#Self-Care
@AHS_Wellbeing
What is self-care?
Self-care is all about what you can do to help yourself feel better or to keep yourself feeling good and positive. It’s a way that we can look after our own mental health and wellbeing. When we neglect our self-care, we can more easily become overwhelmed with emotions and engage in ineffective or impulsive behaviours. Everyone’s approach to self-care will look different and what works for you might not work for others. There are lots of different self-care strategies so the best tactic is trying out different ones until you find something that works for you. The main thing is to find things you enjoy - whether that is playing football, listening to music, reading or having a long bath! Below we've shared some activities that you may wish to try and you can also read about how these activities have helped other young people when they feel low or anxious. If an activity works, keep doing it and if it doesn’t, stop and try something else! Equally, you may already have your own thoughts about what you’d like to try. It’s up to you.
How do I create a self-care plan?
There are over 90 self-care strategies identified which have been written by young people - this is a good place to start.
Now start to draw up a plan which gives you time every day for yourself to do something you enjoy.
Try breaking down your self-care approaches into different categories (physical, emotional, social and practical) this will help you monitor and positively influence your wellbeing throughout your day.
Talk, talk, talk! You must have heard the expression 'a problem shared is a problem halved' , as everyone has mental health, talking almost always helps.
So by creating a self-care plan you will be able to identify activities that you can use to support your mental wellbeing. You can then adapt your plan on a weekly or monthly basis depending on your schedule or priorities.
