Exploring self-care and how to control the uncontrollable when in times of crisis

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back to another episode of Zevo Talks. My name is Michelle Coates and today I will be your host. We will look at self-care. Self-care can mean different things to different people but in essence we look at what helps an individual look after themselves both physically and mentally.

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In recent years self-care has become a bit of a buzzword. Today we dive into how self-care affects an individual and how you can put your own well-being first. We’re joined by Cara Conley. Cara Conley is an integrative counselor and a well-being specialist here at Zevo Health who specializes in self-care and workplace balance, self-awareness and esteem, self-worth, finding meaning and purpose, stress,

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anxiety and trauma, bullying and coming to terms with disability and long-term illness. Cara designs her therapeutic models and are grounded in a humanistic approach based on each model of the individual client’s needs as she believes her is now one size fits all when it comes to therapy and self-care.

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Thank you very much for joining today Cara. Hello it’s lovely to be here. I think we’ll just start off and take a quick look at what is self-care? How would you describe it? I typically describe self-care as something you enjoy, something that adds value to your daily life.

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So it’s an activity or a thing that brings you maybe a sense of calm or nourishment and maybe eases feelings of daily stress and anxiety but by engaging in it long term and finding it, finding its place in our routine, it’s going to help us to bring a sense of calm to every day.

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It’s going to help us to ease those feelings of stress, help with anxiety, depression and also to develop self-awareness because we’re going to get more of a sense of you know who we are, what we like, what we don’t like.

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So yeah that’s what self-care is. It’s creating more time to do things that you enjoy. Very much different for everyone. Yeah very different for everyone but and that kind of makes sense because you know we don’t all like the same thing.

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So we’re trying to look for something that’s sparking a sense of joy or it gives you that sense of well-being and so it’s completely individualistic. So what works for me might not work for you but that doesn’t really matter.

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There is no right or wrong when it comes to self-care. It’s simply you know just looking at what gives you that sense of well-being and then finding a way to engage in that into your routine but making sure it’s realistic.

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That you’re not asking yourself to you know to do a hundred and one things in a day. That when you are trying to engage in self-care that it actually fits into your routine. I suppose a lot of you have found that the last few years self-care has become such a buzzword especially you often see it in Instagram the kind of of having a bubble bath tonight and a face mask.

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Like that’s very much surface level but also like well that could be that could be self-care to one person and another person like sitting and soaking in a bath for now. That could be their idea of health.

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Yeah exactly. You know it’s whatever it’s whatever works for you but it’s understanding that it’s not just a face mask or a bubble bath on that random Sunday or you know one day in the year. It’s something that we have to be doing every single day.

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You know think of everything we deal with on a daily basis like the multitude of emotions we experience. All the tasks that we have to complete. When do we ever create time for rest or for even for fun.

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We forget about fun when we become adults it’s it’s ridiculous. So you know if a bubble bath and a face mask is something that you get that sense of nourishment from like fantastic keep doing that but you need to be doing more as well.

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You need to be doing something small for yourself every single day. Yeah I was actually I was just discussing this with a friend the other day and the way she kind of put it was the doing a face mask once a week will be the equivalent of having dominos every day for dinner and then having a smoothie one morning for breakfast.

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No no shade to dominos though but you know what I mean that kind of that you have to actually feel your body in every way. Yeah exactly so when you’re engaging in self-care like you want it to be a little bit of fun but you also want to be making sure that you’re targeting you know your physical wellness, your mental wellness, your environmental wellness, spiritual wellness you know there’s it’s more than just feeling good.

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There’s I think seven dimensions to our overall wellness so it’s okay if one part is a priority at you know at one time but it’s making sure we don’t neglect any of the other seven. That’s what’s really important.

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That kind of brings us on nicely to what all self-care looks like. So like there’s you know there’s certain things that all make us feel good and I suppose we can probably pick out some common versions of self-care and we’ll talk about that a little bit later but when we’re looking at self-care what it is it’s engaging in mindfulness and what I mean by that it’s like being present in the moment.

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and being able to show yourself self-compassion, so recognizing when you need to slow down. And these are really important, that self-compassion and mindfulness piece, because they’re basically mediators between well-being and self-care, and vice versa.

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So what I mean by that is that research has shown that when we engage in self-care, we become more mindful, we become kind of kinder to ourselves, we become more self-aware of what we like, get to know ourselves a little bit better, and it’s almost like an automatic consequence from engaging in self-care.

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So if we are becoming more mindful, and we’re more aware of what we like, then it makes self-care easier. So you see how it’s like a cycle, they all complement each other. So that’s essentially what self-care looks like, but I suppose as well, on your point that it’s not the same for everyone, I love telling this story when it comes to self-care, and it always gives me a bit of a giggle.

