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Self-care is viewed as an active factor in enhancing our well-being. Anything that contributes to your overall wellness might be considered self-care. Self-care can be that 15 minutes break you take between work, and similarly, it can be your visit to the spa for a good foot massage. In short, self-care is anything that offers you inner peace.
Stress is our constant companion in our daily lives, making it important to pay attention to ourselves. During such times, people opt for stress relief activities, go to yoga, or hit the gym. But all these activities will not do any good if we do not care for ourselves on the primary level. Getting adequate sleep or following a healthy diet is the first step. If we eat healthily, only then will we be able to exercise properly.
All in all, self-care is taking care of oneself on a physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual level. Self-care, however, is often thought of as a luxury. But in truth, a self-care practice entails caring for oneself in any way one can.
In this podcast, Adeola shares her knowledge on therapeutic self-care and how it enhances personal and professional lives.
Key Takeaways
- Therapeutic self-care starts with self-awareness, not spa day. Adeola draws a line between general self-care (massage, vacation, nails) and therapeutic self-care — diagnosing what's actually off in the body, mind, or routine before deciding what to fix.
- Most workplace fatigue traces to missed meals and late hydration. She sees clients in workplace wellness programs who skip eating all day, then binge and under-hydrate at night, and blame stress for the fatigue that follows.
- Routine is the intervention. Going to sleep at the same time trains melatonin release and cascades into focus and productivity the next day — a cheaper fix than any supplement.
- Food sensitivity testing makes change self-motivating. Showing patients in black and white which foods drive inflammation bypasses willpower arguments — they stop wanting the food once they see what it's doing.
- Accountability structures beat private promises. Telling a spouse, workmate, or group wellness cohort you'll walk makes the commitment external; workplace wellness challenges with shared prompts and check-ins exploit this.
- Leadership builds a wellbeing culture or it doesn't exist. Flexible hours, water stations, protected PTO (no emails, no "just one more meeting"), reasonable workloads, and third-party wellbeing surveys — these are the levers. Everything else is theatre.
- Leaders who log on at 3am teach the wrong lesson. When a leader works odd hours, the team reads it as the expected bar and overworks to match. Leading by example means taking vacation, lunch breaks, and walking meetings visibly.
In Adeola's Words
On what therapeutic actually means
Therapeutic self-care is one step back before the activity of self-care — it's self-awareness. Figuring out what's wrong first, then making a very specific action plan that would be therapeutic or curative.
Lots of clients in workplace wellness don't eat all day. They're so busy they don't take the time, then have irregular eating and hydration patterns later. They're fatigued because they're not getting consistent, sustainable fuel.
On building the routine
The body thrives on routine. When you go to sleep at the same time every night, you start producing melatonin around the same time, fall asleep, wake up rested, focus, be productive.
If it's not part of your routine, it's so much harder to stay motivated. Once you put it in your calendar, tell the people around you, let them hold you accountable — then it's going to happen.
On what leaders owe their teams
Leadership is a relationship. Check in: is this workload okay for you? How are things going? Do you have what you need? A lot of times we make it complicated — sometimes it's just a matter of asking and doing a third-party survey so people feel free to be honest.
When your time off is your time off — no one calls you, no one emails you, no one asks if you can do just one more meeting — that's respect. That's the culture shift.
I've worked with organisations where leaders say, "If I'm up in the night I'll log on and do a bit of work." When your teammates see you working at 3 a.m., they think, "I slept the whole night, I'm falling behind, I need to work harder." Lead by example.
On professional self-care as a daily act
Most of your time is spent at work. If you don't implement healthy habits there, it leaves you a very small window to attend to your personal health. Walking meetings, a proper lunch break, bringing a water pitcher — those little things build the culture.
A lot of times teams are just looking for any semblance of permission to take care of themselves. If leadership participates in the wellness challenge, the team gets that unspoken permission.
About the Speaker
Adeola Mead is a Naturopathic Physician and Director at VitaliTeam Workplace Wellness with 15+ years of clinical and corporate consultancy experience.
VitaliTeam Workplace Wellness provides and curates health/wellness services and experiences centered on individual holistic, personalized care while fostering social connection and positive team cultures. They are a “Boutique EAP” agency that is hyper-focused on identifying and comprehensively addressing the root cause issues underlying individual and organizational health concerns.
Connect with her on Linkedin.
Show Notes
(01:09) Tell us your journey in the area of wellness.
(02:30) What is a therapeutic self-care? Give me some examples.
(04:42) What are the benefits of therapeutic self-care towards a better life and work life?
(06:58) What are some strategies of self-care to identify and rectify unhealthy habits?
(14:42) Is there such a thing called professional self-care? If yes, what is that?
(17:05) How can employers encourage the workforce to focus on self-care?
(24:15) Can you share some valuable suggestions with our listeners?
