2023-12-16 21:21:31
Wake up at seven thirty in the morning, have a quick breakfast, spend eight hours – it might be more – at work, do the shopping, cook the container for the next day, prepare dinner, sit on the couch for a while, go to bed until seven thirty in the morning the next day. This standard day can be customized with extras such as the length of travel time, care for dependent people such as children or elderly parents, other household tasks, meetings outside of working hours or medical appointments, among others. Just reading this list of obligations lined up can cause stress, which is why the wellness industry is so flourishing and at hand: melatonin gummies to help you fall asleep (because let’s see who sleeps with everything there is to do), bubble bath salt balls, yoga classes, mobile apps for meditation, 15-step skin care routines. You just have to reserve a little space in your agenda to ‘self-care’, that’s the key.
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Judit P. knows perfectly well that it is not that easy. She started practicing yoga a couple of years ago, at a time when stress was dominating her life and she needed a tool to find some calm. At first it suited her very well but as time went by the system began to fail. “I began to realize that going to yoga was stressful when you have to combine it with work, motherhood and your responsibilities. It was making bobbin lace so I might enjoy one hour a week,” she tells elDiario.es. “In addition, there is the accumulated fatigue of thinking that, when you get home, it is time to take the children’s bathroom, prepare dinner, put them to bed and a long etcetera,” she says.
Every time I went to the doctor, instead of a physical therapist advising me, he told me that I had to do yoga or sign up for ‘mindfulness’. The same thing happened to me with the midwife. She had just given birth and insisted that she had to take an hour a day to do yoga
The self-care method that Sofía P. chose was also yoga—according to a poll From Statista Consumer Insights published in July 2023, women practice yoga and Pilates more than men. In her case, it was her doctor and her midwife who advised her to do so due to the discomfort resulting from a recent birth. “Small pelvic floor problems, stress, lower back pain… Every time I went to the doctor, for anything, instead of a physiotherapist advising me, he always told me that I had to do yoga or sign up for a course of mindfulness. The same thing happened to me with the midwife. She had just given birth and insisted that she had to take out at least one hour a day to do yoga,” she recalls. Her goal was for Sofía to stretch her body and spend some time with herself, but in a 40-square-meter apartment shared with her baby and her husband – in the middle of the pandemic, too – it was more of a utopia.
Since at that time she mightn’t go out, Sofía installed an application that gives her the option to choose the type of yoga she wants to practice, the tone, the level or the time she will dedicate to the activity. But every time she had to get down to it something interrupted her and the ‘yogic’ moments became increasingly scarce, something that she found app He was responsible for remembering with warning messages. “It took longer to move the crib or chairs to sit on the mat and stretch out a little than it did to do the session,” she recalls. “The other thing is that while I was lying on the floor, presumably paying all my attention to my breathing, I realized that there was a nest of lint under the bed and it really bothered me,” she says.
It is very striking how homogeneous these types of recommendations are regarding self-care, they always associate it with an activity that is done while alone, reducing stimuli, moving away from things and buying something (…) It is a very consumer logic
Marta Carmona, psychiatrist, deputy in the Madrid Assembly, Health spokesperson for the Más Madrid group and co-author of the essay We upset (Capitán Swing, 2022) together with Javier Padilla, current Secretary of State for Health, says that: “It is very striking how tremendously homogeneous these types of recommendations are regarding self-care that always unequivocally associate it with an activity that is done while alone , reducing stimuli, moving away from things and buying something. It can be an object, a service, a unit of product. “It is a very consumerist logic,” he says. “And in mental health there is almost nothing universalizable. There are people for whom self-care can be that and others for whom self-care can be hanging out with his friends whom he makes a lot of that he doesn’t see and being diluted in an environment in which he feels welcomed.” .
This is what happened to Ana S., who tried meditation for two months until she decided that this was not a valid relaxation method for her despite its popularity in society. “I respect those who meditate and although it doesn’t work for me, I believe in the science that supports the benefits of meditation. But what works for me is playing sports, listening to a podcast while I walk, reading. And, of course, simply having a drink with friends already seems to me to be a much more powerful relaxation and well-being technique than meditation,” she says. During the time of the pandemic when she might already go out but with many restrictions she had accumulated a lot of stress, so she installed the Petit Bambou application to meditate ten minutes a day before work. “It never helped me because I mightn’t relax, and all I thought was that I was wasting my time and I might already be turning on the computer,” she says.
For her part, Sofía has now moved out of that 40 square meter apartment and is looking for a gym near her new house to sign up for Pilates, but for now, she says that: “My most pleasant self-care activity is having a coffee with milk before picking up my son from school.” Judit has not stopped yoga but she is trying to get rid of the guilt that comes with missing a session. “I try to listen to myself and do what my body asks of me. “Sometimes it is yoga, other times reading in a corner that gives me peace,” he says.