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So I love Grey’s Anatomy. Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy? I don’t. I wanted to do it during lockdown, but I saw how many seasons and I was scared. I actually started watching it during my masters, and it was absolutely fantastic.

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It gave me something to look forward to every single evening. I could definitely get onto it. But me and my sister, we both are fanatics when it comes to Grey’s Anatomy. So I’ll be watching an episode, and I’ll be literally on the edge of my seat.

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And I’m going through all the emotions with the character. If something bad happens to them, it’s as if it’s happening to me. So the show just grabs me emotionally. It’ll make me laugh, cry. I’ll walk away from an episode feeling so angry and stressed.

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And other times, it just brings such a sense of joy and well-being. I always describe it as being an emotional rollercoaster. But then with my sister, she watches it before bed. As in, it puts her to sleep.

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She finds it. She describes it as, oh, it’s so relaxing. And I’m going, oh, my God, I would not call Grey’s Anatomy relaxing at all. So for me, I watched Grey’s Anatomy as something to look forward to.

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I like that it evokes so many emotions in me. But it’s not a good show if I’m already feeling stressed or maybe a lot’s happened in my day. It doesn’t help me to mind. So I might choose who wants to be a millionaire or keeping up with Kardashians if I want something to calm me down or to relax.

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It’s offered me that bit of disconnection from my day. But for my sister, she uses it in a completely different way. So we both love the same TV show, but yet we watch it from two completely different angles.

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So it’s really important that we’re mindful of how we’re aware of what we’re doing and the impact that that thing is having on us. Not who we’re spending time with, what impact are they having on us?

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Are they relaxing us? Are they soothing us? Or are they stressing us out? This information is so important when it comes to self-care because that’s how we know what the right activity or thing to treat that emotion that we’re trying to ease.

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And that’s the thing about self-care. It’s almost stopping and thinking to yourself or asking yourself, what do I want? What do I need? So if you’re maybe studying, the last thing you’re going to want to do is come home and watch a documentary because your brain’s already so filled with information.

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So you’re going to want to watch something like a reality TV show, something that’s out of touch with reality that you can kind of watch, but you don’t have to, you don’t be studying it to know what’s happening.

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So it’s important to kind of recognize, I always imagined that if I had a bat, like harried around me every single day for every emotion I felt, I wrote it down, I put it in to a piece of paper. But when it comes to that time and my routine, when I’m going to engage in self-care, almost imagine tipping the bag out and picking up those pieces of paper and counting, okay, how many times did stress come up?

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How many times did happy come up? How many times did tired come up? And if I seen that stress came up a lot, then I’d be like, okay, that’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to do something that relaxes me.

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If it’s something that maybe I’m feeling tired, I might go, okay, what kind of tiredness is it? Will it walk? Give me that boost of energy or do I need to sit down and like Netflix and shit? Do I actually need to kind of rest?

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Do I need a nap? It’s a great way to just assess kind of, okay, what am I going to watch? You know, what tips am I going to do when it comes to, you know, self-care today? Yeah, really good because like sometimes we kind of go on to autopilot whereas actually listening to your body and like understanding what the need there actually is as opposed to just like when I feel this I go when I do this but like down that level deeper and understanding why and how we can actually like every time you’re tired having an app isn’t going to help sometimes you do you might be tired because you haven’t actually done enough and a walk or work that would help you.

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Yeah, exactly and that’s exactly it and you know it’s I always find found this to be reassurance I remember my journey teacher actually said this to me and I don’t think the way that I took it probably wasn’t the way that she meant it but she said to me on issue if you’re the expert in yourself if you don’t know how am I supposed to know and I took that in a way of self-care because I was like she’s right you know it gave me a boost that you know I know what I want I know what I need I just need to slow down and actually listen to myself actually just to slow down but it’s something that that’s always stuck with me and hopefully that can help someone else too.

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That’s when you think about um hate to go on but um lockdown that’s probably why for a lot of us it was so good I kind of gave us the moment to stop and I think a lot of people that if you have three years ago they would have never actually took the time they were just constantly on go go go and that’s what a lot of people they went on holidays or they took the break and that’s when they all of a sudden got sick that sort of thing whereas now we kind of we understand ourselves a bit better and even people like that are as social as an ex person and they love going out and that sort of thing they know like what I need that day a week or I love also love like sitting down by myself reading a book or you know an afternoon meal prepping for the week in the kitchen with a podcast going you know that sort of thing.

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Yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah and I think as well it’s it’s just you know going back to that point we made earlier is that you know what’s right for you uh doesn’t it that’s perfect you know if we’re doing two different things doesn’t mean that either either either of us are wrong or right uh it’s just listening to yourself and asking yourself you know what do I want to do right now?

