What is self-care? A Google search for the term reached a five-year high this year, and turns up results that include everything from meditation, to therapy, to skincare. Harvard Business Review defines self-care as not only physical, but care of the mind, emotions, relationships, environment, time, and resources.
So, basically, self-care is anything you ever do in your entire life. The phrase has resurfaced as a kitschy catch phrase over the last few years and continues to grow in 2017. For a relatively meaningless term, #selfcare gets a lot of love.
1. Grounded in History
- Ancient Greece coined the idea that you can’t care for others before you care for yourself. Acts of self-care were believed to encourage citizens to be understanding and caring of others.
- Socrates made it his mission to remind people to “concern themselves not with their riches, not with their honor, but with themselves and with their souls.”
- American individualism, personified by people like Walt Whitman, portrayed ideal society to be centered around the self-cultivating individual.
- Author Audre Lorde described the concept in her 1988 book, A Burst of Light:”Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” Self-care has historically been a way for marginalized groups to insist upon society that they mattered and thus worthy of self-care.
2. A Millennial’s Game
- More millennials than any other previous generation have reported making personal improvement commitments.
- Millennials spend twice as much as boomers on self-care–based purchases like diet plans, therapy, and apps that promise to improve their personal well-being.
- Everything millennials do is portrayed as an obsession, the self-care craze included.
- It’s a relatively new idea in our culture that paying attention to how we feel is a type of personal intelligence.
3. Educating Through Internet Access
- Increased internet access allows people to become more sensitive to others, and to openly admit to needing time for mental and emotional health.
- Students have reported using the internet to identify self-care strategies, alternative therapies, and other information related to nutrition and fitness.
- They also feel the internet empowers their health care decision making, though they are often skeptical about the validity of health-related information and credibility of internet health resources.
- Having affordable access to information increases awareness in areas that often aren’t taught by schooling or from families.
4. A Social Movement
- On Instagram #selfcare has over 2 million posts. Similarly, popular self-care slogan #treatyoself, a mantra used to take away the negative stigma of splurging on something seen as an indulgence, has over 2 million posts. #selflove has over 8 million uses, and #loveyourself has over 13 million.
- Social media has even dedicated a day to the act of self-care (whatever the actual act may be), known as #selfcaresunday.
- On Twitter, a @selfcare_bot tweets hourly affirmations like “No matter what, you need to do what’s best for you.”
- Social media has increased the understanding of mental illnesses and decreased their stigma.
5. Marketing & Media
- There are full Etsy shops dedicated to “Self-Care Kits” filled with things as random and varied as bath bombs, journals, and toothpaste.
- Beyonce’s younger (and hipper) sister Solange released a song titled Borderline (An Ode To Self Care) in late 2016 as a reminder to take some time for yourself.
- There are companies creating self-care marketed products as unique as planners that outline when you should take time for yourself, and temporary tattoos with reassuring sayings like “This too shall pass.”
- Gamers and programmers have participated in an online “Self-Care Jam,” where they spread positivity across the web in a video game intended to teach people to take care of themselves.
The self-care craze has a history dating back to ancient times, and is reaching a new peak with the internet and millennial consumers. Labeling everything and anything centered around self as “self-care” portrays self-focus as a radical act or something out of the ordinary, when really, caring for ourselves should be something we do unapologetically every day.
Read more about self care and millennials on NPR. Learn more about it’s history from The New Yorker.
Image Source: Flickr