Judit has not stopped yoga but she is trying to get rid of the guilt that comes with missing a session. ‘I try to listen to myself and do what my body asks of me. Sometimes it’s yoga, other times reading in a corner that gives me peace
Cristina Vidal Marsola psychologist for two decades and director of the Center PsiCo, comments that terms such as stresslaxing (a new one to put in the bag of the cohabiting or the nestingfruit of the union between words stress y relaxing). “It refers to people who get stressed when they are supposed to relax, but there are also mothers’ movements in which they talk regarding the importance of not blaming ourselves for not being able to take care of ourselves enough,” says the specialist. In the digital age, in which almost everyone knows that we must eat healthy, exercise and sleep well, feeling guilty regarding not doing what is necessary to achieve well-being can be another burden. “There are only 24 hours in a day and making it compatible with family and work responsibilities is neither easy nor is it always possible to take care of yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Expectations must be realistic,” she determines.
In the opinion of psychologist Patricia Maguet, the very idea of having to add activities to cope with day-to-day life does not make much sense. “It’s as if you ate something that makes you feel bad and you think that the solution is to add a medication that will relieve your discomfort instead of thinking regarding removing that food from your diet,” she says. The most obvious remedy is to try to make everyday life less stressful, but it is also evident that it is not an easy task. “There are conditions, a social context, that is behind part of our discomfort,” she explains. “You can get involved in seeking social change but in the meantime you are going to have to make your individual decisions to reduce your stress, your discomfort and your tension,” she warns.
In the digital age, in which almost everyone knows that we must eat healthy, exercise and sleep well, feeling remorse for not doing what is necessary to achieve well-being can be an added burden.
From where and for whom
In the episode Fascism of the body from his podcast Friend Realize, journalists Begoña Gómez Urzáiz and Noelia Ramírez recalled that the term self-care was not precisely born in the marketing department of a scented candle company. Specifically, it was Audre Lorde – who defined herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” – who coined it in her book A Burst of Light (1988) as: “Self-care is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and this is an act of political warfare.” In this regard, Ramírez explains that: “The capitalist system, like everything in this life, has appropriated that term” and mentions the writer and activist Fariha Róisín, author of the essay Who is Wellness For? (2022). In this title, the author examines this culture of well-being and concludes that, currently, it is only for “white, rich, thin women.” Three adjectives opposite to those that Lorde used to describe herself but that fit like a glove to one of the queens of the self-care business: Gwyneth Paltrow.
Goop, the maximum expression of the drift of the ‘wellness’ industry.
It has been just 15 years since the actress launched the newsletter from Goop lifestyle. Little by little it grew and diversified and is currently a company valued at more than 200 million dollars. The brand encompasses a store online of wellness-oriented items (clothing, cosmetics, sex toys, candles, etc.), a podcast, two documentaries on Netflix, a traveling speaking show, and a takeout line in California. The price range of their products is wide, but they are not especially cheap. For example, the famous candle called It smells like my vagina It costs $75 and nutritional supplements such as Metabolism-boosting super powders They are sold in boxes of 15 envelopes for $58.
We are giving a kind of place of salvation to leisure experiences (…) Much of the psychological suffering we experience has to do with structural things, channeling it through self-care because there is no other terminology is terrible
None of the things that Paltrow sells guarantee anything and, in fact, she has had to pay a fine for lying regarding the properties of her gadgets (like the jade and quartz eggs that, according to the company, help hormonal balance for $55 each). But the wellness business works thanks to the promise of a better life – neat and relaxed like that of the actress – and it does it so well that it does not stop growing. According to data from Global Wellness Institutethe global wellness industry (spanning diverse sectors ranging from fitness to tourism) has grown 27% since 2020 and is estimated to continue at an annual rate of 8.6% through 2027.
“We are asking for pears from the elm, we are giving a kind of place of salvation to leisure experiences,” reflects Marta Carmona. “And the fundamental problem is that we have no other way to tell ourselves, to denounce what happens to us and what doesn’t happen to us. Much of the psychological suffering that people are experiencing has to do with structural things and having to channel it through self-care because there is no other terminology or other way of understanding ourselves is what is truly terrible,” she points out. Given the lack of that common language that the psychiatrist points out, each person expresses their relationship with self-care as best they can and another interviewee, Susana L., summarizes the guilt she feels every time she misses a yoga class in a phrase with which perhaps Other people can identify with it: “It’s wild capitalism in its vein.”
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