Hi, I'm Cat and whilst you may know me as a Workplace Health Facilitator for Thriving Workplaces, I also sit on the board for The Self Care Forum, a charity that aims to further the reach of self care and embed it into everyday life.

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As next week (14th-20th November) is Self Care Week, I thought I'd share a little more information with you.

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Since 2011, The Self Care Forum has been organising Self Care Week. Self-Care Week is an annual national awareness week that focuses on embedding support for self-care across communities, families and generations.

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The theme for Self-Care 2022 is “Exercise Self Care for Life”. What is meant by self-care can be nicely described by The Self-Care Forum’s definition:

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“The actions that individuals take for themselves, on behalf of and with others in order to develop, protect, maintain and improve their health”

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Check out the self-care continuum to get a better understanding of the sliding scale of self-care in the UK. It starts with ‘individual responsibility’, which means people making daily choices about their lifestyle, such as brushing their teeth, eating healthily, or choosing to do exercise. At the opposite end of the continuum is major trauma where responsibility for care is entirely in the hands of the healthcare professionals, until the start of recovery when self-care can begin again.

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Thrive Tribe is made up of amazing people that give a lot to others in their day-to-day work, you cannot pour from an empty cup. So, use Self Care Week to put into practice this year’s theme – Exercise Self Care for Life for a healthier, happier life.

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This theme is special because it has a double meaning with “exercise” meaning to act as well as “exercise” in the literal sense which means it is still relevant for the breadth of self-care messaging and promotions.  

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Have a look through Self Care forums factsheets on ways to practice self-care across different issues, especially how to handle the symptoms in the future. The POWER of Self Care fact sheet is particularly useful to give general guidance on ways to practice self-care.

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Let us know what you get up to for Self-Care Week. Use #selfcareforlife and #selfcareweek when getting involved on social media. For a retweet and like, include @SelfCareForum on twitter and the Self Care Forum on LinkedIn for a share. You can also tag @lifeatthrivetribe on Instagram.

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