According to a study published by the International Journal of Nursing Sciences, Self-Care can be defined as:
"the ability to care for oneself through awareness, self-control, and self-reliance in order to achieve, maintain, or promote optimal health and well-being."
Self-care carries different meanings depending on your life experience, responsibilities and resources. The term has become washed out in our society's obsession with integrating the buzzword into the consumerism world. This is not likely to change anytime soon however, we are experiencing a shift in self-prioritization.
Self-care should not just be a way for brands to make money. Obviously, companies that provide products and services that solve problems and make their customers' lives easier need to be compensated, but this should not be done by exploiting our fears, concerns and lack of information about real self-care.
This goes beyond making purchases for convenience or comfort. It is deeply personal. It involves making difficult decisions, understanding our emotions, identifying our values, practicing self-maintenance, enforcing boundaries, and ultimately having ownership on our lives.
In this class, we will go over the different areas of self-care, from the traditional "pillars of self-care" to the health-focused "pillars of self-care," in effort to educate people about how to use the resources available to them to have an intentional "self-care" strategy that supports their day-to-day wellbeing.
This class will be a part of a campaign to improve how "self-care" products and services are marketed to encourage more accountability and integrity involved with providing "solutions" to people's core problems with prioritizing their wellbeing and health.