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You said to me beforehand was basically what South African entail in the different areas if we should be kind of aiming to hips they were physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social. Yeah exactly so self-care is anything that provides us with that like you know sense of joy or nourishment so like like you’re saying there physical self-care that would be like exercise movement like ideally we want to be getting like 30 minutes a day most days a week I’m not saying you have to go out seven days we think for everything we’re holding on to sometimes it’s not realistic to ask yourselves to do 30 minutes or an hour every single day so that goes back again to that point I made earlier is that when we are creating you know that self-care routine has to be realistic you know it’s not our self-care isn’t supposed to cause us anxiety or stress it’s supposed to be fun but um but yeah exercising even as little as 15 minutes of exercise a day can have a really significant impact on your mood in a positive way um if you’re thinking about mental self-care um the best way I describe this is like counseling so either either it could be attending professional counseling or even working on kind of that inner deeper psychology work with yourself so trying to become more self-aware I remember the more aware you are of yourself the more ideas you have of what you like what you don’t like your strengths your weaknesses you know it just gives you a better sense of direction of where you want to go and this is going to be so important when it comes to self-care because you’re going to be picking activities that you actually really enjoy doing and that are going to be uh you know beneficial to you if you’re thinking about emotional or like spiritual self-care I kind of put these under the same umbrella you can also separate if you want but it’s engaging again in something that gives you that sense of meaning or nourishment something that gives you that outlet for yourself and then with social self-care it’s um engaging activities that nourish your relationships in your life self-care even it’s you know it’s self-care kind of um with that word self you know it’s you it’s singular you can absolutely get other people involved in your your self-care routine so like catching up with your friend or maybe it’s like having a face time with someone or if you’re going on a mindful walk you know tagging asking someone else to come join you that still counts as self-care self-care it doesn’t have to be done alone um so yeah it’s anything that anything that makes you feel good I saw this thing um recently I think it was it was instagram or it was nothing too highbrow but it was basically um about the social and it was kind of the social battery about how everyone has a different level obviously everyone’s different in the kind of introvert extrovert and how much they actually enjoy being social And it was kind of understanding your own level.

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So what you want to, you might enjoy one night out a week and that does you. Or one, you don’t need to go for a friend or a coffee or whatever kind of your social aspect looks like to you. Whereas your friend, your partner might be the sort of person that wants out, wants the three nights out a week or the four nights out a week.

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And it’s kind of finding the balance that your boat, you know, you kind of, you’re still able to maintain your own social activity and relationships without kind of draining other people. That was an interesting point.

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Because I think it’s something that we’ve kind of all become a bit more self-aware of as times gone on and as kind of life has changed over the last few years and that sort of thing about what actually, some of the coffees and the drinks we used to meet and fold for, like were they kind of on autopilot or were they actually, were we getting the maximum enjoyment out of them?

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Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose, you know, it’s like what you’re saying, you know, the amount of time you’re gonna, if you think of, I suppose, when it comes to those seven dimensions of balance we were talking about earlier, imagine them almost like as bars and you’re trying to fill them up.

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But like the threshold for full is gonna be different for everyone. So that’s gonna be really important as well. So I keep in close to giving an example, like I’m a counsellor. So I talk with people all of the time.

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So I get a huge sense of kind of like, you know, social wellness from my job. I get to interact with so many different people that, you know, for me, sometimes I feel like, you know, having a coffee with a friend is so beneficial for me, but other times I can find it to be quite draining.

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And I can be like, you know, I could walk away from spending an hour with a friend and have, I have no recollection of what we spoke about, what happened there. So at that time, that, you know, would be kind of like a sign to me maybe that I’ve, you know, that I’m tired, that I need some, some alone time.

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So I’ll gear myself care, you know, around, around that piece. But again, you know, when it comes to, if you’re maybe coming home from work and you’re like, oh, I don’t really know what I want to do today.

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And you’re going through all the different activities of, you know, your typical like self care. Maybe one of them is, okay, I know I could go and meet my friend for a cup of coffee, but you’re having that feeling where you are tired or you’re kind of thinking, oh, well, it usually works for me.

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But today I don’t really feel like I have the energy for it. Then it’s totally okay to go with something else. Different forms of self care are going to be needed for different emotions and moods and all the rest of it.

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So yeah, that’s a, that’s, that’s a really good point that you went there actually. Oh, your actual, your day instruction as well, a huge effect on how you actually then in the evening or at the weekends you want to then spend your own time.

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Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, it’s, it’s again, all, all about kind of just reflecting back and asking yourself, what do I need right now? What, what do I want? And it’s listening to yourself, you know, not making yourself do things that you don’t want to do and trusting your instincts, your gut as well.

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But yeah, like there’s, there’s loads, there’s loads of different, you know, kinds of self care out there. And, you know, just to pick back up on that point that I was saying about the, you know, different forms of, different kinds of self care will be used for, you know, different moods and emotions and all the rest of it.

