Can Self-Care Make Your Life Better, as a Nurse?

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about self-care. As a nurse, one thing I’ve noticed is that many of us, along with other healthcare workers, are really bad at self-care. We spend so much time caring for others, and so little caring for ourselves. I speak of nurses because I am one but this is true of a great many people. I’ve seen this in pastors and other ministry staff. I’ve seen this in both mothers and fathers. The truth is that any person can be guilty of this.

What IS self-care?

At the simplest level, self-care is taking care of yourself. Simple, right? It truly is that simple. Unfortunately, many simple things, are not easy. We could say that self-care is simply a matter of taking care of yourself, but what does that even mean? It could mean eating right and exercising, but is that all there is to it?
Some time ago, I asked the question on Facebook, “What does self-care mean to you.” Here is a sampling of the answers I received:

• “Taking time to care for myself so that I can continue to care for others.”
• “Going to Disney World.”
• “Free time for me! Kidless, spouseless. NAPS!”
• “Mind, body, and spirit.”
• “…made of up 6 different factors: physical, social, spiritual, emotional, sensory, and intellectual.”
• “Watching Pride and Prejudice”
• “Feeding the mind, body, and spirit the good stuff.”
• “Both bombs and sugar scrubs.”
• “Sleep just sleep”
• “Eat right! Common sense!”
• “Diet and exercise”

As you can see self-care means a variety of different things to different people. This was just a sampling of the over 50 responses I received. While I would certainly agree that some of the things listed here are a PART of self-care, I think that there is more to it than that. A couple of the responses I thought were really good broke down self-care into different areas. One listed it as “physical, social, spiritual, emotional, sensory, and intellectual.” Another said, “mind, body, and spirit”. These are GREAT. As I’ve worked through my own journey of learning what it meant to take better care of my life, I’ve broken it down into 6 Pillars:

• Work Health
• Physical Health
• Mental Health
• Relationship Health
• Spiritual Health
• Financial Health

I know that this doesn’t really answer the question of what self-care is. I’ll be covering more of this in upcoming posts.

If you want to take better care of your life but are not sure where to start, download the free Restored Life Assessment.