{"id":3347,"date":"2020-02-11T11:51:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T11:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/commit-to-love-yourself-this-valentines-day\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:30:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:30:19","slug":"commit-to-love-yourself-this-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/commit-to-love-yourself-this-valentines-day","title":{"rendered":"Commit to love yourself this Valentine’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s that time of the year when many of us around the world think about the idea of love, celebrate it, express our\u00a0deepest affection to the people who really matter to us \u2013 a loved one, friends, family, etc. \u2013 and commit to being there for them through thick and thin. In other words, on Valentine\u2019s Day, we commit to loving somebody else, someone who is NOT US. Let\u2019s pause briefly to explore this gesture of professing love a little further.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Who do you have the longest, actually a lifelong, relationship with? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yourself!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Who do you reward in times of great joy or neglect in times of extreme stress or anxiety? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yourself! <\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Who is always with you through each thought you have, each dream you see, each success you achieve, or each failure you face? <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So why not commit to yourself this Valentine\u2019s Day? Why not be your own Valentine and promise to love and cherish yourself, to take care of yourself on every moment of each passing day! <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How is this relevant for me as a researcher?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You may wonder how this relates to you as a researcher or an academic. One of our\u00a0recent articles<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0shared some concerning statistics around the mental health of academics, and this\u00a0got me thinking (yet again) about the life of a researcher. Being a researcher is no mean feat. Right from applying to a PhD program, conducting the research, and publishing your work to navigating an academic career, managing relationships with your supervisors and colleagues, and dealing with successes and failures, there is a lot you need to deal with \u2013 not to mention the demands of your personal life.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Given the highly competitive space that academia is, you are left with no option but to work really hard and test your own limits, and this is what all researchers do. But there\u2019s caveat here \u2013 in the struggle to navigate academic life, often, researchers neglect their own physical and mental well-being. While there are larger issues that need to be addressed at the policy or institutional level (such as setting up relevant support systems for researchers, revisiting the academic progression system, etc.), there is one thing you can do by yourself to take charge of your well-being as a researcher \u2013 and that is practice self-care.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Did you say \u201cself-care\u201d?<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, self-care. And this is what we are asking you to do this Valentine\u2019s Day. Be \u201cself\u201d-ish. Commit to yourself. Focus on your own well-being first so that you feel more confident and energized along each turn of your research journey. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What is self-care? <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSelf-care is all about communicating with your soul and saying \u201cHey, what do you need right now?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then doing it.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

6 Types of Self-Care You Need to Know<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/u> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Self-care is, literally, caring for yourself consciously, deliberately, and about giving your mind and body the attention and care they deserve. It is about making the effort to identify what you need for your own well-being and trying to achieve just that by making small, incremental changes to your daily routine in the lab, library, or at home. Self-care is also about consciously thinking about how you are, how you feel, what you need for your own, and what you need to do to ensure your own physical and mental well-being.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks, we will share with you a series of interesting posts that talk about how you can go about practicing self-care, how you can feel better about yourself, and feel more self-confident as a researcher. Here\u2019s a quick glimpse of what this series includes:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n