Self-Care: the buzzword appears on magazine articles, blogs, and social media on a recurring basis these days. A search for “self-care” on Google returns over 5 BILLION results. Online searches and mentions of self-care peaked at an all-time high in September 2018. But what does it mean and why are people suddenly talking about it?

Why Self-Care?

One theory around the popularity of self-care is that the world we live in pressures us to do everything well because we’re comparing our lives to the lives of our friends and celebrities online. A Pinterest-worthy birthday party? No sweat. A picture of myself at the gym this morning? Got it. A copy of the gourmet recipe we cooked for dinner after three sports practices and a private tuba lesson? Here you go.

Add national, state and local news headlines to the stress of performing our daily lives in front of everyone on social media and we’re an anxiety infused people.

We’re also seeing the stigma around mental health disorders reduced, which means more people are talking about ways to care about their physical and emotional needs.

What is Self-Care

The commercialized self-care industry paints a picture of self-care as a weekend getaway, a bubble bath, an hour of yoga or even time spent binging Netflix. True self-care is anything that recharges us so we can be better members of our community, which also includes our family and our workplace.

We’ll spare you a list of self-care to-dos, which often provide more instead of less stress. Instead, we encourage you to think about what recharges you or fill-in this blank: I have more energy when I ___________.

We’d love to hear how you take time to re-charge. Tell us the comments below!