Everyday self-care: become a citizen wellbeing scientist

An invitation to participate in research

Self-care is all about making yourself a priority and taking proactive steps to nurture your overall health and wellbeing. It sounds simple enough - taking care of yourself - but in reality, true self-care is a complex process that requires deliberate effort, change, time, and self-reflection. Self-care isn't just one big action, but rather a repertoire of small practices and habits that collectively help you develop, protect, maintain, and improve your physical, mental, and emotional wellness.

Practicing true self-care means treating yourself with the same compassion you would show a close friend. It involves cultivating self-awareness to recognize your needs, empowering yourself to make choices that serve you, setting aside time dedicated to your wellbeing, and building positive habits. Self-care requires ongoing attention in key areas like self-love, self-awareness, self-compassion, self-knowledge, personal empowerment, time management, and sustainable habits - aspects that are often overlooked amidst our daily responsibilities and societal pressures. Committing to a self-care practice is an act of prioritizing your own needs and wellbeing, but also acknowledging it is relational as one care for one in order to care for others, and relies on others for motivation, inspiration support and/or action.

This project is interested everyday acts of self-care. What do these look like?

become a citizen wellbeing scientist

You are invited to be a "Citizen Wellbeing Scientist" and share your strategies and practices though a photo, video, or audio to help us to understand further what self-care is and can be.

This project aims to make self-care practices accessible for daily life by establishing "Citizen Wellbeing Scientists" who document their real-world self-care through diverse media formats. It explores how sharing self-care experiences can cultivate empowerment, wellbeing literacy, and positive qualities for care of self. The goal is to provide an inclusive understanding of practical self-care that can foster a sense of empowerment and agency.

Read more here on what is involved (download a PDF file)

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