Selfcare is about caring for yourself. We focus on selfcare being things like taking a bath, getting your nails done, getting a massage, reading a book, or whatever you enjoy. But what about when you’re sick?
When COVID hit, many people were willing to wear a mask because they didn’t want to accidentally cause someone else to become ill. We were also told to keep our asses at home if we felt funky so as not to even risk contagion.
We spent nearly two years being cautious about not spreading illness to others, and yet, once COVID numbers reduced we went back to our old habits of exposing others to whatever cold, flu, or other illness (there are a lot of them) that we come down with now and then.
WHY WE KEEP GOING WHEN WE NEED TO STOP
How many times have you pushed yourself too hard, gone to work, worked out, spent time with friends, or did something for your kids, even though you were sick?
How many times has that backfired on you and caused you to stay sick longer or get sick again after you thought you were getting better?
Our culture often punishes us for slowing down or stopping when we don’t feel well.
It values things like being on time, and accomplishing things.
Taking a day off can mean emails stack up, meetings are missed, dinner doesn’t get cooked and is ordered instead, housecleaning mounts, or any number of other things. Then, we feel like we’re behind so we have to work harder once we get going again.
That’s no fun, so you lie to yourself and say that it will be better if you get up and go to work, run errands, and generally go on as if you don’t feel like crap. The problem with this is that the human body needs rest, sleep to be specific, to heal.
WE ALL IMPACT EACH OTHER
Then there are all of the people you will come into contact with if you leave the house. Most people aren’t wearing a mask in public anymore if there isn’t a mandate. So, I’m also guessing that, when you feel generally under the weather, most of you aren’t wearing a mask then either.
I’m not telling you to mask-up again if that isn’t what you’re comfortable with. I’m saying that when you are ill your actions affect your health and the health of others.
If I could truly tell you what to do, when you don’t feel well, I’d tell you to:
Stay in bed.
Drink lots of fluids.
Sleep.
Ask others to take care of things.
Cancel your meetings (they’ll deal).
Don’t check your email.
Don’t respond to texts that are connected to anything stressful (work, kids, extended family, you know the ones).
Don’t clean the house.
If you can’t sleep, watch senseless TV until you can.
Have some chicken noodle soup.
Better yet, ask someone to make you some chicken noodle soup.
Sleep (that’s when we heal the most).
BEING WILLING TO STEP AWAY FROM WORK
One morning, when I was newly graduated from undergrad and had my first big girl job, I woke up feeling like buffalo had been dancing on my head all night. Headache, body aches, chills, the whole shebang. I checked my temperature and it was 99.9 degrees.
I was terrified to not go to work, but I felt so awful. 99.9 did not seem like enough of an excuse to miss work. I curled up on my couch in my little apartment in Chicago, called my mom and started crying.
She told me that the world was not going to end if I missed one day of work.
If I didn’t feel well, I needed to stay home. I don’t know why this was a revelation to me, or why I had to be told this by others a few (hundred) more times in my life before I got it, but it stuck with me.
I took the day off.
I slept.
I went into work the next day (with the snuffles, but no fever), feeling so much better and got back to work. The world had not, in fact, ended.
The only things that seem to keep us from pushing ourselves are extremes like vomiting and diarrhea.
We push and push and push, and then we wonder why we don’t get better faster. Stop asking that question. You know the answer.
A “WALK IT OFF” CULTURE WAS FORCED TO STOP
I’ve always wondered at our “push though” mentality. It seems illogical. After the evidence of these past two years with COVID, I really wonder about it. I noticed I didn’t get sick during those two years. A lot, and I mean a ton, of other people said they noticed the same about themselves.
We loved not getting sick.
I loved that for once, when I went on my annual two-week trip to Key West with my husband in March, I wasn’t sick. I have had colds, cold-sores, flus, and even possibly COVID in March 2020, while I’ve been on vacation, sweating out fevers and loading up on Tylenol.
Being forced to slow down and to be more conscious of interactions with others and illness resulted in fewer illnesses overall.
WHERE ARE YOU ON YOUR OWN LIST?
When we take care of ourselves, we take care of everyone. If you boil it down, isn’t that why you push yourself? To take care of everything and everyone else?
Move yourself to the top of the list.
Resting when you’re ill makes it so that you:
Get back into life faster.
Are better at your job (inside or outside the home) because you’re more clear-headed.
Are more efficient.
Don’t get other people sick.
Can enjoy your time with others instead of wishing you were in bed.
MOVING FORWARD WITH OUR LESSONS LEARNED
The impact of COVID-19 has been devastating. However, it isn’t the only illness that can cause us lasting harm when not attended to. It isn’t the only illness that you’ll feel horrible about giving to others.
Continue to make the same choices you would have when we were on high alert during the pandemic, and your immune system will have a chance to build itself up, because it won’t be getting pushed to the brink as often as in the past.
If you find that you’re the sort of person who runs herself ragged and would like to figure out why and learn how to create change, you and I can do that together in Integrative Life Coaching.
It’s time to stop getting in your own way.