You’ll Pay a High Price for Ignoring Your Self-Care This Summer
By: Marcia Sirota
Tags: Psychology, Covid, Mental Health, Wellness, Summer

Time for a wellness tune-up:

Summer is here and it’s the perfect time for a health and wellness tune-up. We’ve been cooped up indoors for so long that we could all benefit from a check-in. It will help us to clarify what we need in order to feel better, moving forward.

Whether you’ve decided on a staycation or a vacation this summer, you can decide to take that time to prioritize your self-care. The sun is out, literally and figuratively, and we’re all emerging from the darkness of Covid

The past fifteen months have been incredibly stressful — filled with pain, anxiety and loss. It would be good to get in touch with ourselves and tune into our needs. And it starts with carving out the time.

Parents have never been so stressed:

If you’re a parent, you’ve spent the past year and a bit wearing multiple hats: teacher, therapist, and home-based worker. It’s exhausting. But children’s mental health has been sorely stressed throughout the pandemic and it might be difficult for you to feel entitled to self-care.

What you should know is that you matter, too, and also, that taking care of yourself can only make you a better parent to your kids.

Singles have never been so lonely and isolated:

If you’re a single person living alone, the loneliness might have been oppressive because of the social distancing. It could be easy, once you’re vaccinated, to go a bit crazy, trying to make up for lost time. Or maybe your loved ones are putting pressure on you to spend time with them.

After so much time alone, it’s a good idea to take it slowly and adjust to the changes gradually. It’s important to try and maintain some balance, not getting distracted by all the social opportunities and forgetting about your own needs.

The 8 basics of self-care:

When I think about the basics of self-care there are eight factors that need to be considered:

Nutrition Sleep Exercise Leisure Creativity Stress relief Spirituality Social connections

If you want to achieve optimum wellness, you’re going to have to take care of yourself this summer. You’ll need to start by tuning in and asking yourself tough questions about each of these areas.

Are you eating healthy food, in moderation? Are you getting enough good-quality sleep? Are you moving your body and keeping it fit and limber? Are you engaging in leisure activities that bring you joy? Are you pursuing any type of creativity, whether it’s art, crafting or a hobby?

Are you making sure to de-stress, whether through yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises, meditation or mindfulness? Are you connecting deep within yourself or to a higher power, whether on your own, in a religious setting or out in nature? Are you keeping your relationships strong and meaningful? All of these things are essential in maintaining wellness.

Understanding what self-care means:

Sometimes, we misunderstand the nature of self-care. It doesn’t mean self-indulging in food or counter-productive behaviours. It doesn’t mean self-medicating with alcohol or other substances.

Real self-care means loving yourself but not spoiling yourself. It means considering the consequences of your actions.

For this reason, there are three things to remember this summer:

Pace yourself — don’t go from zero to one hundred, or you’ll risk getting overwhelmed. Balance the need to let loose with the need to be safe. The variants are here and they’re highly infectious. Respect yourself and acknowledge your own limits and vulnerabilities. Don’t let anyone push you to do things you’re not comfortable with.

The other importing thing to know about self-care is that there’s a big difference between wellness and immediate gratification. Wellness is about seeing the big picture and understanding that pleasure isn’t the same as health or happiness.

For example, being hung-over or sick from over-indulging the night before will make you unable to function at home and at work and ultimately it will deprive you of happiness and success.

If you start going on a sex spree after months of enforced celibacy, you might be in for some nasty surprises.

The bottom line is that if you go wild because you’ve been cooped-up for so long, there will be consequences. If you focus on self-care as opposed to immediate gratification, you’ll be healthier, happier, and ready for success over the summer and as life gradually re-opens

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Sign up for my free biweekly wellness newsletter here for my series on Moving into Summer with Good Self-Care, where you’ll learn simple tips for taking the best care of yourself and your loved ones this 2021 summer season.

And tune in to my ongoing YouTube video series on Coping With Covid.