Self-Care “Menus”

by Elizabeth S. Craig @elizabethscraig

I’m not really sure that “self-care” was in my vocabulary 20 years ago. I would have understood the concept of it, sure, but it never would have really occurred to me to devote any time to it. At that point, I’d have had a six-year-old and a two-year-old. I was writing, squeezing it in when I could, and juggling lots of other things, too.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started putting self-care on my to-do list. That’s primarily because, despite my empty nest, it’s still very possible for me to get burned out . . . primarily on writing, but also with managing family life and helping with care-giving for my mother.

I’ve made some realizations along the way. One of them is that self-care isn’t something that just needs to happen after you’re burned out. It really needs to function as a preventative mechanism. It’s sort of like what sleep doctors say about sleep: you can’t just go, go, go all day long and then expect to fall asleep in five minutes when it’s bedtime. We can’t operate that way and not expect to get burned-out, either.

Another realization I’ve made is that self-care doesn’t have to be something big or expensive. It doesn’t have to be a vacation (although that would certainly be nice). It can be something as small as a piece of chocolate or a cup of tea or a phone call to a friend.

I read an interesting article a while back by Katlyn Duncan on the Alliance of Independent Authors blog. She had a different approach to self-care that I found very compelling, since I’ve always been something of a clock-watcher. She says:

When you are feeling stressed out about personal or professional issues, choose an item from that menu that aligns with the time you have available. Whether it’s a quick five-minute breathing exercise, a 20-minute walk in nature, or an hour of dedicated reading time, having a self-care menu makes it easier to prioritize self-care in the moment.

Another, similar, thing I do is to make sure it’s easy for me to pick up an interesting book or watch an interesting show or movie. I carefully curate my to-be-read and my viewing watch lists. That way I can always easily jump into something that I’ve already vetted as something that seems interesting to me.

Do you take time for self-care? What’s on your “menu?”

Image by Anna Palinska from Pixabay