Self-care is often thought of as something that we do only when we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. But it’s so much more than that. Self-care is an important part of maintaining overall wellbeing and can be beneficial in all aspects of our lives. Investing in yourself is the only way to truly do that, and this is what my article will be arguing for today. I hope you find it enlightening.
Investing In Yourself: What Is Self-Care?
For many people, when they hear the term self-care, they picture people having a bubble bath with lit scented candles or having a massage, and for some people, that is self-care (YoungMinds, n.d.).
Even the World Health Organization (WHO; 2020) has a pretty bland by-the-number definition of self-care. They state that it’s the ability of people, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with disability or illness without the support of a health worker. While that might work as a definition for supporting people in countries that are considered to be “developing”, it’s not that useful for people on a more general and individual level.
Self-care is so much more than that; self-care looks different for everyone (Ayala, Ellis, Grudev, and Cole, 2017) because we’re all different. So what might be self-care for one person might not work as self-care for someone else.
For example, blasting metalcore or nu-metal and dancing around like no one is watching because I’m a metalhead for life, works for me, but someone else might find loud music stressful. For them, sitting quietly in the garden reading a book is their form of self-care. If you take only one thing away from reading my article today, let this be it.
Stripped back to its simplest form of what self-care might be, it’s something that helps your mind, body, or soul to feel good (Cabotaje, 2020). In short, it doesn’t matter what your self-care looks like, what matters is what your self-care does for you as a person, because it’s your thing, it’s your self-care (YoungMinds, n.d.).
Also, I can’t stress this enough, but engaging in self-care isn’t a waste of time, and it isn’t selfish. Your wellbeing matters, a lot. If you’re not going to look after it, then who will?
Why Investing In Yourself Using Self-Care Is Important
According to Scott (2024), having an effective self-care routine has been shown to have several important health benefits. These benefits include reducing anxiety, depression, burnout, and stress, improving resilience and happiness, increasing energy, and creating stronger social support networks.
Support for this comes from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; n.d.), who state that self-care plays a role in maintaining our mental health, and aids in mental health treatment and recovery.
The Health Promotion Model, which is a model for explaining our motivations for engaging in health-promoting behaviours (Aqtam and Darawwad, 2018), also supports this. This is because the Health Promotion Model proposes that the pursuit of self-care activities will increase our quality of life (Ayala, Ellis, Grudev, and Cole, 2017). In a lot of ways, it’s just like how the road to happiness is in the journey, not the destination. In fact, this is an important part of the Health Promotion Model.
Lastly, a study by Ayala, Winseman, Johnsen, and Mason (2018) also supports investing in yourself through the use of self-care. Their study, which comprised 817 medical student participants from medical colleagues across the US, used an online questionnaire to measure self-care, perceived stress, and quality of life.
Their findings suggest that high engagement in a wide range of self-care activities may provide a protective effect on the negative relationship between stress and quality of life. Thus, they reported experiencing less stress and having a better quality of life.
Investing In Yourself
It’s all well and good talking about how good self-care is, but the problem is people don’t invest in themselves. Often, we just don’t have the time between work and family commitments, which is why, for a lot of us, investing in ourselves stops when we finish our education (White, 2017).
It’s possible that some of you might be confused about my use of the term, investing in yourself, when I’m talking about self-care. Investing is usually associated with money, property, and the stock market (Doyle, 2023).
Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do
So what does it mean to be investing in yourself? Well, according to Life/Me (2024), it’s the time, action, and energy we devote to an activity with the expectation of a positive or worthwhile result. In that sense, investing in yourself through self-care is about putting something in to get something better out at the other end. It doesn’t have to be a big “investment”. A short clip of an animal doing something funny can be enough. Microjoys can be surprisingly powerful like that.
But guess what? Investing in yourself isn’t something you have to earn, and you certainly shouldn’t feel guilty about investing in yourself and being consistent with your self-care (Boerger and Boerger, 2023).
Investing In Yourself Through Acts Of Self-Care: What Does That Actually Mean?
I know it can be easier to invest in something external or even someone else because it’s easier to see the results of such an investment Life/Me (2024). But it’s also nice to be kind to yourself. You’re worth investing in.
