5 Reasons Why You Need Self-Care

These are 5 reasons why you need self-care. I talk a little bit about self-care in my 10 easy ways to combat depression and anxiety. Self-care really deserves its very own post though. If you aren’t sure why you need it. I’ve been there. It’s sometimes hard to see when you’re busy with #momlife. That’s when I have to think about these 5 reasons.

Putting myself last is my instinct, and I think that’s most women’s instincts in general. My mother fell victim to this and always put herself last before anything and everything. I personally saw the toll it took on her and her mental health. She suffered greatly for doing everything for her children.

In the end, I think it taught us to also be selfless, but we also learned from her that you need to sometimes do things for yourself. She is a lot better now with her self-care. In her learning that lesson, we too saw that we need self-care.

Although part of me admires the selflessness she showed me, the other part of me is saddened. She gave up herself for her children. Her resources ran thin, and she rarely was able to fill herself back up again. Her proverbial cup was dry, and she couldn’t give what she didn’t have. She is very religious so she has that to help her, but you can only do so much when you don’t have self-care.

1. Be a Better Mom

I now know that in order for me to be the best parent I can be, I need to take care of myself. My recovery and mental health have to come first, or else I lose everything else. Brene’ Brown (an excellent author) talks about the ability to love, and that we are only able to love as much as we love ourselves. That concept was terrifying to me because I didn’t love myself. I was at the end of my to-do list, how am I supposed to love myself?!

That is when I started to take note of how I spoke to myself, how I reacted to mistakes. This “self-talk” was atrocious, I would probably report someone who spoke to a person as I spoke to myself. I beat myself up when I fell short of perfection.

What I needed to do was accept my humanness and try to make changes so that I didn’t make the same mistake again. I needed to start a daily affirmation. With these changes, I started to slowly change my self-talk from negative, derogatory remarks, and put-downs to positive and gentle motivation.

2. You’re Worth It!

If you are not convinced that self-care is going to make you a better mother, you might not be convinced you are worth it. This is a struggle I have had in the past. My worth was wrapped up in what other people thought of me or told me about myself. At one point I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore because I was trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be. I had no self-worth.

So, a part of my daily affirmation was that I was worthy. I wholeheartedly believed that other people were worthy of belonging, love, friendship, and happiness. I, however, was not convinced that I was. When I took a step back I realized that if I believed everyone else deserved those things without merit or special privilege then I did too. There was no good reason, I didn’t deserve to live a fulfilling and happy life.

So if you are thinking that you are not worth it, for whatever reason. I am here to tell you, that you are. You were born with worth, and nothing can ever change that.

3. Better Wife

As self-care is essential to being a good mother, it is also essential to being a wife/partner. If you are run down and stressed you don’t have much to give your partner at the end of the day. I am not just talking about intimacy but I am talking about caring for their needs or being attentive in a conversation. Everything will just be pulled into the vortex of chaos that is a person without self-care.

It is like trying to get more water from a glass that is empty. It is not going to produce more water by willing or wanting it to be there. You cannot give what you don’t have.

4. Better Co-Worker

I guess what I am really getting at, is that all your relationships suffer when you don’t have self-care. I have had struggles with co-workers in the past. A lot of the time I needed to have more self-care in order to deal with them. That is because these are relationships even if they are not chosen ones they are still relationships that are going to affect your daily living.

On top of having better relationships with your co-workers (as well as everyone), you are not going to be doing your job if you are not practicing self-care. There is nothing like trying to pull along a co-worker that can’t or won’t do their job. Most workplaces are built on teamwork, you cannot be apart of a team if you are not fully there due to a lack of self-care.

5. Stress is a Killer (literally)

If you are a science and studies kind of gal like I am you might be interested in this point. Stress has so many ill health effects. This might not be something that you particularly care about depending on where you are with your self-worth or mental health. I can tell you that there are a lot of other people around you who do care about your health and well-being even if you don’t.

Chronic stress has many ill effects on your body, it contributes to gaining visceral fat. Has a link to many diseases and is also a contributing factor to major mental illness. If you would like to read more about those studies you can find those resources HERE.

I hope that in reading this you are convinced that you are worthy of self-care. You are integral to so many people’s lives and they cannot come before your health and well-being. Your job as a mother, wife, co-worker, friend, and so much more is affected when you don’t take care of yourself.

So draw yourself a bath, read a good book, see a therapist, or go to a meeting. Whatever fills your proverbial cup, do that thing. Everyone will thank you for it.

If you are interested in more posts about this topic check out my other mental health posts.

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