Alongside the global increase in mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic, the world saw a rise in calls for mental health awareness and action. As America experiences a mental health crisis, with 1 in 5 adults reporting experiencing mental illness in 2021, the need for effective self-care is critical — especially when considering that these practices often provide important support to mental health services. Often, mental health care providers will recommend self-care practices, including journaling, meditation, or participating in hobbies as a way to curb stress and anxiety, or prevent burnout. However, for many people, “self-care,” as it is widely understood, often fails to fully support their psychological needs.
The word self-care seems to be most often associated with spa days, face masks and a litany of products that have combined to create a multi-trillion-dollar wellness market. In contrast, many patients and providers agree that self-care includes tending to your body’s needs (food, water, sleep, etc.), and does not need to involve the expensive wellness market. Rather, self-care practices can involve being more intentional with everyday tasks that maintain good health.
Even within the wellness industry, clinical and physician approval of products is extremely important; consumers care about the efficacy and context of the products they use. However, whether your self-care is journaling or making sure you get three full meals, many people find that such practices have not improved their well-being.
For some, this may be the result of generalized self-care’s failure to measure up to the body and brain’s changes when experiencing significant stress/stressors or trauma. When we experience trauma, our prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of the brain, is compromised. This change means that when someone is dealing with traumatic experiences, decision-making, taking care of themselves and asking for help all become more difficult. Chronic stress also has a neurological and physical effect, impacting memory and emotional functions of the brain, and causes or contributes to inflammation and poor heart health.
Often, self-care is described as a solution to mental health issues, but it’s more accurate to classify it with physical needs such as eating and sleeping. Whether or not you’re experiencing mental illness, self-care is a necessity. However, self-care alone does not address the impact of individual and generational traumas.
So what’s the alternative to generalized self-care? The easy answer is to seek therapy alongside these practices, but the current high cost and low availability makes this option inaccessible for many people. Social factors, especially stigma around receiving mental health treatment can also make accessing mental health care difficult. For example, certain households may be judgemental about those who attend therapy, and men may experience a larger social stigma relating to emotional expression. However, adopting a trauma-informed framework for self-care can help adapt the current self-care recommendations to better serve their needs.
One key shift is to move away from self-care rituals emphasizing solitary actions. For those navigating trauma or high persistent stress, a strong social support system is critical. In fact, social support systems are considered a protective factor that helps prevent several negative psychological developments, such as PTSD and depression.
A core part of American University’s community is activism and change-making. In spaces like these, managing mental health and establishing a sustainable, trauma-informed framework are critical for positive mental health outcomes. This management and trauma framework is especially helpful in avoiding compassion fatigue from spending a great deal of time, emotional labor, and physical energy helping others.
When pursuing changemaker goals, it may become difficult to balance the myriad of global issues with the necessity of self-care. Although the opposite can feel true, it is important to remember to commit to yourself as much as you commit to others. In these instances, it is important to rely on the community you are a part of and take part in activities that ground you. On the other hand, it is critical for us to look out for our peers, whether to reaffirm that there is no shame in taking care of oneself or to invite others to lunch to make sure they get three meals a day.
Self-care, by name, is centered on the individual, but that does not mean that it is an endeavor that has to – or even should be – be done in solitude. Self-care is the bare minimum in managing mental health, fulfilling your body and mind’s most fundamental needs.
In times of crisis, or when an individual is experiencing mental illness, changes in your brain (which means changes in your body) mean that some of your needs shift. You may find yourself needing more rest, or finding that you feel better engaging or disengaging with different activities than your regular schedule. Essentially, the needs that should be met daily to achieve a better standard for mental health are different when you are experiencing stress than when you are doing well.
In such situations, standard self-care is still necessary, but you may need more support, and there is rarely a better place to find it than with your community.
Urjita Mainali is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences and a columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Nicole Kariuki and Ella Rousseau.