However, investing in yourself and your self-care is nothing without purposeful engagement in it, whatever form that self-care takes. A study by Bloomquist, Wood, Friedmeyer-Trainor, and Kim (2015), found that those who played lip service to self-care but engaged in such activities on a limited basis didn’t see their wellbeing improve or their stress reduce. Self-care isn’t a one-night stand, it’s a 50-year relationship where you grow old in a retirement home together.
Also, it’s important to distinguish between true self-care, which is helpful, and what can sometimes be confused as self-care but is actually harmful. For example, retail therapy may make you feel happy (often fleeting), but if you can’t afford to go shopping, then this is going to have a net negative effect on your wellbeing (Cabotaje, 2020). Also, even the less fun kinds of self-care will help bring rest and peace to your life (Boerger and Boerger, 2023).
How To Go About Investing In Yourself?
The following are a few examples of the kind of self-care you could invest in, as well as a tip or two about how to be more consistent with your self-care.
Healthy boundaries
It’s impossible to talk about self-care and investing in yourself without talking about healthy boundaries. How can you have any kind of a decent quality of life if you don’t have healthy boundaries? Therefore, work out what kind of boundaries you need, and accept that you have the right to say “no” to things you don’t want to do, such as going out to a club (Cabotaje, 2020).
Sleep
Prioritising sleep is worth investing in as a self-care activity. It might not bring you the same kind of happiness as eating a nice slice of chocolate cake (good I love chocolate cake), but it will make your days easier to manage if you have a good night’s sleep.
To help you with this, check out my article on Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i) by clicking here. You might also want to check out my Sleep Workbook as well, which you can do by clicking here.
Nature
Spending time in nature is great for our wellbeing, but even having a fish tank or a few green plants (real or fake) can have a positive effect on our wellbeing. So you might find it worthwhile to invest in a fake plant or two.
Social support network
Make time to connect with your loved ones. Even just hanging out over a coffee and a chat can be very beneficial for our wellbeing.
Exercise
Regular exercise is not only good for our health, but it also helps us sleep and it’s good for our wellbeing. If you find exercise boring, try to mix it up, work out with friends or join groups that’ll help you socialise while you’re exercising, such as joining a hiking group.
Schedule
It’s easy to let our bad habits stop us from investing in ourselves and our wellbeing. One way to avoid this is to schedule when you’ll engage in self-care, as that’s harder for us to tell ourselves that we’ll do it tomorrow because tomorrow never comes. Thus, making your self-care less negotiable.
Hobbies
Nothing is better than engaging in a hobby or interest, as we can lose ourselves in such activities (Cabotaje, 2020). So if you’re not doing this at the moment, then either look for a new hobby or revive a former hobby.
Continuous growth
Nothing says investing in yourself like continuing to learn, whether simply for pleasure, such as doing a puzzle book, or through knowledge acquisition, such as doing a course or training programme.
Journaling
Journaling is the go-to self-care activity, and it’s for good reason. It can help us in so many areas of our life. It can help with problem-solving, processing things like difficult events and trauma, and it can help us sleep. The list is almost endless.
Habit stacking
Habit stacking can be an easy way to invest more of yourself into your self-care and wellbeing. Adding a self-care activity or a block of time to be used for some sort of self-care with an existing habit will make it easier to adopt. For example, adding meditation to your morning routine, journaling to your sleep routine, or going for a walk/jog as part of your end-of-work routine.
Summary
Consistency is the key. If you didn’t consistently breathe, you’d know about it. If you didn’t consistently sleep each day, you’d start seeing the incremental negative effects creeping up on you. The same is true when it comes to investing in yourself through self-care.
Remember, self-care is not a luxury; it is a necessity. If we wait until we’re already starting to feel worse for wear, it’s not going to be as effective. But if you consistently make time and invest in yourself and your self-care, then you may be able to avoid feeling worse for wear in the first place. Plus, you deserve to be kind to yourself and put your wellbeing first or at least on equal footing with the loved ones in your life.
