Self-care is not a hashtag

Self-care is not an act of individual choice but must extend to the idea of care for and from the larger community

- Sonali Gupta

A 43-year-old female client said in one of our sessions: "Social media is filled with ads, women at spas seeking beauty treatment—all tagged self-care. I wonder if we have oversimplified the meaning of self-care."

This is a concern I share too. The way self-care has been talked about over the last few years is doing more disservice than good. Self-care has become a hashtag and marketing bait, and this affects how it is understood. It is now used largely to describe acts that don't necessarily add to our well-being.

Historically, "self-care" was a term used by medical professionals and doctors to help patients invest in their own health.

In the 1970s, the term was popularized in the US by the Black Panther Party, a political organization that protested against injustice to the Black community. They expanded the lens of self-care to mean that caring for oneself and community resilience went hand in hand. Their work included starting free health clinics, breakfast programs for children and physical movement lessons to take care of one's emotional and physical well-being.