Nurturing Yourself

http://www.everydayhealth.com/public...33873ee877&p=1

While you may know a great deal about nurturing others, advancing your own needs may not be second nature.

It’s common wisdom, for example, that women spend a larger percentage of their waking hours nurturing others than men do. Whether women work outside the home or not, studies suggest they average more time tending house and loved ones. If you’re a woman, odds are good that you provide the emotional glue that holds relationships and families together. You buy the birthday cards, pick up the phone to offer help or support when someone’s sick, and do much of the work or coordination of services involved in caring for elderly parents, children, grandchildren, and spouses in need of assistance. Our culture expects you to be self-sacrificing. Your own needs may take last place; putting yourself first is cast as selfishness.

For men, our society places great emphasis on getting ahead. That can encourage a single-minded focus on career to the detriment of other activities. In this way, men are discouraged from indulging their nurturing side.

Just as women are pressed from the get-go to give to others, men are pushed toward the receiving end. That creates imbalances and potential sources of distress for both sexes. If you’re a woman, you may not feel comfortable taking time to refresh yourself. If you’re a man, you may not have much practice creating your own nurturing rituals and, like your female counterpart, you may feel uneasy doing so. Clearly, women and men can benefit from learning to focus on themselves in healthy, rejuvenating ways.

The art of self-nurture is not a single technique. Rather, it’s an overarching concept for your life, says psychologist Alice D. Domar in her book Self-Nurture. The spark you gain from nurturing your imagination, career, relationships, sex life, or spiritual side amplifies the healing effects of other stress-relief techniques.