Self care is something you have probably already heard about. This topic has been a huge trend in the wellness community recently, and there is a good reason for it. Self care is crucial in maintaining good mental and physical health. It is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress”. The simple version: “taking time to take care of yourself”. While the concept of self care seems easy, implementing it is often more difficult than we think. I want to take a minute to talk about why this is, and why I think reading is one of the best possible ways to practice self care.
Living in a world where speed and productivity are idealized makes it hard to take the guilt free down time we all need. Guilt free being the key term. How many of you feel guilty when you sit down to watch TV but there is a stack of homework or pile of dishes waiting to be done? I do! How are we supposed to relax when our to do list keeps growing and there are 100 other things we could be doing in that moment? This is what makes self care difficult. It’s not the act of self care itself, but all the other things we feel like we should be doing in that moment. I heard someone refer to this as Hustle Culture, and that is the perfect term to describe the systemic pressure we all feel to be busy and efficient ALL THE TIME.
There are so many great ways we can practice self care. For example, taking a bath, exercising, or watching our favourite TV show with a glass of wine in hand. All of these are really great ways to relax and take time for ourselves, but I have one problem with them. It is hard to actually forget about your stressors and disconnect while doing any of these. You can still be thinking about your meeting at work tomorrow while you're in the bath tub or on your run. And if you're like me, you often multi task while the TV is on. Does responding to texts and scrolling through social media with the TV on in the background sound familiar? So you're not really disconnecting after all. If you're able to forget all of this and put the distractions away, that is amazing! If you’re anything like me, you struggle. This is why I turn to reading.
Reading is a dissociative activity. Dissociation is defined as the mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. So when you're engaged reading a book, you're not multitasking or thinking about anything else. You get to truly disconnect from your stressors and get wrapped up in the world or topic of your book. This dissociation is what makes reading so effective when it comes to taking a break.
So I challenge you next time you are feeling stressed, to schedule some quiet time to read. Choose a book that you have been wanting to pick up or on a topic you love (nothing that will feel like work). Let yourself disconnect from the world and take a break from everything else you have going on. You deserve it.
Yours Literarily,
Lauren.
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