When Did Self-Care Become So Much Work?

I always thought self-care was supposed to make us feel better. Somewhere along the way, though, it seems to have become another list of things we are expected to do perfectly.  

Social media is full of carefully planned morning routines, sleep tracking, step counts, skincare routines and wellness “hacks.” We are told that if we wake up earlier, exercise, meditate, journal and eat the perfect breakfast, we will become healthier and more successful. There is nothing wrong with these habits individually. The problem is the pressure to do all of them.

Vogue recently reported on the rise of “anti-optimisation”, a wellness trend encouraging people to move away from constantly tracking and improving themselves. At first, this sounds refreshing. However, many of the solutions still involve buying another product, app or device. It feels ironic that the wellness industry is now selling us relief from the pressure it helped to create.

As someone balancing work, university and everyday responsibilities, I do not find extreme morning routine videos particularly motivating. Mostly, they make me wonder how someone has exercised, journalled, meditated and prepared a healthy breakfast before I have even had my first coffee.

This content can make completely normal days feel like failures. It is no longer enough to go for a walk; we need to reach a certain number of steps. We cannot just sleep; we need an app to score how well we did it. Even relaxing starts to feel like another task that must be planned, tracked and improved.

Healthy routines can be genuinely helpful. The issue is presenting one carefully edited version of wellness as something everyone should achieve. Our fascination with other people’s routines can lead to comparison and shame, especially when we forget that social media only shows part of someone’s life.

Real self-care is not always interesting enough to post. Sometimes it is walking the dogs, buying an easy dinner or watching Netflix. It does not need to be productive or aesthetically pleasing to matter.

Maybe the healthiest thing we can do is stop letting social media decide what taking care of ourselves is supposed to look like.