{"id":998,"date":"2018-07-25T13:14:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T03:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/?p=998"},"modified":"2019-06-26T10:27:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T00:57:58","slug":"dr-gs-guide-self-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2018\/07\/25\/dr-gs-guide-self-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr G’s guide to self-care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update<\/strong>: we now have a new Self Care Mega Guide<\/a> with extra strategies and our service pamphlet attached to the back. A nice upgrade on the one described in this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Modern life places a lot of demands on our physical, cognitive and emotional resources.<\/p>\n

Internally, we have expectations of ourselves to perform at a high level, across multiple domains, for long periods of time.<\/p>\n

Externally, we might also experience similar expectations from others: family, friends, work colleagues.<\/p>\n

If there is one reality I encounter regularly, is that most people are ‘very busy’ and are feeling the pressure to stay on top of the different aspects of their life: work, study, family, friends, hobbies and social responsibilities.<\/p>\n

This level of pressure leads many people to start neglecting their own health and wellbeing. It might be as simple as not getting enough sleep, or drinking a little extra wine to unwind at the end of the day. However it can build up to a point where a person is neglecting their health and wellbeing to the point that their ability to perform does become compromised.<\/p>\n

When I talk with people about self-care, a common reaction is that “I know that, but….”. People are aware that self-care is important, but find reasons to refute the importance of it to them. I have definitely done this. It wasn’t until my health became quite compromised a few years back, and my ability to keep the parts of my life afloat took a hit, that I started taking self-care seriously.<\/p>\n

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been pulling together what I know about self-care into a model of mental fitness <\/a>that now underpins much of the advice that I provide to students, and is the basis of documents like “How to prepare yourself mentally for work placements<\/a>” and “A quick guide to self-care for mentors<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

That model emphasises 11 domains of self-care, that encompass a range of individual strategies.<\/p>\n

Building positive emotions<\/p>\n

Managing challenging emotions<\/p>\n

Thinking better<\/p>\n

Self-awareness and understanding<\/p>\n

Meaning, purpose and identity<\/p>\n

Building supportive relationships<\/p>\n

Caring for your body<\/p>\n

Developing the skills for professional success<\/p>\n

Modifying your environment<\/p>\n

Financial literacy<\/p>\n

Having fun and unwinding<\/p>\n

In the attached document, <\/a>I go through each of these areas and provide some starting points for how you might incorporate this domain of self-care into your own life.<\/p>\n

This guide to self-care is a work in progress, one which I will continue to develop and refine over time, adding new strategies as my understanding of the literature improves.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I hope you find something of value in this document.<\/p>\n

All feedback and suggestions welcome (please let me know – gareth.furber@flinders.edu.au – if the links are broken<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"Self-Care<\/a>
Click to get pdf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: we now have a new Self Care Mega Guide with extra strategies and our service pamphlet attached to the back. A nice upgrade on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":1001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,1147,2502,63,1980,23,31,71,7,2159],"tags":[3448],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-information","category-healthy-lifestyle","category-life-skills","category-lifehacks","category-mental-fitness","category-mental-health","category-psychological-tools","category-recommended-reading","category-well-being","category-workbooks","tag-self-care"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}