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But some kind of common activities may be that, you know, if someone’s thinking or listening now going off, do you know what, this sounds great. I want to have a self care plan. And they’re not really sure where they can start.

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And some of the kind of the activities that I always recommend to the people that I meet is like journaling. So journaling is a great activity where it’s, it’s like diary, you know, you were small and then maybe you kept a diary.

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It’s essentially like that. So it can be so therapeutic because you’re writing down your thoughts and your feelings. So you’re allowing that outlet for yourself. So it’s going to reduce stress. It’s going to clarify your thinking because it’s all, it’s amazing, you know, when we have a thought just as quick as it comes, comes to us, it leaves again.

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So when we write it down, we can actually kind of look at thoughts and go, oh, this is, this is the way that I was thinking. This is the way I was feeling. You know, it can, it’s almost then like a maths equation.

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You can actually like, when you’re going, trying to like reframe some of maybe the unhelpful thoughts or feelings that you’re having, it’s always like trying to like streamline it down. So you get to know yourself a lot better, you know, how you’re thinking and what you’re feeling.

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And it can really help you to understand, you know, what’s going on. It can give you a better understanding, you know, what things make you feel closer to yourself, what things make you feel kind of further from yourself.

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Self-awareness is a core component of optimizing health and well-being. Gaining clarity around personal needs, preferences and boundaries helps to manage daily stressors and life demands. Whether financial, relational, work-based or environmental, it is vital to recognize how common stressors can impact their physical and mental health if left unchecked.

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Oftentimes, self-care can gravitate into becoming another to-do list, leaving people burdened by a sense of need to do specific things in order to be healthy. By gaining an understanding of the benefits of a self-care routine, you will see positive steps in all areas of your life.

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Zevo Health has a number of self-care trainings that will assist your organization maximize well-being. Contact us today to start your workplace well-being journey. www.zevohealth.com Self-awareness is a core component of optimizing health and well-being.

Speaker 2

Gaining clarity around personal needs, preferences and boundaries helps to manage daily stressors and life demands. Whether financial, relational, work-based or environmental, it is vital to recognize how common stressors can impact our physical and mental health if left unchecked.

Speaker 2

Oftentimes, self-care can gravitate into becoming another to-do list, leaving people burdened by a sense of needing to do specific things in order to be healthy. By gaining an understanding of the benefits of a self-care routine, you will see positive steps in all areas of your life.

Speaker 2

Zevo Health has a number of self-care trainings that will assist your organization maximize well-being. Contact us today to start your workplace well-being journey. www.zevohealth.com

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When you find that, you know, you can make that conscious decision. So go, OK, this makes me feel good. I’m going to do more of this. This doesn’t make me feel good. So I’m going to do less of this. But we were talking about, you know, like grazing at me and TV and all the rest of it.

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That is a form of self-care, but also gaming is a form of self-care. And I’m such an advocate for gaming because people, again, people always kind of like roll their eyes or they be like, oh, what did you do to see them?

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They go, I was playing Xbox and you’ll see them drop their head down to be like, I’m like, no, that’s fantastic. You know, games stimulates your mind and it’s a form of escapism and it’s found to be so effective when it comes to dealing with like physical and psychological stress, pain and trauma.

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So, you know, when you’re playing games, you know, like even let’s say like, like for me now, I’m not a huge gamer, but I love like the funny ones. I say like, OK, and I’ll be trying to complete a level.

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I don’t know. Did you ever do like Star Road Race? Oh, my God, Michelle, it’s the most stressful thing ever. But it taught me such an important message or a lesson, you know, not to give up and to keep going.

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So gaming helps you to build emotional resilience to failure. It gives you a sense of accomplishment when you finally get across that checker line. And but also, you know, it’s a it’s a huge source now like online game and for social interaction.

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So even you were mentioned there about introverts and extroverts and, you know, some people don’t want to go and have face-to-face interactions. That gaming is a great way to kind of still get that social wellness, but without having that kind of face-to-face interaction.

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If you’re not ready for that yet, especially with COVID, you know, we’ve been limited since two years, March 2020. I think COVID landed on our on our doorstep. So, you know, you know, we’re slowly getting back to, you know, what normal was, but I think we have a new sense of normal now.

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But, you know, it takes time for us to be comfortable. So it can be a great way to kind of get that social wellness in there. But going back again, just to the effectiveness of gaming as well, it’s been like research is so much to be so effective for like treating like ADHD, anxiety, depression or PTSD.

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So if gaming is a form of self-care, you’d be proud of it. Iron it, you know. But then kind of, you know, the more common ones like a mindful walk and exercise, you’ve already spoken about that. So why that’s so good is that it helps to boost your mood and your energy by increasing like blood flow and circulation to the mind and body.

