Title: How Does Self-Care Affect Mental Health? - Mission Harbor Behavioral Health
Headings: How Does Self-Care Affect Mental Health?
How Does Self-Care Affect Mental Health?
What Is Self-Care?
What Do Studies Say About Self-Care and Mental Health?
How to Practice Self-Care
Find Help When You Need It
Sam Dekin

Content: Self-care relies on increased self-awareness, which can benefit people who are living with a mental illness. Practicing self-awareness can help you to recognize patterns in your emotions, including events or situations that can trigger worsened symptoms. It can also help you to recognize what activities or tasks are necessary of your wellbeing, soothe negative symptoms of a mental illness or stress, or simply bring you pleasure or relaxation. That doesn’t mean that self-care is the cure for mental or physical illnesses. While self-care can help people with conditions like mental illnesses or chronic illnesses, it also has been found that many people fail to provide adequate self-care in the midst of a flare-up of symptoms. Many people find it difficult to provide self-care when it is most needed, due to fatigue, feelings of hopelessness or guilt for indulging in something pleasurable, pain, limited mobility, and other factors. People are quick to parrot the benefits of self-care for depression, anxiety, and other mental or physical illnesses, but don’t recognize the amount of labor self-care can require, nor the struggles of people who are trying to provide self-care while also living with their symptoms. How to Practice Self-Care
That being said, self-care is an incredibly broad term for the practice you may already be doing to feel your best or manage symptoms. Self-care doesn’t need to be elaborate, expensive, or labor-intensive to be effective—you may not even need to go out of your way to practice self-care, just learn to observe how your routine affects your mood and functioning. Building a list of favorite self-care methods can be especially helpful in identifying what activities make it easier for you to function, improve your mood, or reduce your stress levels.