Why Self-Care is Still Draining

Author: Chloe Patterson
Posted on February 23, 2021

While everyone, including myself, enjoys doing a bit of self-care in order to make myself feel better, it often does more harm than good. In buying candles and skincare products (neither of which are cheap if you’re buying them at high quality) all you’re doing is spending time and money a stressed person doesn’t have to spare in order to do something that often doesn’t help that much. Stepping around your problems and delving into these pastimes such as yoga or meditation will only make you feel slightly more peaceful for a brief moment, so why are they pushed so hard? The short answer is corporate greed, but it often is to divert the anxious person’s attention away from the root of their problem and offer meaningless solutions that they can distract themselves with. People working 40 or more hours a week all the while being underpaid are at a staggeringly high stress-level, so instead of allowing them time to figure out why their job is causing them so much distress and potentially turning against the corporation, they promote these small alternatives. The void growing in these workers to take care of themselves is only briefly filled by these small acts of self-care and the fleetingness of the tasks allows people to go out and buy more of the product continuously. The problem isn’t fixed by self-care but rather perpetuated as corporations are aiding each other in promoting stress within the workforce and saying the best possible solution is to feed into consumerism. Now, buying a candle isn’t the end of the world and is actually a nice stress-reliever, but it’s important to be aware of how products intended to help are often a guise for a deeper issue. So, remember that taking care of yourself is important, and it isn’t just confined to taking a bubble bath with low-fi music playing in the background; self-care includes taking breaks when you need them and allowing yourself to not do something if it would cause you immense stress. Self-care should be focusing on making sure you’re safe and happy in your life rather than just getting by. You should learn what you want to do in life and what brings you joy rather than having to pay your bills, yet it’s impossible to do so in today’s society. In the meantime, face masks and cuticle care will have to do as the possibility of real self-care being a viable option to the general public seems slim.