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So it’s going to be increasing that blood flow, releasing endorphins. And this helps to reduce the stress. OK. So what we’re kind of we’re kind of hitting two guards at one stone here. We’re hitting the mental wellness and the physical wellness.

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So mindful walks and such an advocate for them. They’re fantastic as well. And also kind of as well, when we’re when we’re, you know, engaged in exercise, you know, we’re looking after ourselves. We feel good about ourselves.

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We’re proud of that. So it’s found to help with like body image. It helps us to have better sleep hygiene as well. So we’re using up that maybe that leftover energy throughout the day. And again, it’s also a source of social interaction because we can ask other people to to join us.

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But then again, you know, cooking and cleaning, you know, with bringing attention and setting the intention of kind of, you know, doing something for ourselves. We’re nourishing the mind and the body.

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We’re creating a home for ourselves. So we’re engaging in different activities that spark joy, positive thinking, or even remind us of those heartwarming memories. This is a great place to start, you know, for for self care.

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But I suppose I’m going to put you on the spot here now. What what gives you that sense of nourishment? What do you do typically for self care? And I’d say my idea of self care has changed very much over the last couple of years.

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And three years ago, it would have been definitely we’ve been socializing just different people like friends, family, that sort of thing. And whereas now I don’t give them that still love. I just would definitely be a social person.

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That would be a huge part of my personality. But like was funny you said about like the game during lockdown. I got so into GTA, Grand Theft Auto, the Xbox. So this is going to sound really weird. Even as a child, I was never into that sort of thing.

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And I used to sit there playing GTA and listening to Michelle Obama’s book. What a combination. I know she would they’re talking about different things, like really important things. I’m like, take that.

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because I’m playing as much actually now funny but like that was something that I definitely relied on. I would be big into journaling and that sort of things that I have a journal and I’d write in every morning and like that kind of be how I’d start and finish my day so I would do a meditation and five, ten minutes and don’t like obviously five, ten minutes and the relative to your day it’s quite short but it has a huge impact.

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Then I suppose also I have a small dog so walking would be huge. I’d walk every day because he doesn’t not let me walk and so there’d probably be probably about an hour walk a day and that’d be sometimes a friend, sometimes with a podcast, sometimes with music, sometimes with nothing and for some people if you have a dog I sometimes like to do because my dog’s a bit older to the 11 so it’s not as long walks but we’ll do like a fun walk and it’ll just be me and him and we’ll go over to the park and we’ll be off the lean we’ll kind of chase each other back and forward and that sort of thing and it kind of brings a bit of like sometimes like I’m sick of the boring walk,

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you’re sick of the boring walk, you know that sort of it kind of may take something that could be a bit dull and make it a bit more fun and that’s one thing I really love too and I think it’s a lovely little kind of time for you and your dog obviously it is completely for dog people but it just kind of brings that bit of fun back into it something like very normal and then I suppose as well I would I do love um I love,

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this can sound really sad but I love like cooking and cleaning because I think you get a good satisfaction out of us. Yeah yeah a sense of achievement isn’t it? Remember self-care is something that sparks joy it’s something that nourishes us it’s bringing balance between you know our work and play.

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No you know we want to be doing this every single day you know practicing it we want to be developing you know our self-awareness our resilience you know bringing spending more time doing things we enjoy but we want to be very very careful of the activities that seem like self-care but they’re actually a distraction.

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So a distraction is a method of avoiding difficult emotions which actually hurts us uh you know more in the long run so for example okay if you had something that was causing you stress um I always go back when I think stress I always go back to like education all my examples always come from education but today if you have um like an assignment and you put on the long finger now you’ve had two weeks to do it and now it’s going to be due in a day or two um and you notice that you’re feeling stressed so you go oh I’m dealing with stress Kira told me when I notice I’m dealing with stress to do self-care I’m gonna go on a really really long walk because I’m really really stressed so you go on this lovely walk and you feel great because it’s self-care but actually are you just going on that really really long walk so you don’t have to do that assignment so then when you come back it’s not that nourishing feeling that you have after it it’s probably guilt is probably even more stress now so it’s very very important that when we when we’re engaged in self-care that we’re actually doing it to nourish ourselves to heal to soothe ourselves not to cause us more stress so it’s really important we think about self-care um but even to go about some other misconceptions you know while we’re on this topic of self-care it’s reminding yourself that we all deserve it you know every single day even if you are again in education you have so many assignments so many deadlines are in work it’s coming to the end of the quarter you have so much stuff to do taking self-care and time out for yourself isn’t selfish it’s vital it’s needed and it’s not a sign of weakness either you know to be human is to be emotional and I love that phrase because it’s just so simplistic and you know it’s just a no-nonsense statement it is what it is and it’s very very important that we engage in self-care for ourselves and realize that you know we’re not robots we all have our limitations and if we don’t mind ourselves we’re going to be sick you know be it physical sickness or mental sickness or worst case now it’s going to be both we’re going to be experiencing you know some trauma or some burnout so we need to be engaged in self-care so we have a healthy balanced you know lifestyle and diet this is going to help us with our energy levels and mood regulation as well and we want to be creating time to you know engage in exercise we’re increasing that kind of blood flow this is going to help us you know what they’re thinking their learning or memories are going to be so helpful for us who are you know trying to kind of develop ourselves professionally or academically um self-care is going to help us to kind of safeguard our sleep routine sleep is so so important you know if we want to be focused and we want to learn that we need to be looking at sleep as well but again for like a mood regulation sleep is so so important but yeah taking breaks for ourselves is going to help us to deal with hardness it’s going to reduce that fatigue that we feel at the end of every day it’s going to increase our motivation to do more things when we come home from work and it’s also going to help us with learning new things and remembering things as well so it’s very very important that we are finding that space for ourselves to engage in self-care one thing I was kind of looking to move on to then would be kind of barriers to self-care.

