6 Domains That Are Unmissable in Your Daily Self-Care, According to Science

Create a daily self-care plan incorporating these six domains

We all probably know self-care is important. However, we often only start to practice it when we feel sad, down or when we experience any other negative emotion or event.

And it’s not wrong that we tend to practice self-care when we are going through something. Self-care is a good way to deal with stressful circumstances. So it makes sense that we often start paying more attention to it when we face something challenging.

But, self-care is also important to practice before we experience the need for it. I’m not saying it’s “too late” when you practice it in stressful or challenging times, but if you practice it beforehand you are much better equipped to handle those challenging times.

It also allows you to feel happier, live in the present moment, be more productive, and have better relationships. It also allows us to be healthier, giving us the energy and strength to do the thing we want to be doing on this Earth.

So to enjoy all these benefits of self-care, it is important that we have a personal self-care plan that we can use to maintain our well-being and cope with stressful situations. For this purpose, research suggests six domains of self-care which we should consider when making a personal self-care plan.

“Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity.” — Katrina Mayer

The six domains of life

According to research, there are six domains that require attention in our daily self-care practices. This might sound overwhelming, seeing how busy all of our lives already are.

Luckily, there are plenty of self-care practices that are closely related to the outcomes of the other domains. So we can pick a few self-care practices to implement in our daily lives, and they will conveniently cover all six domains of life.

As there is lots to cover about these six domains, I will only briefly describe each domain in this article, and write about each domain more in-depth in my next articles.

The fundamental domain

Just like Maslow’s theory of human motivation and his hierarchy of needs, we start with the most fundamental domain underpinning all functioning: the physical domain, a.k.a. the physical body.

“Physical self-care involves tending to the needs of the physical body in order to achieve or support optimal functioning and to avoid breakdowns or deterioration within systems.” — Butler et al. (2019)

When our bodies aren’t healthy, this can negatively affect all other areas of our lives. So the number one priority in your self-care plan should be to take care of our bodies for proper health and functioning.

A few ways in which you can do this is to be mindful of what we eat, how much we sleep, and how much we move.

Let’s get professional

Another domain that is very important for your functioning, is your professional life. This might not seem like such a big deal, however, our jobs comprise a large part of our lives. For many of us, we spend a good amount of hours per day working.

Doing work that is fulfilling and meaningful for us makes all the difference for our well-being. Nevertheless, we can still experience stress from our jobs, no matter what we do.

So self-care in the professional domain is also very important. Butler et al. (2019) define this as “managing or preventing work-related stress and stressors, reduce the risk or mitigate the effects of burnout and other workplace hazards, and increase work performance and satisfaction”.

It’s all about connections

Our connections have the potential to greatly enhance our daily lives. Taking care of our relationships, also referred to as relationship self-care, is another important aspect of maintaining our well-being, health, and quality of life.

“Relationship self-care refers to the efforts we make to maintain and enhance our interpersonal connections to others.“ — Butler et al. (2019)

Connections refer to the network of people we interact with regularly. These people can be our close family members and friends. We can turn to this network for companionship and for emotional and practical support, even in the most difficult times.

However, you can also think about any pets you might have, extended family, old friends (who you might see less regularly), and new acquaintances (with a possibility for a deep future friendship). Peers from school, work, or other groups can also be counted as connections that we must foster, maintain, and nurture, to experience improvements in our happiness, quality of life, and resilience.

Get into your feels

Emotional self-care is different from relationship self-care, even though relationships and emotions are intertwined. However, Butler et al. (2019) separated these two domains, by defining emotional self-care as follows:

“We define emotional self-care as practices that are engaged in to safeguard against or address negative emotional experience as well as those intended to create or enhance positive emotional experience and well-being.” — Butler et al. (2019)

Emotional self-care is therefore specifically about dealing with negative feelings and enhancing positive feelings. Emotions influence the way we feel and behave, so it is important to take our time to identify what triggers negative emotions in us, how we cope with them, and what we can do to experience more positive emotions.

Mind yo’self

The next domain is the psychological domain. This is all about your mind and how you experience yourself. This domain concerns “practices that aim to pursue and satisfy intellectual needs, while producing efforts to understand and attend to your overall needs.”

Self-awareness, reflection, and internal behavior are important concepts related to this domain. Practicing self-reflection on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior is a crucial part of psychological self-care.

Practicing such self-care can increase your self-awareness, and therefore enable you to start making choices that contribute to your well-being and your happiness. However, we can’t do this if we are stuck in a story we tell ourselves, in which we make certain choices that do not reflect the best outcomes for us.