It can be beneficial to create some sort of list of personal go-to self-care interventions you could use, which should also include nice self-care stuff you could do for yourself just because. In fact, write them all down on a lollipop stick and put them into a self-care jar. Then just pick out one to do every couple of days. For help on creating a self-care jar, check out my article ‘A Fantastic DIY Self-Care And Wellness Interventions Jar‘ by clicking here.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with investing in yourself in the comments section below. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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References
Aqtam, I., & Darawwad, M. (2018). Health promotion model: An integrative literature review. Open Journal of Nursing, 8(07), 485. Retrieved from https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=86144 and https://doi.org/10.4236/ojn.2018.87037.
Ayala, E. E., Ellis, M. V., Grudev, N., & Cole, J. (2017). Women in health service psychology programs: Stress, self-care, and quality of life. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 11(1), 18. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erin-Ayala/publication/311627567_Women_in_Health_Service_Psychology_Programs_Stress_Self-Care_and_Quality_of_Life/links/5894098a92851c545748d234/Women-in-Health-Service-Psychology-Programs-Stress-Self-Care-and-Quality-of-Life.pdf.
Ayala, E. E., Winseman, J. S., Johnsen, R. D., & Mason, H. R. (2018). US medical students who engage in self-care report less stress and higher quality of life. BMC Medical Education, 18, 1-9. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12909-018-1296-x.pdf.
Bloomquist, K. R., Wood, L., Friedmeyer-Trainor, K., & Kim, H. W. (2015). Self-care and professional quality of life: Predictive factors among MSW practitioners. Advances in Social Work, 16(2), 292-311. Retrieved from https://journals.indianapolis.iu.edu/index.php/advancesinsocialwork/article/view/18760/20469 and https://journals.indianapolis.iu.edu/index.php/advancesinsocialwork/article/view/18760.
Boerger, L., & Boerger, L. (2023, June 7). Why it’s hard to invest in Self-Care. Slow Girl Season. Retrieved from https://slowgirlseason.com/invest-in-self-care.
Cabotaje, A. (2020, December). What does Self-Care mean — and why is it important?. Right as Rain by UW Medicine. Retrieved from https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/mind/mental-health/self-care-meaning.
Doyle, A. (2023). Why Investing in Yourself is Self Care: Investing isn’t just throwing your money at something and hoping for the best. Motivation. Retrieved from https://vocal.media/motivation/why-investing-in-yourself-is-self-care.
Life/Me. (2024, February). This is why you might struggle to consistently invest in yourself. Life/Me. Retrieved from https://thelifemeblog.com/2023/11/27/investing-in-you.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (n.d.). Caring for your mental health. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/caring-for-your-mental-health.
Scott, E. (2024, March). 5 types of Self-Care for every area of your life. Verywell Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/self-care-strategies-overall-stress-reduction-3144729.
White, D. W. (2017). Invest in yourself. Talent Development, 71(12), 64-65. Retrieved from https://aghlc.com/downloads/2017/personal-development-article-171206.pdf.
World Health Organization: WHO. (2020, July). Self-care for health and well-being. WHO. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/health-topics/self-care.
YoungMinds. (n.d.). Self-Care. YoungMinds. Retrieved from https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/self-care.
Love this post.. So important. I like that you distinguish between what many people might assume is self care, like bubble baths, versus things like boundaries, habit stacking, also nature. Nature and hiking (exercise in general) has been such a life saver for me during stressful times where everything else seemed stressful or hopeless. Love that you mentioned boundaries as well because it’s not an easy one to learn and yet crucial! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to comment
Great post with wonderful resources, as usual! Self-care is so important, and I love thinking of it as a well-rounded approach of self-investment. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for commenting
So so true! Investing in self-care is the best investment ever. Your health is your true wealth after all.
Exactly. Thanks for commenting
I agree that self care is a necessity not a luxury and that we need to priotize it. It differs from person to another and that what makes it versatile and for all. It was helpful and infromative read that I enjoied redaing. Thank you for hard work.
Wafaa | http://www.loyaltyrain.com
Thanks for commenting
I love the analogy of self-care as “investing in yourself.” It really reframes the concept and makes it feel less selfish. I started small this week by scheduling 30 minutes of reading time each day, and I’m already feeling more relaxed and focused. What’s one small, manageable self-care activity that you’ve found to be surprisingly effective?
That’s a good question. I’m honestly not sure. I guess watching a short funny or educational video