Speaker 1

One thing, particularly in Ireland, would be gender and self-care. Women in general would kind of be a lot stronger at looking after their physical health, their mental health, and kind of just being able to take those breaks.

Speaker 1

Whereas a lot of the time men in every walk of life are less likely to accept health and admit when they kind of need that moment. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I suppose first and foremost, self-care is not just for women, it’s for everyone at any age, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or patient, location, we all need to look after ourselves.

Speaker 1

But you’re right, men are significantly less likely to report mental health illness. There was a study done recently that showed, I think it was by Healthline, that 65% of men said that they avoid going to the doctor unless it’s kind of like they have a fear that something is very wrong.

Speaker 1

But the thing is then is that we need to be looking after ourselves before and not leading it to the very, very last moment. And even when they do come forward and ask for help, 20% of them weren’t honest and 37% still withheld information.

Speaker 1

So by encouraging men and the men in our lives to engage in self-care and to also have that time with fun for themselves, it’s really, really important because it’s going to help them to know what’s their level of normal, what’s that baseline indicator for them so they can notice when things are deviating from that.

Speaker 1

And we’re also to open up this conversation and include everyone in it. And then hopefully we’re encouraging and referring the men in our life to engage in self-care and reminding everyone it’s just something, something that we have to do.

Speaker 1

And we’re seeing a lot more trainings in women health and men’s health coming at the moment. But hopefully these trainings are going to help us to overcome some of those barriers. But another huge barrier to self-care is time.

Speaker 1

Oh my God, when you’re working at nine to five and if you have a family and if you have another family to look over, like maybe your parents or any of those parents or anything like that, there’s very little time for ourselves.

Speaker 1

So it’s really, really important that when we are trying to engage in self-care that we are actually finding a time, you know, at how you cook dinner, you have a space in your day, you go, okay, I’m going to cook dinner between this time today.

Speaker 1

It’s the exact same for self-care. So, you know, self-care is going to change depending on what’s going around you at the moment, depending on how much time you have. Some days you’ll have an hour to dedicate to self-care, but sometimes you might only have 15 minutes.

Speaker 1

And it’s important to allow for that change and that flexibility. But again, it’s just focusing on what you can do to create your experience and your environment in the time that you have. Every single day, just checking in with yourself.

Speaker 1

You know, it’s not always going to be perfect. And when you are working full time, or if you have loads of responsibilities, or you just find yourself, you know, that you’re busy, you just want to kind of write down and think about, you know, what are your goals?

Speaker 1

What do you want to do to achieve? Make sure that self-care is, you know, it’s contributing to your social wellness. Make sure you’re still having time for rest and downtime. You know, we want to be looking after your physical wellness as well, such as sleep, diet, and exercise.

Speaker 1

And please attend and prioritize health appointments. And when you’re sick, take those days off. You need to allow your body to rest. We have this kind of burnout culture or burnout mentality when we tell ourselves, you know, just keep going.

Speaker 1

Just keep going. You’ll be fine. Truck on. That’s the phrase I hear all the time. It’s very, very important that, you know, we do allow ourselves to just slow down, take that break. We leave the should and the should nots behind like, oh, I should go for a walk today.

Speaker 1

Go for a walk if you want to go, go for a walk. The only people who tell you you should or shouldn’t do something were our parents, for our teachers. And we hated it when they told us what to do. So don’t be telling yourself what to do.

Speaker 1

Speak to yourself in a way that’s respectful, and it’s compassionate, and it’s recognizing what you want to do. But I suppose, you know, when it comes to self-care, it’s looking at your situation realistically, and, you know, trying not to stay in the past, trying to break down some of the stigma around self-care, encourage those people in your life to look after themselves.