For example, I used to be unaware of some anxious thoughts I had, which stopped me from pursuing things I really wanted to do in life. However, by going to therapy, practicing self-reflection, and journaling, I started to become more aware of these thoughts and their effect on my life.

Now, I can start making different decisions, particularly those that feel right to me. That way, I can take better care of myself and my needs, which helps contribute to my overall well-being and the well-being of my relationships.

“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” — Eckhart Tolle

Spirituality

The final domain is spiritual self-care. This domain is similar to the psychological domain, in that it is also about how we view ourselves. However, there is a difference: the spiritual domain is about how we view ourselves in the broader context of the world.

It’s about how we find purpose, hope, and meaning in our lives.

“Spiritual self-care practice creates space to reflect on our own inner needs and our role or place within the world and universe.” — Butler et al. (2019)

When you hear spirituality, you might be thinking about different things. For example, some might think about religion or faith. Others might think of it more in terms of connecting with nature or sitting in meditation.

Whatever your idea of spirituality might be, it all has the key element of becoming aware of what helps us feel connected to the larger world, and what gives meaning to our lives and work.

It is a great way to reduce stress, buffer any traumas we might have, and enhance our overall well-being. Spiritual self-care can also boost our mental well-being, and protect us from emotional exhaustion.

Personally, I love to take walks in nature and connect with the world around me. I love smelling the scent of the flowers around me, hearing the rustling of the leaves, and watching the flow of the water. Next to that, I also love to meditate. I try to implement these self-care practices daily, or at least twice a week. They are my safe haven when I feel stressed or upset about something, and they provide me with almost instant relief.

Of course, sometimes it might not work as well as other times. Sometimes I am so much in my head, that going for a walk or meditating does not help. That is usually an indication for me that I need to practice some other form of self-care, because there is another domain in my life that is requiring my attention.

That’s where a self-care plan comes in.

What’s the plan

It might be overwhelming, to think of all the things we need to do daily to maintain proper well-being and health. That is where a self-care plan comes in.

And as we are all different human beings, with different needs, we must make a personal self-care plan so we know how to best take care of ourselves in times of need (and on a regular basis).

There are a few steps to creating such a personal self-care plan.

1. Identify ways in which you are currently coping with stress. Are there any changes necessary? And if so, what do these changes look like?
2. Begin to develop a self-care maintenance plan to specify the practices you intend to perform on a regular basis to reduce stress and enhance your daily life. You can do this by starting to identify what self-care practices you already implement in each of the abovementioned domains. This shows you what you already practice well, and if there is an imbalance or neglect in certain areas of your life. Try to note down the activities you want to add to your self-care practices and identify which negative coping strategies you want to take out of your routine.
3. Identify the barriers to implementing these new self-care practices, and write down the ways in which you will deal with these.
4. Finally, it’s essential to practice this self-care plan consciously and mindfully, and to make a commitment to taking care of yourself and your well-being. However, as we are all busy, we might sometimes forget to practice self-care. One way to consider how you can support yourself in following through on your plan, is to share your plan with others.

Butler et al. (2019) also recommend that you practice ongoing maintenance of your plan, aka track how your practices are going so you can determine what is working, what is not, and where some adjustment is needed.

Next to practicing maintenance, it is also worthwhile to have an emergency self-care plan, in case of extremely trying circumstances. Try to create this before such a circumstance occurs, so you have the energy and concentration to do so.

Things you could include in your emergency self-care plan, are the following: specific activities that soothe, relax, or distract you, or that enhance your mood (as well as activities to avoid), people who can provide meaningful emotional support or help distract you (as well as those to avoid), positive self-statements for when you are talking negatively to yourself, and whatever else you want to remember to do (or avoid doing) when you are in an emotionally challenging time.

This emergency plan can be kept somewhere accessible, like your wallet for example. This can help you immediately identify the things you can do or avoid doing when you don’t have the capacity to think straight anymore.

Final thoughts

Self-care is important. It helps us feel good, improves our well-being and relationships, and maintains good health.

However, sometimes it can be hard to remember everything you can do to feel better — especially in busy or challenging times.

For this purpose, you can create a personal self-care plan. In this plan, it’s wise to include the six domains of self-care. These include the physical body, work, relationships, emotions, mind, and spirituality.

You can create a personal self-care plan based on these domains, which you maintain over time to see what works, what doesn’t, and where you might need to do some adjustments.

You can also create an emergency self-care plan, for those challenging times when we need a little reminder of the things we can do or avoid to feel our best.

In my next article, I will explore each domain more deeply, which areas within these domains you should look out for, and what practices can help you maintain well-being in these areas. Subscribe to get notified when these articles are out!

Do you already have a working self-care plan?

Let me know in the comments below!

Always with love,

Jelena

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