This document discusses self-care and provides guidance on developing a self-care plan. It defines self-care as activities that reduce stress and enhance well-being in the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, work, and relationship domains. It recommends identifying current coping strategies and areas of imbalance to determine goals for a self-care plan. The plan should include regular maintenance practices and emergency practices for difficult times. Developing, committing to, sharing, and following a self-care plan can help people care for themselves.

1. SELF-CARE
©Diane Hanna, 2018
CARING
FOR
YOURSELF

2. WHAT IS SELF-CARE?
• Self-care is an essential survival skill.
• Self-care refers to activities and practices that we can
engage in on a regular basis to reduce stress and
maintain and enhance our short and longer term health
and well-being.
• Self-care is necessary for your effectiveness and
success in honouring your professional and personal
commitments.
• Oxygen mask analogy.
©Diane Hanna 2018

3. IDENTIFY AND MANAGE GENERAL
CHALLENGES
• All people face the potential for stress and burnout
(working) or interpersonal difficulties.
• Be aware of your own personal vulnerabilities – such
as the potential for re-traumatisation (if you have a
trauma history), vicarious/secondary traumatisation (if
you work with individuals who report their own
traumatic experiences), and compassion fatigue (which
you can develop from a combination of burn out and
vicarious traumatisation).
• Achieve more balance in your life, by maintaining and
enhancing the attention you pay to the different
domains of your life in a way that makes sense to you.
©Diane Hanna 2018

4. AIMS OF SELF-CARE
• Self-care is not simply about limiting or addressing
professional stressors. It is also about enchancing your
overall well-being. There are common aims to almost
all self-care efforts.
• 6 Areas or domains of Self-care:
• Physical - Body
• Mental – Mind
• Emotions – Feelings
• Spiritual
• Work
• Relationships
• Other
©Diane Hanna 2018

5. AIMS OF SELF CARE - CONTINUED
• Taking care of your physical and psychological health
• Managing and reducing stress
• Honouring emotional and spiritual needs
• Fostering and sustaining relationships
• Achieving a balance across personal and work lives
• Each of us may differ in these domains we emphasis
and the balance we seek among them
• Each life is unique and has it’s own unique demands –
therefore we must determine what self-care means to
us, and how to apply it in our life.
©Diane Hanna 2018

6. DEVELOPING YOUR SELF-CARE PLAN
• To develop your self-care plan, you will need to identify
what you value and need as part of your day to day life
(maintenance self-care) and the strategies you can
employ when or if you face a crisis along the way
(emergency self-care).
• No ‘one size fits all’ plan, but there is a common thread
to all of them – making a commitment to attend to all
domains (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, work,
relationships)
• Road map analogy – vehicle maintenance/travel
activities/rest stops along the way.
©Diane Hanna 2018

7. HOW DO YOU COPE NOW?
• Identify what you do now to manage stress in your life
- complete ‘Lifestyle Behaviours’, “Is your life causing
you stress” assessment can help you identify the
coping strategies you currently use and whether these
are good, or not so good, for your well-being.
• Decreasing or eliminating at least one negative coping
strategy can be one of your goals of your maintenance
self-care, while adding more positive ways of coping
can be another goal.
©Diane Hanna 2018

8. WHAT DO YOU DO FOR SELF CARE NOW?
• The ‘Self-care Assessment’ or life wheel exercise will
help you identify the good things you already do for
yourself and whether there is an imbalance in the
areas in which you practice self-care (personal
hygiene/presentation etc)
• Can also help identify future things you may want to
do, to help prevent stress and to maintain your well-
being (hobbies/interests).
• Feel free to add other things to the domains.
©Diane Hanna 2018

9. MAINTENANCE OF SELF-CARE, ADDING SELF-
CARE PRACTICES & ELIMINATING OBSTACLES
• Maintenance self-care refers to the activities that you
have identified as important to your well-being and that
you have committed to engage in on a regular basis to
take care of yourself.
• Complete ‘Maintenance self-care worksheet’
• Useful in identifying possible barriers/obstacles that
could get in the way and think about what these could
be – list some – and how they could be addressed.
Add these solutions to your plan, on the last page.
• You can revisit this topic and revise your list as the
demands of your personal/work life change.
©Diane Hanna 2018

10. EMERGENCY SELF CARE: BE PREPARED
• Covered maintenance of self-care, the things we
practice regularly to reduce stress and enhance well-
being, but what about planning for extremely trying
circumstances – even though relatively rare – life
happens!
• Best to work out our emergency plan before the life
crisis hits (break up, death, job loss etc) or you begin to
feel overwhelmed. Fill in emergency self-care
worksheet.
• The idea is to be prepared – just in case…it is
important to think about this in advance while you have
the time and can concentrate effectively.
©Diane Hanna 2018

11. MAKE A COMMITMENT TO YOURSELF
• Remember the oxygen mask analogy…Make a
commitment to your own self-care –
• YOU DESERVE IT…!
• If you find making a commitment to self-care a
challenge, examine your reservations. Do you have a
tendency to put the needs of others first? Remember
that your self care is a necessary element for you to be
effective and successful in honouring your personal
and professional commitments. Your success in
implementing your plan is based on your level of
commitment you make to your self-care.
©Diane Hanna 2018

12. SHARE YOUR PLAN & FOLLOW IT
• Once developed, you may share your plan with others
close to you (friends, family, peers, colleagues) for
exchanging ideas/strategies and sorting our obstacles,
as well support and encouragement (gym hassles/diet/
recipes/methods/trial and error).
• Now that you have identified the core elements of your
personal self-care plan, the final step is to implement
your plan and keep track of how you are doing.
(mindfulness, reflection of your day/week), also employ
your emergency plan should difficult circumstances
arise.
©Diane Hanna 2018

13. THANK YOU
SHUKKRAN
©Diane Hanna 2018