The Importance Of Emotional Self-Care In Times Of Stress
An expression that we use when we want to refer to the current era is “in these times.” And how ironic, right? The routines of the 21st century take us from here to there at a trot; The demands and needs of our family, friends and co-workers are demanding and immediate. Ours too: we are not tolerant of uncomfortable emotions or unpleasant thoughts, and it takes us a few seconds to compensate for the discomfort with intense and fleeting gratifications, such as watching something on television or consuming social networks. Furthermore, despite the fact that contemporary society tends towards comfort and less effort, many success-oriented values still persist.
The new packaging chains are the apps that catch us, showing us perfect lives and advice on how to be more efficient, productive or happy. It is common that in a world characterized by this multiplicity of stimuli, many turn out to be extremely aversive, and why not, stressful.
However, since we mentioned them, just as there is content on social networks that can be harmful to our well-being, they can also be put to good use. There are many sites or accounts that disseminate information about how to take care of ourselves in a responsible and rigorous manner, emphasizing the importance of self-care. One of the forms of self-care is emotional self-care a concept that we will develop in this article as it is of vital importance in times where stress prevails.
Before addressing the importance of emotional self-care, we consider it necessary to clarify that stress, in itself, is a normal reaction of an organism to a stimulus that is considered aversive or stressful. and we say normal while possessing the capacity to experience stress, no matter how unpleasant it may be, represents an adaptive quality.
Stress allows us to ensure survival at a biological level ; but it also gives us the possibility of changing, of giving new creative responses to the challenges that life presents us; In short, make decisions according to what is important to us and the context that surrounds us.
The circumstances that generate stress force us to mobilize. The problem is when the adaptation mechanisms that we put into play are not enough to put an end to stressful situations; In other words, over time we are not able to deal with what we perceive as a threat. Prolonging the stressful situation can have both unwanted physical and cognitive effects on a person, but also lead to behavioral alterations.
Emotional self-care: why is it important?
Taking into account the assumption that in the times that run As we find ourselves increasingly exposed to stimuli that could stress us, we could argue that self-care is an extremely useful practice to respond to the daily challenges that often overwhelm us. Taking care of ourselves allows us to pursue a better quality of life, strengthen the most significant bonds that surround us and commit to them, in pursuit of achieving improvement in physical and mental health.
On this last level, at a psychological level, implementing self-care practices helps a person experience greater emotional well-being even when facing events that have a negative impact on him or her. This does not mean that through self-care practices we can eliminate stressful situations. In fact, In some cases it would be counterproductive to avoid events that cause stress. For example, an oral exam could be an event that easily generates unpleasant emotional states such as fear, stress or anxiety.
However, avoiding the exam could take us away from something valuable to us (finishing our studies), so the important thing is not to remove stress, but to be able to deal with it. This is the purpose of emotional self-care practices: to give ourselves a moment to be with ourselves, with how we feel in a certain situation, being able to identify the physical signs of discomfort or emotional exhaustion.
Carrying them out could also give us some clarity or perspective so that it is easier for us to establish boundaries between work and emotional life. Self-care strategies allow for greater emotional regulation, knowing how to recognize one’s own needs and showing when we should ask for help.
Some emotional self-care practices.
In general, There are many emotional self-care practices that can help us feel less overwhelmed by everyday stress and provide more conscious responses to the challenges of the world around us. Many of them are based on reducing exposure times to unnecessary stressful situations, while others aim to be carried out in practice in the face of current stressful situations.
Below, we leave you some examples of emotional self-care practices that could be useful in different contexts or scenarios. There may be some activity that falls outside of these suggestions and that still involves a self-care practice; so don’t let these ideas limit you. The important thing is that you choose the one that best suits your daily routine so that you can put emotional self-care into practice.
