Self-care is everywhere. And at the same time, barely understandable anymore.
The word is attached to bath bombs, to Pinterest quotes in flowing script, to influencer reels with expensive lighting. It's printed on yoga mats and face mask packaging. By now it means so much that it's started to mean almost nothing.
Which is a shame, really. Because behind it is a precise idea that a lot of people could use right now — especially those who feel exhausted without being able to say exactly why.
This piece brings the term back. What self-care means once you strip away the Pinterest images. What it was originally meant for. And how you can live it day to day, without loading yourself up with a whole new routine.
Where the term comes from
Self-care isn't an invention of the wellness industry. The term comes from 1950s medicine, where it originally described patients needing to look after themselves between doctor visits. Later, the civil rights movement took it up. In 1988, the poet Audre Lorde wrote a line that's often quoted today:
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation."
Back then, self-care meant self-preservation. An answer to a world that threatened to wear you down. If no one is looking after you, you have to do it yourself.
Today, under different pressures, the core has stayed the same: taking care of yourself before something breaks. Not only afterwards.
Three common misunderstandings
Self-care as consumption. Buying a face mask, booking a spa, treating yourself to a new outfit. That can feel good and belongs in the category of reward. A reward is a one-off, and it ends once the product is used up. Self-care is regular, and it creates spaces where you stay with yourself.
Self-care as something earned. The phrase "you've earned it" is one of the most problematic in the wellness industry. It suggests that rest has to be earned through performance. Real self-care doesn't run on that kind of accounting. You don't need a reason to look after yourself.
Self-care as another task. If your self-care routine is a ten-step morning ritual, three workouts a week, a meditation practice and a journal, it's just another list. And another source of guilt when you don't get through it.
Self-optimisation aims at a better, more productive, more successful version of you. Self-care aims at the version you are today.
The core of it
Self-care is the practice of taking yourself exactly as seriously as you take other people.
That sounds obvious, and it's still rare.
Most people treat themselves more harshly than they'd ever treat anyone else. They say things to themselves internally that they'd never say to a friend. They override tiredness, hunger, needs — things they'd notice immediately in someone else.
Self-care starts there. With the question of what you need right now. And with the willingness to actually act on the answer.
Sometimes the answer is big. Starting therapy, quitting a job, ending a relationship. All of that is self-care. But often it's very small. Standing up right now and drinking a glass of water. Not touching your phone tonight. Noticing that something feels off, without immediately pushing it away.
The small things carry just as much weight as the big ones. They're the foundation that makes the big decisions possible in the first place.
Why it matters especially now
Notifications, emails, news, images, expectations: for most of us, the nervous system is under constant load. You don't have to be clinically exhausted to feel that. Living a normal week is enough.
Many people experience something diffuse because of it. A creeping exhaustion. An "I'm-functioning-but-nothing-more" feeling. A mind that never quite goes quiet. Something a lot of people recognise without being able to name it clearly, and without ever getting a diagnosis for it.
The feeling is real, even without a label. Ignoring it because "a lot of people feel this way" is the exact opposite of self-care.
The basics
If you set the Pinterest images aside and look honestly, self-care comes down to a few basics. They're unspectacular and cost almost nothing.
Sleep. The most important lever. Bad sleep makes everything else harder. Self-care almost always starts here.
Movement, at whatever level you can sustain. Walks, simple routines, things your body actually enjoys.
Real breaks. Breaks where genuinely nothing happens. No doomscrolling, no "just quickly finishing this one thing." Breaks that look like standing still — and work precisely because of that.
Connection with people who are good for you. Even brief ones. A call, a meetup, a message. We're social creatures. Isolation is poison.
Boundaries. Being able to say no without needing a 200-word argument. Something a lot of people still have to learn.
Noticing what's happening in your body. Where there's tension. Where there's tiredness. Where you haven't checked in with yourself at all today.
That's self-care. Repeatable. Essentially free.
The role of small rituals
In a restless everyday life, small rituals have a particular function. They're anchors. Markers in the day that say: something ends here, something else begins here.
A ritual is a repeated action that carries meaning. It doesn't have to be spiritual for that. Tea at the same time every evening. A walk after work. An incense stick you light before you sit down.
What makes these actions valuable is what they interrupt: autopilot. The constant onward motion. The hour that's already gone before you noticed it passing.
Rituals create transitions. They help you move from work mode into the evening. From the rush into stillness. From the outside into the inside. They make self-care concrete and workable in everyday life, even if you can't squeeze ten minutes of meditation into your calendar.
Where you can start
If this piece spoke to you, pick a single thing. One break in the day that's actually a break. Going to bed 30 minutes earlier. A small ritual that separates the evening from work.
Self-care is an attitude you practise. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. With pauses and setbacks. Like everything that matters.
At Sibicura, we make incense sticks and rituals for exactly these moments. Short, mindful pauses that hold up in everyday life. → Explore the scents · The Ritual