
Give yourself the precious gift of your time and attention to address your own physical, mental, and emotional well-being
By Mukund Acharya
The most valuable and meaningful gifts you can give someone are gifts of your time and attention. I think you’ll agree. However, have you considered the importance of giving yourself the gifts of your time and attention? We get so caught up in our responsibilities that we invariably neglect ourselves. As this year gets underway, I urge you to make it a priority to invest in your well-being. Give yourself the precious gift of your time and attention to address your own physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Motivate yourself to practice self-care
Even if you’re in good health and rate yourself high on a well-being scale, you need to practice self-care. If you are dealing with health, emotional, personal, or age-related issues, or if you are caring for someone who is, then self-care is critical. Self-care is a key component of healthy aging, which is defined as developing and maintaining the functional ability to enable our well-being as we get older.
Healthy aging is much more than staying physically healthy as we get older; it’s also about staying emotionally healthy and maintaining a sense of purpose and a zest for life. A good way to motivate yourself to practice self-care and age well is to list the five most important goals you have right now. Then ask if it’s worth investing in yourself to ensure you can pursue those goals.
The key to success
Becoming – or staying – healthy is among the most widespread of New Year’s resolutions. Year after year, statistics show that only around 1% of all resolutions survive by year’s end; more than 80% fail in the first 3 or 4 months. The reason is that we don’t build the regular habits needed to implement our resolutions. The key to success is to create and build these habits; learning how to weave self-care and healthy-aging practices into the fabric of our lives and integrate them into our daily routines.
What is self-care?
Self-care is a daily holistic wellness practice to address your emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health, in addition to maintaining physical health. Harvard Medical School describes self-care as a wellness plan for body, mind, and spirit that is a powerful lifestyle complement to traditional medicine.

Physical and mental health
Several health and behavioral factors are within our control if we want to practice healthy aging. The National Institute of Aging (NIA) provides a readable, concise summary of the keys to maintaining good physical condition: healthy eating, exercise and physical activity, good sleep, quitting smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, and getting regular medical and dental checkups.
Mental and cognitive wellness is also essential to our overall health and quality of life. As the NIA points out, “It affects how we think, feel, act, make choices, and relate to others. Managing social isolation, loneliness, stress, depression, and mood through medical and self-care is key to healthy aging.” It is critical to keep socially connected, manage or minimize stress, and be watchful for depression. Research shows that mental and physical health are interconnected. No matter our age, some regular leisure activities and hobbies play an important role in maintaining good health.
The American Heart Association provides a complementary set of guidelines they call Life’s Essential 8, key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health. It’s well established that better cardiovascular health helps lower the risk for heart disease, stroke, and other major health problems and that diet and lifestyle that are good for good heart health are beneficial for brain health as well.
Pillars of self-care
To implement a successful, regular self-care practice, it helps to visualize a structure or framework that captures all these different aspects of well-being and develop a plan for engaging in activities that we enjoy that address each of these areas. We should start small, develop habits, and then build on them. This is the key to proactively managing our overall health and well-being through intentional practices.
The author and influencer Catherine Beard suggests we think of the seven essential pillars of self-care that work together to bring a sense of wholeness and completeness in life: mental, emotional, physical, environmental, spiritual, recreational, and social. You can adopt these self-care pillars or adapt them to suit your particular needs.
Building a plan
Build a self-care implementation plan around your pillars of choice. It should be based on self-awareness – a good understanding of your own needs, stressors, and triggers. Try to capture multiple dimensions – where possible, incorporate activities that address more than one component discussed, such as physical activities, emotional well-being, mental health, social connections, and spiritual practices.
Set yourself up for success: start small, set specific, measurable, and achievable goals, and track them to stay motivated. Celebrate your successes. Establish a regular routine to build consistent habits that you can sustain in the long term. Be flexible; adapt your self-care practice as needed when your needs or circumstances change. Conduct a regular review and self-assessment. Be mindful and kind to yourself!
Invest in yourself and your self-care. You – and all those around you – will reap the rewards.
Read: Mental Health of Institutionalized Children in Pakistan
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Mukund Acharya is a regular columnist for India Currents. He is also President and a co-founder of Sukham, an all-volunteer non-profit organization in the Bay Area that advocates for healthy aging within the South Asian community.
Courtesy: India Currents