It can be far to easy to assume you haven't got any time for a little self care, but in reality you can always find a small space for it. In the long term it will definitely be better for your wellbeing that cutting it out altogether!
After handing in my dissertation last week, I realised how little time I'd been setting aside for self care. It's so easy when you have an upcoming deadline, an important project at work or even just other life stuff going on... to just set recovery to one side. You can do a 'good enough' job... and hey isn't that what they always said to do! But you can really end up settling for a middle ground that can ultimately not be very enjoyable or helpful.
I've spent a few days recently, having FUN! That carrot on the stick I dangled ahead of myself as I was completing my final piece of Uni work; that THING I'd forgotten how to do. It was easy to finish my diss and get right back into exciting things at work. I'd had a bit of a debrief after my hand in, but it wasn't much at all. As I dived straight into new projects and began picking up the slack again at work, I realised I'd really been neglecting my own self care for some time. Now the truth is, I am an A grade hypocrite at times! I work with amazing young people who inspire me so much and I frequently recommend different skills that they could utilise to help boost their mental health. They laugh at me for the number of times Mindfulness comes up in our chats, but the truth is, I know from experience that it can REALLY work! That being said, after finally stopping at the end of this week, I took stock of where I was at and all the self care things I'd neglected over the last few weeks. Self care is so easy to neglect and it can take some effort to manage to squish it back into a routine where it was so easily replaced by other 'more important' things to do. The number of times I tell myself or hear friends saying, they don't have time to do the nice things they want to, is a bit ridiculous. If being in hospital for almost a year taught me anything (which of course there was lots), it was that you can take time out of life and somehow everything still happens without you giving it your full attention (thank you to my wise guru-friend Gerry!).
In a sense, a little self care each day can be a sort of personal early intervention. If you top up your internal store of resilience and 'ability to cope', then you'll have a good stock if something comes up in life that you need to deal with. I'm starting off slow and making sure I have at least one nice/fun thing in my day. It can be as simple as a nice bubble bath, reading a book or spending a bit of time pottering in the garden. The key is to help find my space for something good each day and firmly get it into my routine again; once it's got a foothold and feels like the norm, perhaps I can let it blossom. I think it's starting to help already.
On balance, perhaps I do have time for fun!