The Season of Stress is upon us! When my children were growing up, how many holiday seasons did I get wound up to the point of breaking? Every one!<\/p>\n
Back then, self-care wasn’t a “thing.” We all just stressed our way merrily through the holidays.<\/p>\n
Thank goodness, the importance of self-care and wellness have been popularized. Now articles, shows and podcasts offer constant encouragement to take care of ourselves.<\/p>\n
For a while, things were sweet and simple. Self-care was just about taking a little time for yourself, luxuriating in a bubble bath, getting lost in an engrossing novel, sneaking into a matinee, going out for an afternoon cup of tea, i.e., doing things that cost nothing or next to nothing.<\/p>\n
Hijacked<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 But then a funny thing happened in the world of self-care. Marketers smelled money and they went right to work: Why should we settle for a mere bubble bath when we could have massages, facials and body wraps at a spa? Or why shouldn’t we splurge on a whole weekend retreat? Or why not buy more things, like a home sauna, some special detox mud, a luxurious robe and fuzzy slippers?<\/p>\n Rina Raphael’s The Gospel of Wellness<\/em> brought this marketing game to light. You catch her perspective pretty quickly from the book’s subtitle, “Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care.”<\/p>\n Raphael documents how the wholesome idea of self-care has been amped up into a $4.4 trillion industry. Marketers have morphed the worthy goal of wellness into a reason to buy more stuff for millions of (mostly) women: Spa days, designer water, facial masks, meditation retreats, vitamin IV drips, fitness studio memberships, and so on.<\/p>\n A Cautionary Tale<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Not that there’s anything wrong or bad about any of these things. But caution is warranted, especially when you’re in a vulnerable holiday stress spot.<\/p>\n First, all things marketing call for a pause. Marketing is designed to make us buy without thinking. Instead, pause and consider the time and stress required to, e.g., book a spa appointment, drive there, arrive on time, pay for it on top of an already-stretched holiday budget, and then get home in time for your next engagement! Would it be a lot less stressful and more self-caring to opt for the luxurious bubble bath in your own bathroom with some soft music and a couple candles?<\/p>\n Second, pause and observe how marketers can hijack a simple, sensible idea, harnessing it to make us shell out for products and services which may or may not actually deliver. In this case, we are promised self-care, but the same marketing game is used to promise flawless skin, stellar health, a gorgeously toned body, an exciting vacation, instant weight loss . . ..<\/p>\n We’ve gotta be smarter than the marketers if we are to survive and thrive healthfully in today’s hyper-marketing world.<\/strong><\/p>\n Choices\u00a0<\/span> <\/strong>I had a joyous experience of self-care when I started re-framing the holidays about a decade ago. It struck me that they fall around the solstice, the darkest part of the year, when the rest of creation is resting and reflecting. What was I doing running around like a mad dog?!!<\/p>\n Now I minimize all the gifting, partying, decorating and rushing and running around. I take time to rest, feel the tranquility of the natural world, spend quality time with friends and family and, of course, make deeply nourishing meals. (Can I add that gifting yourself nourishing meals, prepared without rushing, is one of the best self-care presents!)<\/p>\n I’ve learned I have more choices than the marketing world would have me believe. And very often the free–or close to free–choices are the best!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Season of Stress is upon us! When my children were growing up, how many holiday seasons did I get wound up to the point of breaking? Every one! Back then, self-care wasn’t a “thing.” We all just stressed our way merrily through the holidays. Thank goodness, the importance of self-care and wellness have been … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7],"tags":[714,798,799],"class_list":["post-6125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-supportive-thinking-for-healthy-cooking","category-getting-marketing-wise","tag-health-marketing","tag-self-care","tag-wellness","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6153,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6125\/revisions\/6153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}