Speaker 1

And the thing is, well, if we seem to be looking after ourselves, and showing other people that we’re a priority, people kind of follow, it’s like that domino effect. So practice what you preach as well, believe you deserve it, focus on the present situation, what do you need, what you want, and remember that, you know, it’s not always going to suit everyone when if you say, do you know what, no,

Speaker 1

I’m not going to do this today because, you know, I’m dealing with a lot of stress, maybe you’re going to limit or avoid contact with certain people, you’re trying to create a distance from something, it might not suit everyone else, that’s not a sign for you to not do it, okay, self-care is about you, so you need to, you know, assess what do you have in your arsenal today, what can you deal with,

Speaker 1

what can you not, what brings you closer to yourself, what brings you further to yourself, being a cheerleader, it’s almost like being a guard for yourself, you get to decide what’s allowed in and you decide what stays out.

Speaker 1

You know, the systems that we engage in are going to impact how we think, how we feel, and how we behave, and the way that we speak to ourselves is going to impact those three things as well, so we want to be very, very critical and mindful of what we’re allowing in, is it serving us a purpose, is it being kind, is it being considerate, because if it’s not it needs to go.

Speaker 1

Yeah, kind of what you said as well on the would you talk to a friend like that, I’ve actually tried to kind of, I think I’ve started to notice it a bit more as well, the kind of, don’t talk to, even like when you’re talking to yourself, like you’re in there for life, so be making a nice place to be kind of thing, like speak to yourself, give yourself positive things, we’ve all done it, I’m sure every woman as well has done it,

Speaker 1

you try on something you don’t like, oh my god, I’m so this, I’m so that, you know, that sort of, just be nice to yourself, if you wouldn’t say to a friend don’t say to yourself. Exactly, yeah exactly, and that’s the brilliant thing about self-care and why I’m such an advocate for it, is because you know, by creating this time and space, again do you remember we were talking about how kind of, it almost happens automatically,

Speaker 1

that when we engage in self-care, that we become more mindful of what we’re saying to each other, because it helps us to be in the present moment and we become more compassionate, so that’s why it’s so important, we engage in self-care every single day, and then if you notice there’s more on your plate, that you’re stressed or overwhelmed, you’re anxious or you know that, you know like you were saying there,

Speaker 1

like an issue with regards to body image comes up, that we engage in it that little bit more, you know, part of self-care is recognizing when we need help or when we need support and when we or when we need a break, so if your load is too heavy, ask for help or ask for support, or if you notice that you know, you’re not being kind to yourself, it’s creating that time and space for you to reframe that and go hold on a second,

Speaker 1

that’s not nice and reframing that for yourself, so it’s all about being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to self-care, being aware of you know, who you’re spending your time with, where you’re spending your time, what you’re saying to yourself, and then trying to you know, be proactive in a way of becoming more kinder and more helpful towards yourself, so you can build that resilience,

Speaker 1

you can manage those emotions, create a safe space for you to be in and then you have that sense of balance between you know, like work, life, socializing and all the rest of it and so you know, it’s just very very important we’re taking you know, we are practically taking care of ourselves, I always say like imagine if your neighbour was sick, and you would all constantly be checking in on them three or four times a day,

Speaker 1

making sure they were all right. Oh, do you have a doctor’s appointment? Or do you have dinner? Maybe if you went to the shop, you pick them up a nice little chocolate bar because you know it’s their favourite.

Speaker 1

I want you to do that for yourself. Treat yourself as you would your next door neighbour if you were minding someone else. That’s the level of kindness we want to be to be showing ourselves. I think one thing a lot of people kind of would fall back on would be kind of self-calming strategies, particularly breathing.

Speaker 1

We actually did a kind of workshop last week in work. So within Ziva we did it’s basics of breath work and it was really really good. I was having a bit of a week. We did it last Wednesday and for the rest of the day I could actually just feel my whole self and it was only I think it was a 45-minute workshop but it really kind of showed it kind of was the change in point to my week.

Speaker 1

And it wasn’t something that took, it wasn’t a full day, it wasn’t a weekend go of course or anything like that. It can be the really the small things that make such a big difference. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1

And I suppose what a valuable lesson for you that you now know that breathing techniques is something that works for you. Some people really love mindful stretching. I personally love when you combine the two of them.

Speaker 1

So when you’re breathing in and you’re matching your breath to your stretching and addressing areas where attention tends to accumulate. When it comes to the self-calming techniques, when it comes to self-care, if you’re in work and you notice you’re dealing with stress, it’s not realistic for you to be like okay well I’m going for a coffee or I’m going to meet my friend.

Speaker 1

So we need to have a catalog of these kind of strategies to help us to kind of relax in the moment, to bring us back to that present moment. So breathing techniques are great because they ground us in it.

Speaker 1

They calm the breath because when we’re stressed, we kind of stop breathing or stop breathing fully. For me, I clench my jaw. Oh my god, that’s how I know I’m really stressed because I will finish a task and maybe close my laptop after work and I’ll be like oh my god my face hurts.

