Understanding self-care Flashcards
What is self-care?
Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in
order to take care of our mental, emotional, … and
physical health.
Why do we do self-care?
The aim of self-care is to make explicit a continuum of
care for self that restores and enhances health,
congruent with the individual’s values and beliefs.
Self-care is also an important part of the primary
healthcare initiatives that people engage in to
proactively prevent illness and achieve personal well-being.
According to WHO the scope of self-care includes:
health promotion
disease prevention and control
self-medication
seeking hospital/specialist care if necessary
• Health promotion activities
include eating balanced meals, doing
appropriate and adequate exercise/physical activities, and actively
participating in social activities.
Disease prevention activities
observing personal hygiene such as
washing hands; eating, storing and serving food hygienically,
protecting our body from diseases; keeping our home and work
environments clean, avoiding smoking, drinking and drugs; and
engaging in safe sexual practices.
Self-treatment/medication:
using home remedies during sickness,
such as taking fluids like Rehydrate when having diarrhoea, or
paracetamol tablets during fever, etc.
Seeking medical assistance:
if fever, discomfort, pain or bleeding
does not subside; the individual must go to the dr or hospital for
professional treatment.
Personal hygiene is also referred to as personal care/ self-care. It includes the following:
Bathing and Showering
Hair, nail and foot care: clean, trimmed fingernails and toenails are important. Germs often
collect underneath the nails.
Frequent and thorough hand washing and foot care is a good way to prevent germ or fungus
build-up. This has become even more important in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nails that are too long can scratch and tear the patient’s skin and may result in a localized
infection.
Flourishing is a state of
- complete mental health and • involves feeling good, • functioning well and
- having good relationships and a robust state of health.
The opposite of flourishing?
Opposite: Languishing
• Negative state of stagnation and emptiness
• Lack of flourishing: due to consequences in the
presence of mental illness (increase odds of mental
illness)
How to know when you are flourishing.
You know you are flourishing, when your battery is recharged… and how do we do this…
Implement healthier self-care practices
Benefits of self-care
• enhance clinical performance
• facilitates the development of empathy
and compassion, better clinical
decision-making (Epstein 1999) • Associated with Emotional Intelligence
(high self-awareness, self-regulation,
motivation, empathy and social skills) • Improves immunity • Has effects on neural plasticity
Self-care check
inability to deal with personal
stress; which also negatively impacts upon the
ability to deliver compassionate medical care
Gains of self-care: Holistic Well-being
Development
• self-care in the form of mindfulness-based stress management and lifestyle programs can improve student wellbeing, even during high-stress periods.
Gains of self-care: Practice good self-care
• You will love yourself more when you take better care of your basic needs. People high in self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities, like sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, intimacy and healthy social interactions.
What will happen to me while I study … Medicine
• During your studies at medical
school, you will go through some
changes…. • significant changes in health habits; • which will have an impact on
academic performances
• emotional adjustment • future functioning
Impact of not implementing healthy self-care practices
• Sleep deprivation • Changes in sleep habits may occur (as students adjust their sleep schedules in favor of studying (e.g., ‘‘pulling all-nighters’’). • Health issues • Increase in substance use
Define stress
• A way of responding to circumstances/events that
threaten our perceived ability to cope. • The response to stressors (threats) • More commonly, the pressure individuals feel in their
lives
Define anxiety
• A feeling of apprehension, tension, or nervousness. • Focused on the possibility of threats/future fear
How are stress and anxiety similar?
Stress and anxiety are similar in that they are
emotions we feel in response to things we fear,
but stress is a response to the immediate threat,
while anxiety is the response to the future
threat
Two Types of stress
- Distress
- Eu-stress - Eustress is “GOOD Stress”
Distress
Causes anxiety or concern
Can be short- or long-term
Short term: Is perceived as within our coping abilities
Feels exciting
Improves performance
When should we really practice these habits???
-Self-diagnosing – realizing you have a disease (Self-care is self-treatment, but not
like this)
• Overwhelmed and Frustrated
contracting illnesses ourselves like Chickenpox
• Your patient dies or delivering bad news
• Distress – medicine only helps so far • Contracting TB
Excessive workload
• Compassion fatigue
• Sleep deprivation
• Tons of information…. Every day (data-overload) • “Stressed” or “anxious”
• Needlestick injuries – risk of exposure to HIV
Factors impacting well-being
“Depression and anxiety lead to reduced student
learning … decreased concentration, motivation,
and interest and challenges to cognitive
functions such as working memory”
Develop a healthy lifestyle- Domains and outcomes
Education: the importance of knowledge and
reflection
• Stress management: the importance of mental health. • Spirituality: the role of meaning and/or spirituality on
coping, health and illness
• Exercise: the importance and application of physical
activity
• Nutrition: the role of healthy nutrition and the
influences on eating patterns
• Connectedness: the role of social support for
wellbeing and healthcare
• Environment: creating a healthy physical, emotional
and social environment
Holistic development (creating positive well-being)
- Healthy relationships - a sense of belonging
- Emotional stability and strength
- Physical health
- Life long learning
- Achieving goals and success
- Purposeful living, faith-based, religion-based
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is defined as paying attention to the current moment in a purposeful, open, accepting, and
non-judgemental way (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Mindfulness is theoretically and empirically linked with
improved attention and concentration and more mindful learning (Langer, 2000).
