane, in an emergency, the oxygen mask drops down in front of you. What should you do? We have all been taught that the first rule is to put your own oxygen mask on first before you assist anyone else, including a child. This is because when we help ourselves first, we can then effectively help others.
This is an important guideline to remember when considering the practice of self-care. It is impossible to give to others if you do not also give to yourself. Some say self-care “is like pouring water from a vessel.” You can only keep pouring the water if you refilling the vessel. Otherwise, it will eventually run dry (Blum, 2014).
Many individuals struggle with caring for themselves appropriately. For example, healthcare providers are taught to care for others, and it is often deeply ingrained in their life’s purpose as well as career standards. Caregivers and others who take care of family members also place themselves and others’ needs before their own. Reasons for not taking care of one’s self vary. For some, it is difficult to find selfcare activities that match their interests and that can be easily incorporated into their lives. Other individuals struggle with even being able to express that they need to take times for themselves. Yet self-care is a vital component of health and wellbeing. Self-care helps us cope with the stresses of life and work—stresses that can lead to exhaustion, tension, irritability, resentment, low self-esteem, fatigue, burnout, difficulty making appropriate decisions, and even detrimental health consequences (Blum, 2014)
In the healing professions, the act of self-care is especially important to include in one’s health regimen. Most caring professionals seek meaningful, positive work experiences. However, healthcare is a challenging profession with many competing, (often exhausting) demands. As a result, the percentage of negative, nonmeaningful experiences often outweighs the percentage of positive, meaningful ones. When this occurs, burnout and compassion fatigue can result. The helping professions, in general, experience a degree of tension between giving and taking, between other-care and self-care. In these professions, giving of oneself is the constant requirement for success and is a precious service. According to Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016), the best health professionals struggle the most and figure it out, or they leave, burn out (from the inside out), and their hope for balance dies with it. Many believe this burn out occurs because it is not natural to put the Other before the Self. The human senses—smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing— are developed to protect the self and not others. To know the world primarily through others is like “swimming upstream” and it is very hard to do (Blum, 2014).
Caring for yourself is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and it is also one of the easiest things to forget to do or put aside in favor of tending to others. Good self-care involves small self-care habits that, when done regularly, have the ability to enhance your body, mind, and spirit. When you care effectively for yourself, you benefit and so do others in your life.