Your Self-Care May Not Actually Be Self-Care
You followed all the “right” self-care advice - worked out, ate a healthy breakfast, made time for friends, even cracked open a book you’ve been meaning to read.
So why do you feel worse?
Imagine this scenario:
You’ve been hearing more and more about the importance of self-care, so this week, you decide to finally start applying it.
Before heading to work, you do a 20-minute workout video from the comfort of your home to get in the exercise that you know you really should be doing on a regular basis.
You’ve been wanting to eat healthier, so you take the time after your workout to actually make breakfast for yourself, rather than just grabbing a granola bar on the run as you typically do.
You’ve been meaning to spend more time with friends, so after work you head to trivia night with folks who have been encouraging you to come out for a while.
And when you get home, you decide to crack open the book on your shelf that’s been sitting there since you purchased it about a year ago, because email and cleaning have always taken priority over time for yourself.
Instead of feeling rested and restored, you’re… cranky. Restless. Tired. Kind of cheated. You did all the “right” things - so what went wrong?
Why Your Self-Care Might Not Be Working
All of these activities are great in theory. But self-care isn’t one-size-fits-all. If it doesn’t match what you actually need in the moment, it can leave you more depleted than restored.
The true point of self-care is to respond to what you’re feeling and needing. We all have feelings and needs, but many of us aren’t great at tuning into what these are at any given moment.
We also forget that these feelings and needs change on a regular basis. What we need at 10am on a Tuesday may be very different from what we need at 9pm on a Saturday.
When we treat self-care like a checklist instead of a check-in, we often end up doing things that backfire. It’s kind of like only having a hammer in your toolbox and grabbing it for every household issue you have. It’ll work great if you have to hang a picture, but it’s probably going to make your problem worse if you’re trying to fix a leak.
Self-care only works when it meets your real needs.
So before you act, you have to pause. Engaging in actual self-care first means paying attention to what you’re feeling. It means moving out of autopilot and into intentional awareness. It means moving away from pushing through your days and taking the time to notice what’s actually going on for you.
How to Match Your Self-Care to Your Feelings
Let’s go back to the person above and how they spent their day. My first question for them would be: how did they feel when they woke up that morning? Were they feeling energized and rested? Or maybe emotionally drained? Physically tired?
If their answer was energized and rested, then a workout would make a lot of sense. But if they said that they were physically tired, then a workout probably wasn’t what they were actually needing. It might have been better to spend that time doing some gentle stretching or maybe sleeping in a bit longer.
Same thing goes for spending time with friends - did this person feel bored and isolated? Or were they feeling overstimulated or maybe peopled out? If they just spent all day at a desk job with little interaction with others, then spending time with friends might have made a lot of sense. But if they’re an introvert who just had a day full of back-to-back meetings, a trivia night might have been the last thing they needed.
I run into a lot of folks who default to reading as their self-care and then feel frustrated and confused when they can’t focus, or it’s not helping them relax. And yet reading still involves sensory input. I’ve often found that when my clients aren’t enjoying reading, it’s because they actually need self-care that allows them to fully disconnect - things like being out in nature, spending time with pets, getting a massage, or taking a long shower or bath. They don’t need something else to focus on - they need space.
The Real Goal: Awareness Over Autopilot
At its core, self-care is a matching game. It’s about pairing your self-care activity with what you’re actually feeling and needing. In concept, it’s simple. In practice, it’s more complex.
We as human beings typically aren’t great at identifying what we’re feeling and needing. But then on top of it, we overanalyze everything to death, which often takes us further away from where we want to go. If you find yourself questioning your entire identity because you suddenly don’t feel like reading, the issue might not be that deep - you may just need less sensory input right now.
To start working on this, I recommend using an emotion wheel. If you type “emotion wheel” into Google, you’ll find examples to choose from. When you’re trying to decide how to spend your time, start here and first identify what you’re feeling. Sometimes it’s easier to figure out what you’re feeling when you have a list of feelings to choose from.
Next, identify what you need based on that feeling. If you’re feeling bored, the need might be stimulation or excitement. If you’re burned out, the need might be rest or a disconnect. And if you’re lonely, the need might be time around other people.
Then, pick a self-care activity that seems like a good fit based on what you learned.
Here are a few examples:
Feeling: Physical exhaustion; Need: Rest; Self-Care: Take a nap over lunch.
Feeling: Boredom; Need: Stimulation; Self-Care: Do a crossword puzzle or visit a new coffee shop in your town.
Feeling: Overwhelmed; Need: Ease; Self-Care: Go for a slow walk in a quiet area, or just sit in a park without any devices.
Feeling: Helpless; Need: A sense of control; Self-Care: Complete one tiny task that you’ve been putting off for a while.
It takes practice to turn this into a habit that feels comfortable.
But here’s the truth: Real self-care doesn’t come from a checklist - it comes from checking in with yourself. If you want support in learning how to do that, please reach out.
Hi, I’m Amanda. I’m a psychologist in Bloomington, Indiana providing online counseling and therapy services to professionals navigating life transitions. Please reach out if you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment.