Speaker 1

So it’s looking at for me, it’s being mindful that when I notice I’m maybe working under pressure, it’s stopping and taking those few moments. Every like 10-15 minutes just re-regulating my breathing, stretching out my jaw, stretching out the neck and the shoulders, using those strategies in the moment.

Speaker 1

But then I suppose then with self-care, we can also integrate other things as well for when we do have the 15-20 minutes to go into. So I think we have a few recommendations here for people which is great because we picked a few topics but yet we didn’t tell each other which ones we were picking and we might find that they’re actually quite different.

Speaker 1

So the very first one was podcasts. So I love podcasts when I want like a lift or a laugh and I have to listen to the two Johnnys, I’m sure you’ve heard of them. But I also love listening to music because sometimes podcasts, there’s so much information, I’m just like okay no, I don’t have the capacity to listen after a really busy day.

Speaker 1

So I love sticking on music that I already know and having a good sing song. It’s great fun and such a release when you’re stressed. Yeah I love music when I’m like hotter about doing stuff. Then like if I’m out for a walk sort of thing, I do enjoy a podcast and I kind of have two avenues that go down with podcasts.

Speaker 1

So I’d have like the kind of, if I need to laugh, um, one of my, the podcast, I always laugh. My therapist goes to, you know, the podcast with Joanne McNally. And then if I think, if I kind of fancy getting to something a bit more out of it, I love podcast, I am a CEO and I also love, um, it’s a new one.

Speaker 1

I’m not sure if it’s been a year or so. And the moments that made me with Roxy Nafusi, she also has a book that I’m reading at the moment, the seven steps to manifest in your best life. She’s all kind of that sort of, and she’s very good.

Speaker 1

And definitely add that to my list. So when we were kind of, we both kind of looked at would be kind of apps and apps to help, but obviously as you said as well, they can be, as much as they can be a good one, they can be almost too much of instruction.

Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So you’ve got to make sure that you have those kind of like digital boundaries for yourself. So for me, like I love, I love TikTok and Instagram. I love them. And I do use them as a form of self care because, um, I always get such a great giggle from them, some of the videos.

Speaker 1

And I’ve been on the apps long enough now that like, you know, I, I only follow things, you know, that give me that sense of wellness or that I’m interested in. So I kind of help the algorithm to show me things that I, that I enjoy, but I have to make sure I’m mindful of how I use.

Speaker 1

Love. And it’s going to say random will be the flip it up. I love monitoring. I just can say, I love seeing how much sleep I had. I love, like, you know, you get the email and choose every week. You report.

Speaker 1

Love that there’s a TikTok and Instagram as well. I think that’s where you need to kind of be able to take a bit of responsibility over yourself. And if there’s someone that you see every day and they wind you up, or you just don’t agree with what they’re saying unfollow, like it’s as simple as that.

Speaker 1

And it’s just kind of putting yourself in the driver’s seat to that extent. Yeah. And that’s it. And that’s a very, very important thing that you mentioned there is that we’re in the driver’s seat, not social media.

Speaker 1

So there was another thing that you, you mentioned about books. Now I have to admit reading and writing reminds me a lot about work and studying. So I’m definitely more of a listener, which kind of then makes sense, you know, the job that I’m in as well.

Speaker 1

But so when it comes to, you know, if I want to, you know, listen to something educational, I always go back to the podcast. That’s my, that’s what I prefer. I love, I love TED talks. Um, and it’s just a fun way for me to learn something new, because sometimes my eyes are just so tired.

Speaker 1

I thought your phases, but I would be a decent enough reader, but all that I do love is an audio book. Yes. I use them as well. Some of the books, as I said, the Seventh Testament Manifestation with Roxie and Ifusi, that’s really, really good.

Speaker 1

I’m only about halfway through, so I won’t give any kind of much info there. But one I actually read at the beginning of the year was how to break up your phone by catching price, and that was brilliant, really good.

Speaker 1

And it was so eye opening. It was only when I was doing it, I was like, Oh my God, you are obsessed. So then the last thing was websites. So when it comes to websites, I wanted to recommend just mentalhealthirelands.ie.

Speaker 1

It is a great website that has so informative and educational, and there’s so many sign quotes and stuff, it’s a great place to start if you just want to know a little bit more about general well-being.

Speaker 1

And I suppose that kind of brings us to the end of today. So, Kirith, thank you very much for coming on and trying to really enjoy this. Oh, thanks so much for having me. Diving into what self-care is can be fundamental to maximizing your well-being.

Speaker 1

I really enjoyed today’s conversation and having a look at how we can all practice our own self-care. Thank you again to Kirith and thank you to the listeners. We look forward to welcoming you back to another episode of Zero Tops.