30 things that help #10: It’s harder to look after others if you’re not looking after yourself

This post is part of Thirty Things That Help.

It’s harder to look after others if you’re not looking after yourself

I was going to call this post ‘You can’t look after others if you don’t look after yourself’. But that’s not true, is it? We all know it’s all too easy to look after everyone else whilst entirely ignoring your own very basic needs.

And that’s the problem. We can do it, and so we often do. But it is much easier and more enjoyable to look after children, and to educate them, if we are not running on fumes ourselves.

I’m not talking about ‘me time’ and ‘self care’. I’m talking about making sure you’ve had enough to drink, and enough decent food to eat. I’m talking about doing whatever it takes to get out of the house for some sunshine and fresh air for a few minutes. Getting showered and dressed also helps, although I freely admit that when the children were younger I spent large parts of my day in pyjamas and everything was absolutely fine.

Make sure you have a nice, large mug so your hot drinks of choice are giving you as much fluid as possible. When I realised I had become boringly sensitive to caffeine I started buying nice herbal teas so I can drink them once I’ve hit my caffeine allowance. (Yes, they’re not cheap and they’re not entirely essential, but they’re also cheaper than wine, and reader, you are definitely worth the price of a box of herbal tea.)

Think of some basic meals or snacks you can prepare in almost no time, that give you real, lasting energy. (Eggs, avocados, nuts, cheese, apples, decent bread, full-fat yoghurt. I’m no dietician but these things keep me going and can be shovelled in with almost zero preparation.) Making the effort to have a proper breakfast means that at least one of your meals that day will be healthy and nutritious even if things have gone south by lunchtime.

It’s good for our children to see us making the effort to keep ourselves fed and watered. Perhaps you, like me, are excellent at making sure your child has had plenty to eat and drink but never model what it looks like to notice that you are hungry or thirsty and need to do something about it. If we’d like them to grow into adults who tend to these basic needs themselves, demonstrating it is a good place to start.

You can look after others whilst entirely neglecting yourself. But it’s much nicer not to. Go and make yourself a cup of tea.

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The image for this post is by Rodrigo Curi via Unsplash.