Hi everyone,
Welcome to the Forum’s new topic!
We have heard your feedback, so we will be regularly posting new topics to give you the chance to reflect on your journey so far. We will be including content around topics such as gambling harms research, news articles, reflections from GamCare staff, and more.
As today is “Blue Monday” and this time of year can impact our mood, this week’s topic is “self-care”. Self-care refers to purposeful actions to promote physical, mental, and emotional health.
Self-care is a priority, not a luxury! This is because self-care is vital for our resilience to life’s stressors and to help us manage things out of our control.
There are 5 different types of self-care:
Our bodies and minds are connected. Physical self-care includes nutrition, sleep and physical activity. Also, doing things such as attending healthcare appointments, taking medication as prescribed, and managing your health are all part of good physical self-care
It's easy to neglect our relationships when life gets busy, but, socialising with friends and building close connections are important for our well-being.
Finding things that “fuel the mind”. This may be areas of interest, or puzzles, or inspiring books and films. Mental self-care also includes practicing self-compassion. See our previous post for more information about self-compassion.
This does not necessarily refer to religion, as spiritual self-care involves anything that helps us to feel a deeper sense of meaning, understanding, or connection with the universe.
This can include regular activities that give us the chance to recognise and express our emotions safely.
An article by verywellmind.com shows that self-care has been found to have many benefits including:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), self-care is important because it can help promote health, prevent disease, and help people better cope with illness.”
For more information about self-care, you can read the rest of the article here:
https://www.verywellmind.com/self-care-strategies-overall-stress-reduction-3144729
So, what are your thoughts?
Do you purposefully practice self-care?
How could you increase your self-care?
How do you think better self-care would impact you?
We would love to hear your reflections below.
All the best,
Lulu
Online Peer Support Team
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