the 6 types of self-care you need to be doing

Self-care is a hot topic lately. It is an important and overlooked form of wellness that can be done for free and from the comfort of your own home. However, self-care is more robust and nuanced than just taking a bubble bath once per week.

A healthy self-care practice can protect yourself from burnout and compassion fatigue. It’s also an excellent way to respond to stress, anxiety, and the business of life. Without daily, weekly, and monthly integrations of self-care, our resilience dwindles. Mental health concerns, like depression and anxiety, can worsen before we realize.

Let’s look at how to break your self-care practice into six categories to enhance your mental health.

Professional

Everyone can consider professional self-care, even if you are not actively employed. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, you can consider professional self-care. The same goes for if you are a student.

Professional self-care looks at how your time is spent when it comes to creating value or production either at work, school, or at home. It involves making sure you take adequate breaks and understanding your energy expenditure. It also considers your hopes and goals for the future.

A quick way to evaluate your professional self-care is by asking yourself this question at the end of the day. “How much did going to work/school/being a parent drain me today?” There is an expectation that you might feel tired, but it shouldn’t be to a point where you need to sleep for two days straight.

Start looking at how often you make sure you take scheduled coffee and lunch breaks. Consider the workload itself. Are you being overworked or are you trying to accomplish a reasonable number of tasks per day or shift? When was the last time you took a vacation? When was the last time you took a mental health day? Do you use all your sick time? It might even be helpful to consider the physical work environment and what could be improved.

Personal

Personal self-care is all about the things that make you feel like yourself and bring you joy. This is the category of self-care that most people have an easy time understanding. It’s often where people start first, without even realizing!

It can look like spending time on your favourite activities or hobbies, socializing with friends and family, or taking yourself out for a solo date. This is inherently one of the more selfish (but in a good and healthy way) categories of self-care. Whatever is going to bring you happiness or make you feel fulfilled goes under the personal self-care category.

Psychological

Psychological self-care can be both proactive and reactive. This category of self-care takes a close look at your mental health overall.

Proactive examples of psychological self-care are making sure you have pre-scheduled therapy sessions, taking time to “shop around” for a therapist, seeking out mental health diagnoses if it will make you feel more validated, and taking medications that support your mental health. Reactive psychological self-care can look like honouring when you need time to rest. It can also look like noticing you are feeling anxious and taking time to try out new coping skills or relaxation techniques.

 There is often a lot of overlap between psychological self-care and the other five main categories of self-care. It makes sense though because all self-care supports your overall mental health.

You don’t necessarily need to be religious to practice spiritual self-care. Spiritual self-care involves any activities that make you feel purposeful or activate your meaning of life. Whenever you feel most whole and connected to yourself, you’re practicing spiritual self-care.

For some people it is going to church or praying. For others it is volunteering, practicing breathing exercises, or being in nature. This is a very flexible category, and often made out to be much more intense than it truly is. If going paddleboarding makes you feel peaceful and brings your body in connection with your mind, you are practicing spiritual self-care. If going to church every Sunday makes you feel whole and purposeful, you’re practicing spiritual self-care. While both activities look very different, it’s still satisfying the same category. It’s as easy as that.

Emotional

Emotional self-care is self-explanatory – it’s all about invoking and moving through your emotions. When I say emotions, I mean ALL the emotions available to us as humans. Happiness, sadness, anger, excitement, love, shock, awe, hope, grief, frustration, shame, contentment, calm. You get the picture.

The world makes us feel all sorts of different emotions. We can choose to put ourselves in situations that we know will cause us to feel very specific types of emotions. Sometimes, the triggers are a surprise, and the emotion comes whether we are ready or not. Emotional self-care considers how you process, experience, and cope with different emotions.

Looking at emotions with acceptance, and knowing that they will pass, is the healthiest approach. Often times people recognize they are feeling angry or sad, and they want it to stop. Emotional self-care is letting yourself feel angry or sad, doing something to process the experience, and then watching it pass. Emotional self-care can also include incorporating activities that help you feel more joyful emotions.

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I hope that looking at self-care through this different lens has sparked your imagination. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure of how to improve your self-care practice, I’m accepting new clients.

Disclaimer: Reading blogs on a counsellor’s website is not an appropriate or effective substitute for legitimate counselling services. The author of this blog cannot be held liable for reactions to content posted on a public mental health blog.