This month we’re focusing on self-care and longevity at LYT. Studies have shown that self-care is important at all stages of life and no matter your health in order to promote well-being, prevent disease, and improve health outcomes…aka, longevity. While we have the Triple S in the LYT Method, there are dimensions of self-care that can be considered the “Triple M”: maintenance, monitoring, and management.
Self-Care Maintenance revolves around all the things we do to promote good health. This can include, but isn’t limited to, things such as a well-balanced diet, variety in our exercise regime, good mental and emotional well-being, and proper preventative healthcare. Eating a balanced diet can reduce the risk of disease, improve your energy state and mood levels, help you to sleep better, and even improve your brain function and memory. Having variety in your exercise regimen has been shown to decrease the chance of overuse injuries, giving your muscles a break and allowing your body to rest and heal. It also helps to boost your motivation and prevent burnout. Being mentally and emotionally healthy can help you better cope with stress, be more productive, and focus on the important things in life. Activities like journaling, meditation, and listening to music have been shown to improve mental and emotional well-being, as well as the other things listed for maintenance. Finally, preventative health care helps with early detection and reduces the risk of disease. In fact, it has been shown to reduce overall healthcare costs, which is a major long-term plus.
Self-Care Monitoring is listening to your body and recognizing when symptoms arise. Education is a key component of the LYT Method as we want people to tap into their bodies and be able to recognize when something feels a little off. Nipping injuries in the bud is one of my favorite things about being a physical therapist and having such good body awareness. Helping my patients and clients do the same for themselves is a way to give them ownership of their bodies. A regular practice on the mat allows us to monitor joint mobility and muscle strength and flexibility, as we do everything on both sides. Taking care of little imbalances in the body provides a way for the body to heal itself from the inside out. Knowing what types of symptoms to move through and what needs attention is another form of self-care monitoring. I often talk about the “stoplight of pain”. We don’t want to move into the red light area of discomfort, where you’re wincing because of the pain, as that may do more harm than good. However, moving solely in the green light area where we have no discomfort may result in improper or prolonged healing. We’re often best served moving into the yellow light area, where we feel some discomfort and are restoring proper range of motion and strength, without doing any future damage.
Self-Care Management is taking action to manage our signs and symptoms. Many times if we stretch what is tight, strengthen what is weak, mobilize what is stiff, and stabilize what is unstable, the body takes care of the healing on its own. In traditional Western medicine, people can become reliant on the healthcare professional to prescribe the right pill or massage the right areas for healing. However, once we know how to monitor ourselves, we can better manage ourselves. When we develop good self-care habits, our maintenance plan will extend the warranty of our body. Creating a plan or setting a goal is a great way to take action toward managing your own care. We recently began offering monthly Challenges on the LYT Daily to help people kickstart their movement practice. Accountability in a community is another great way, as we are more likely to show up if someone else is waiting on us. Did you know we have a Community section on the platform for you to share with and gain inspiration from others in the LYT family? Self-care doesn’t have to be done alone.
Finally, it is a constant continuum towards longevity and can feel cyclical at times. Have faith that the work you’re putting in on the mat and in your mind matters. We will be here to guide you along the way. Because as always, we’re always pulling for you.
Xoxo,
Kristin
Luciani, M., De Maria, M., Page, S.D. et al. Measuring self-care in the general adult population: development and psychometric testing of the Self-Care Inventory. BMC Public Health 22, 598 (2022)
Riegel B, Jaarsma T, Lee CS, Stromberg A. Integrating symptoms into the middle-range theory of self-care of chronic illness. ANS Adv Nurs Sci. 2019;42(3):206–15.
