How do you care for yourself? Self-care varies from person to person, but practicing self-care means caring for your physical and mental health. Practicing self-care could mean exercising, taking a warm bath, or doing anything you want to do, anything that can benefit your mental health. There are several different types of self-care, including:
- Physical: Physical self-care refers to physical health and usually includes things like diet, nutrition, and exercise. Other factors include mindful eating, getting enough sleep, sleep quality, and physical activity.
- Social: Social self-care refers to socialization. Humans are social creatures, but as adults, we may find it difficult to make new friends or give enough time to our relationships. These close connections are crucial to your emotional well-being and can prevent feelings of isolation and loneliness. Therefore, social self-care involves figuring out your social needs and finding time to socialize with your family and friends.
- Mental: Mental self-care is similar to physical self-care, but instead of caring for your body, you care for your mind and mental health. Your psychological comfort is just as important as your physical health. Mental self-care often includes doing this to exercise your mind and activities that can promote overall mental well-being.
- Emotional: Emotional self-care is more than caring for your mental health; it involves your emotions and finding ways to cope with stress and “negative” emotions like anger and sadness. Emotional self-care allows you to reflect and express your feelings.
Beauty, Self-Care & Mental Health
Now that you know about the different types of self-care, you might wonder how beauty fits in. Ultimately, beauty can be a social, mental, and emotional self-care, depending on your self-image. But what exactly are the benefits of self-care? So let’s take a closer look at why you should start investing in self-care today. Here are the benefits of self-care and beauty:
Provides Stability
Having a skincare or self-care routine can provide your day with stability. We thrive when we have daily routines. For example, you might wake up, brush your teeth, make coffee, and sit on your balcony before getting ready for work. These routines help us because they let us know what to expect from at least some aspect of our day. A skincare routine can provide the same stability as any other routine.
Additionally, taking time to care for yourself, no matter how small it may seem, can help you set the tone for your day. Giving yourself a few extra minutes in the morning to complete this routine can help you stay relaxed and calm throughout the rest of the day.
Reduces Stress
People with anxiety disorders can obsess over intrusive thoughts, especially if they don’t have a distraction. Self-care can help you focus your mind on an activity that doesn’t lead to further anxiety, helping people of all types reduce stress. Stress is part of life, but it’s crucial to have stress management techniques that prevent stress from affecting your quality of life.
Self-care, whether it’s a skincare routine, taking care of your teeth, or taking a nice long bath, helps reduce stress because it gives you another task to focus on and improves your self-confidence. Idle time — time spent doing nothing, such as sitting in front of the television or waiting to fall asleep at night, is often when most people report feeling the most stress or anxiety because it gives them nothing else to do except worry. However, you can fill your idle time with relaxing yet mentally engaging activities like self-care and help your body and mind unwind.
Additionally, a skincare routine can help you practice mindfulness, allowing you to focus on how the massaging of your skin makes you feel in the moment. Mindfulness can reduce anxiety and depression and prevent worry because it focuses your mind on something else. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, mindfulness can help bring you back to the present moment.
Gives You Something to Look Forward To
Sometimes we all need a little boost to help us get through the week. For example, office workers look forward to Friday because it helps them get through a stressful week and think about what they’ll do with their time off. Pampering yourself can give you something to look forward to after a long day in the same way. When you wake up, you might immediately think of all the tasks you have to get through to complete the day, inducing stress. However, instead of thinking about everything you have to get done, you can think about what will happen once you accomplish your daily goals.
Ultimately, working toward something is the best way to stay motivated, and self-care is an excellent way to treat yourself after a long, stressful day.
Boosts Confidence
A beauty routine can be designed to boost your confidence by making you feel better about how you look. Of course, we believe that nothing is as important as who you are on the inside, but many of us still want to put our best faces forward. Beauty routines can enhance self-confidence, allowing you to go out into the world and achieve your dreams.
Regardless of how you define your beauty routine, you do it for one simple reason: it makes you feel good about yourself.
Final Thoughts
A beauty routine may seem like a simple task you do in the morning to get ready to leave the house. However, it can benefit your emotional security, helping you gain the confidence to go after your dreams. Of course, not everyone enjoys having a beauty routine. So instead, find some self-care activity that you find enjoyable and relaxing to reap the same types of benefits to mental and emotional well-being.
It’s not necessarily the type of self-care you perform that matters, as long as it’s something that benefits your life in some way. Therefore, beauty, exercise, yoga, or practicing mindfulness can be types of self-care. It all depends on how you define it.