When self care doesn’t mean soothing
Most self care advice focuses on relaxing and reducing the amount of stressful stimulation you’re dealing with. For many people, screens and other stressors mean that looking after yourself requires finding ways to relax. However, it is also possible to need other kinds of self care that aren’t just about dialing everything down.
Intellectual self care. Do you need more ideas? Would reading an interesting article help? Do you need mental stimulation? Do you need the excitement of encountering something unfamiliar and fascinating?
Emotional self care. Do you need the space to express an emotion? That can be loud, messy and in the short term may be unpleasant. You can’t be calm if you can’t process complex feelings. Suppressing those feelings is not self care.
Do you need something emotionally provocative? Not all of us thrive on being calm. Some of us crave intensity and powerful emotional experiences. Being able to manage that on your own can really help, and the arts can answer these needs. Finding people to share intense emotions with also really helps.
Bodily self care. This can take unusual forms, too. What kinds of sensations does your body need? Do you feel enough with your body, or too much? Self care for someone who is in pain can be all about minimising body awareness. For the person who needs a lot more sensory experience than they are getting, actively seeking tactile experiences may be really important.
Social self care. What kinds of contact do you need? Would you benefit from quiet, solitary time or do you need to jump about in a noisy space full of other people? Different people can have very different social needs.
People are very different, and what provides care for one person can cause painful frustration to another. We can all vary a lot from day to day, too. What helps at any point depends on spotting if you’re experiencing too much, or not enough of something. Not having enough of what you need is just as stressful as being overwhelmed by too much of something.
