When I was a student leader at ANU, we had a training session on self care. We were told about how we needed to take time for ourselves, to relax and look after ourselves. They proceeded to give examples. One of their examples, was cat videos. Is that really self care?

I’ve noticed that’s a trend around self-care recently. I knew people who would say that they were having a self-care night, which involved watching hours upon hours of Netflix. Is that really self-care?
Self-care, at its most basic form, is doing what you need to do to be a healthy, functioning, human being. Brushing your teeth is self-care. Showering is self-care. Getting a minimum of 7 hours sleep is self-care. Then self-care got turned into watching cat videos, or hours of Netflix. How does that help you be a healthy human being? The idea is that it helps you mentally. After doing something really taxing, letting your mind do something easier helps reset it, a form of showering for the mind. But are these things really the healthiest option?

I’ve gotten caught in this trap before. I told myself that watching YouTube was really easy on my mind and that it was good to refresh after a hard day. But funnily enough, I always feel more tired after watching YouTube. These apps are designed to give a dopamine reception like drugs, so like drugs, while this can feel good in the short term, it’s really not good in the long term. And it’s certainly not self care! This isn’t to say that you should never watch TV – but we should all be conscious of how much time we give to these companies on things that are designed to keep us hooked and actually not refresh our minds.

So what are some healthier self care options? Think about things that will actively improve your life. For example, how would you feel if you spent 30 minutes meditating and breathing deeply instead of watching a TV show? Some other ideas include journalling, reading, walking, exercising, and calling family. These are things that, while it may not seem like it, should actually give you more energy, not sap it away with a planned dopamine response designed by a company.

What are your self-care experiences? Let me know in the comments.