{"id":198,"date":"2019-10-11T00:26:30","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T00:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/?p=198"},"modified":"2019-10-11T00:33:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T00:33:18","slug":"self-care-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/archives\/198","title":{"rendered":"Self-Care Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\nOftentimes, we hear professionals, spiritual leaders, teachers, coaches and others speak of self-care. \u201cMake time for yourself,\u201d they say. Many of us, on hearing this shoot to conversations with our friends about the lunch or dinner we\u2019re going to have; or start making plans with our families about vacations or road trips we intend to take.Alas, our hopes fall into despair because life can be thunderous, not giving us the time to eat on time or even sleep…so how would it be humanly possible to dedicate an entire day or afternoon to self-care. So then we delude ourselves with rationalizations:
\u201cI have a quick lunch once per month with my bestie\u201d
\u201cI spend half an hour reading every week\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that a vanilla chai latte can\u2019t fix.\u201d
\u201cAll I need is a cold one!\u201dLet\u2019s be honest with ourselves. Can these intermittent activities really be classified as self-care? Most certainly they can alleviate some stress of the moment but are these periodic solutions really solutions at all? My hopes are not to deter you from whatever form of relaxation you choose. Rather, I wish to encourage you to consider that true self-care is the kind that keeps your pressure cooker from screaming altogether, rather than just letting out the steam when you\u2019re already under pressure. What do I mean?
I mean that once we integrate a self-care routine into our everyday lives, then we needn\u2019t get to the point where we\u2019re so full of undesirable thoughts and emotions that we\u2019re ready to burst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does that look like? True self-care…..
1. Daily meditation – in whichever form that suits you best: prayer, reading your Holy Book, sitting in silence, mindfullness, etc.
2. Exercise – again, in whichever form that suits your preference
3. Socialization – healthy, enlightening conversations with family, friends and acquaintances where you are comfortable to experience your emotions as they occur
4. Healthy Diet – healthy can be as easy as \u2018everything in moderation\u2019
5. Receiving Hugs – 12 hugs per day which lasts 20 seconds each should be your minimum goal
6. Unplug from technology- allow your brain to rest by removing technological stimulationThese are just a few ways we can incorporate self-care into our DAILY routine. Remember, your body tells you when it\u2019s ill by physical discomforts. It\u2019s more difficult to identify when our minds are distressed so let\u2019s so what we can to preserve and improve our mental health!SELF-CARE CHALLENGE : take 2 sessions daily for 7 days, then repeat <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Victoria Siewnarine-Geelalsingh, M.Sc.
Clinical Psychologist <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oftentimes, we hear professionals, spiritual leaders, teachers, coaches and others speak of self-care. \u201cMake time for yourself,\u201d they say. Many of us, on hearing this shoot to conversations with our friends about the lunch or dinner we\u2019re going to have; or start…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologytt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}