The importance of cognitive self-care

Taking care of ourselves should be one of the primary tasks and objectives on a day-to-day basis. Taking care of yourself in all areas, without exception, should be the most important thing for you.

I am not only talking about eating well, exercising, maintaining healthy relationships with others, being grateful, respectful, seeking serenity (for example, through breathing exercises, Mindfulness, yoga, music, etc.), having space for yourself, putting yourself limits etc I am also talking about the necessary cognitive care that you should also seek.

• Related article: "10 psychologically healthy daily habits, and how to apply them to your life"

What is cognitive self-care?

Cognitive self-care is achieved by paying attention to what you say to yourself when you are feeling bad, to how do you talk to yourselfWhat tone do you use when you talk to yourself?

If you are constantly judging yourself, if you insult yourself, if you blame yourself for everything, if every time you make a mistake you despise yourself, if you repeat phrases like: "I'm stupid, I'm useless", "I'm useless", "everything happens to me", "I'm to blame for all"... you should know one thing:

you are mistreating yourself and as a consequence you will feel bad, you will suffer depression or anxiety, your self-esteem will be seriously affected, you will not trust yourself, you will appear insecure and you will surely suffer a lot. Think that those same words were said to someone in a constant and general way: you would sink that person.

• You may be interested in: "Psychological well-being: 15 habits to achieve it"

You can do something?

Yes, yes you can. Thanks to the neuroplasticity of your brain, you are able to build new neural pathways, and little by little undo the routes you have built with your toxic self-talk. As? You must propose to change your inner language; To do this, you must be very attentive to when this self-sabotage appears.

Once detected, I recommend that you write down what you were saying to yourself, where did you learn to speak to yourself like that (who speaks to you or spoke to you in that way?) way?), that you ask yourself if what you say is helping you or not, if you would tell someone and if you think it would help you if other people told you they will talk like that The answer is obvious, no, it would not help you. Next, write what you should tell yourself, that which really helps you, serves you and adjusts to reality.

If you commit to this exercise, if every time you speak badly to yourself, you are able to stop, write, reflect and talk to yourself and tell yourself what does help you, your life it will change for the better: your self-esteem will improve, you will feel better, your anxiety will decrease, because you will have changed an essential aspect and you will be in a continuous process of cognitive self-care: your brain will change each time you do this exercise, until you make it a habit, and talking to yourself in a healthy way is the most usual for you

Besides, It is also necessary that we learn to take care of what we feel, to manage our emotions. Normally if you speak badly to yourself, it is possible that you also punish yourself for feeling bad, that you don't allow yourself to be sad, tired, or that when you feel anger you feel guilty, you will feel guilty almost for all...

The good news is that we can also learn to manage our emotions. And everything happens through, first of all, making the decision to do it and proposing it.

I leave you an easy exercise that you can put into practice now: when you feel bad, ask yourself what you feel, what emotion are you feeling, where do you feel it in your body, and with what intensity (from 0 to 10), accept that emotion, it is simply there and if you want, for 60 seconds, put your hand where you feel it, and as if it were a little animal, or a little plant, or a baby, take care of it with your hand, give it warmth, tell it that you accept it and let it lose little by little intensity.

When you are able to name, locate, quantify and care for your emotion, you are doing an impressive job at the brain level: you are rationalizing the emotion; it goes from being located in the amygdala (the center that regulates our emotions), to moving to the prefrontal part of the brain, that is, it is mentally processed by the part of the brain that deals with reflection, so, with this simple exercise, you have managed to "migrate" your emotion and you are learning to manage it and to transform it.

One of the success factors is undoubtedly emotional management, understanding what happens inside us, paying attention to what we say to ourselves, changing and transforming our internal language, accepting what we feel and being compassionate with ourselves, is the key to our welfare.