Why is Self-Care Important for Fitness? And How to Apply it

Good self-care should include every aspect of your life, including exercise and fitness. The growth in the self-care movement is finally recognizing that the principle applies to fitness too. In everything you do, consider how it benefits or is detrimental to your well-being. 

While exercise is considered good for you and an important part of self-care, it isn’t always healthy. It’s possible to approach fitness in unhealthy ways, for instance by obsessing over a weight goal. Make room for self-care in how you exercise and stay fit. 

What is Self-Care? 

First, it’s important to understand exactly what self-care is, and what it isn’t. It’s a trending term in wellness and mental health that is often misunderstood. Self-care does not mean being indulgent or selfish. It is simply taking care of yourself. 

Self-care is the radical notion that you should prioritize your own wellness and health. Only when you ensure your own well-being can you fully care for others or be good at your job and other activities. Here are some important facts about self-care and what it looks like in reality: 

• Self-care does not mean neglecting others. It means making time and space for your own needs. 

• It encompasses all aspects of health and wellness, including physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. 

• Self-care isn’t strictly pampering or indulging, but if these kinds of activities reduce stress, they represent valid self-care. 

• Self-care activities are not self-destructive. For instance, splurging on a new bag that makes you happy but puts you in debt is not good self-care. 

• It isn’t always enjoyable. You might not enjoy making your bed in the morning, but if tidying reduces your stress, it is good self-care. 

• Self-care does not have to be expensive. You don’t need a costly massage or expensive fitness class to reduce stress or get fit. 

Exercise is one of the best types of self-care. If you do nothing else for your wellness, work out regularly. Regular exercise is obviously good for your physical health, but it is also good for mental and emotional health. It reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. Exercise gets you out of the house and is often social. 

Here are some more ways that exercise benefits your mental health. 

Why Is Self-Care Important for Fitness Too? 

To get all the positive benefits of self-care, it’s essential to consider how you approach it in everything you do. Self-care is all encompassing. It should permeate every aspect of your life, even fitness and exercise. While exercise is a form of self-care, it can also lead to some destructive habits:

• Making exercise a chore that you just have to get through

• Obsessing over your weight and working out only to get to a certain number

• Developing an unhealthy relationship with food as part of a diet and fitness regimen

• Becoming addicted to exercise

• Chronically overdoing it and getting injured or making yourself sick

• Getting down on yourself when you don’t meet certain fitness or sports goals

If you end up with unhealthy habits like these, fitness is more self-destructive than self-care. As one of the most important things you can do for physical and mental health, it deserves more thoughtful attention. 

Treating exercise as a component of self-care allows you to fully reap its benefits. It becomes something you enjoy, rather than a chore. It can help you be more mindful as you forge a powerful mind-body connection. It will make you stronger, healthier, and more self-confident. And, when you master the self-care aspect of exercise, you’ll get better at it and achieve more fitness goals more easily. 

Learn more about wellness and how it applies in all areas of your life. 

What Does Self-Care in Fitness Look Like? 

Self-care in any part of your life is all about doing what is best for your overall wellness. Sometimes, this means having fun. Other times, it means restricting bad habits or developing habits that might be slow to reap rewards. 

Focusing on Healthy Goals

Everyone has a reason for working out. Goals can be powerful motivators, but they can backfire too. Reassess your goals for exercise and make them positive. 

For instance, instead of setting a specific number for a weight loss goal, work toward lifting a certain amount of weight or running a 5k without stopping. Healthy goals set the foundation for self-care in exercise. 

Fueling Your Active Body

Exercise can easily get tangled up in unhealthy eating patterns, often related to weight loss goals. To get the benefits of working out, your body must be fueled properly. Too often people restrict calories or carbs in an effort to achieve a certain body shape, but this can be detrimental to health. 

Pay attention to what your body needs to exercise. Focus on getting a balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats from a variety of whole foods. De-emphasize calorie counting and look at food as fuel rather than something to be avoided or demonized. 

Getting Enough Sleep

Sleep is important for all aspects of your life, but as with food, it also fuels your fitness routine. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, your body will not adequately recover between activities. You will get fatigued more easily and even increase your risk of injury. The more you exercise and the more intense your workouts, the more sleep you need, up to nine hours per night. 

Making Time for Recovery

If you have a busy life, it’s easy to skip the parts of exercise that seem less impactful, namely warming up and cooling down. These are the kinds of self-care activities that are easy to skip because they’re not as fun or don’t seem as important. Take time to warm up, stretch, foam roll, or anything else you need to do knowing that it’s good for your body and mind. 

Placing Healthy Limits on Exercise

Getting into exercise and fitness, pushing your body to the next goal, and conquering physical challenges can all be healthy habits. They can also cross the line into compulsive behaviors. Pushing too hard in fitness can become a mental health issue. It can also cause injuries and even weaken your immune system. 

There is no single rule for how much anyone should work out in a day or a week. Everyone is different, but in general, avoid spending more than two hours per day on gym workouts. To be more active, consider going for a walk or playing sports with friends instead of doing that extra gym session. You’ll get the additional benefits of being outside or socializing. 

Enjoying Being Active

If you dread every trip to the gym and slog through every minute of every workout, exercise is no longer self-care. Yes, it still gets you to your step goal or number of calories burned, but it’s doing nothing for your mental well-being. 

Reassess how you work out and find activities you enjoy. Exercise doesn’t have to be in a gym. It doesn’t have to be a fitness class, a treadmill, or lifting weights. Find a sport to join with friends, like pickleball. Go for hikes on trails with your dog. Try a new fitness class. In other words, shake things up and find something you actually like.

Supporting Self-Care

Self-care should be part of every aspect of your life. If you are a personal trainer or coach, help your clients see how important it is to take time for their own wellness, in fitness and everywhere else. 

If the self-care approach to wellness appeals to you, consider enrolling in ISSA’s Health Coach Program. With this online course, you can become a certified health coach and help others transform their health and their lives.