Why all women over-60 need to practise self-care
Dr Rhonda Anderson is an exercise physiologist specialising in healthy ageing for women. In her new book, Life After Menopause: 5 Key Habits of Healthy, Vital Older Women, she shares her expert tips for older women wanting to improve and maintain their mental and physical wellbeing.
Self-care involves nurturing our physical and mental health to keep our personal energy levels topped up. Think sleep, physical activity, quality food and drink, and time to relax and revive.
Relaxation and revival looks different for each of us. For example, depending on your inclination, it might include having a massage, spending time with the people closest to you, listening to music, getting outside, meditating or making art.
We need to be intentional about including enough self-care in our lives to not only keep our daily and weekly stress levels in check, but to also keep our energy levels topped up so we have a buffer.
Dr Michelle Segar refers to our personal energy levels as our ‘fuel tank’. A full fuel tank gives us the resilience to manage the ups and downs of day-to-day life.
When our fuel tank is full we feel more happy, energetic, present, clear, engaged, resilient, positive, productive and able to manage day-to-day frustrations.
But many of us think that self-sacrifice and hard work are what make a good mother, wife, partner or employee. This attitude isn’t original, of course. It’s probably been handed down by our mothers, who learnt it from their mothers. The trouble is that being a ‘good girl’ who does the ‘right thing’ can suck the life out of us — and the fuel out of our tank.
When we don’t prioritise ourselves we end up feeling wrung out. That’s because we’re always on the go with no time to restore ourselves. Recent Australian data show that just over 45 per cent of women say they feel rushed ‘always or often’. In the process we forfeit our health.
We also need to learn to prioritise what matters. Some of us start each day on automatic pilot and bulldoze our way through to bedtime without much thought for what’s really important. This is draining and eventually wears us out.
Dr Libby Weaver calls it Rushing Women’s Syndrome, in her book of the same name. She argues that it comes from our “relentless pursuit to never feel rejected”, which starts in girlhood as we chase the love of our parents, especially our fathers. Many of us never learn any other way to function.
The feeling of being needed and good enough comes at a price though. Rushing Women’s Syndrome outlines the many health consequences of always being ‘on’. In addition, we can be 50, 60 or older and have no idea how to really take care of ourselves — or we might never have given ourselves permission to be nurtured.
When your fuel tank is topped up you’ll not only be a more pleasant person to be around, you’ll be better able to carry out your role as a partner, parent, grandparent, daughter, sister, professional, friend, and so on. We’re of more use to others when we’re strong and healthy.
You’ll also have more capacity to listen to your body. When we’re run ragged we don’t pay attention to its stress signals, such as physical tension, anxiety, tiredness, flatness or depression. If we keep ignoring them eventually something escalates until we’re forced to deal with it.
While self-care is basic to our wellbeing, it’s a broad umbrella that includes behaviours such as setting boundaries, accepting and asking for help, trusting your intuition, expressing your emotions and creating a support team. Let’s take a look at each of them.
Self-care means setting boundaries
Setting boundaries means preserving your wellbeing by saying no at times, and that can take courage. “Thanks for thinking of me, but it doesn’t suit me to join the committee.”
Prioritising self-care represents a fundamental change for some of us, and we can expect to feel awkward, guilty or selfish at first. If we’ve trained the people around us that we behave in a particular way, we need to expect a reaction if we start to behave differently. Some people in your inner circle might not be enthusiastic about a change in what they’re used to, so you might need plenty of nerve to stick to your guns.
We also need to train ourselves not to automatically give away our time. If you’re asked to do something, it’s OK to say that you need to check your commitments. That gives you time to do that and to think about what you want to do.
Sometimes it’s possible to come up with a compromise that allows everyone to have their needs met sufficiently, e.g. “I can’t spend all day there, but I can help you for a couple of hours.” Remember that it’s important to let people know your commitments. Often they can work around them if they know.
One of my clients regards her exercise time as ‘her’ time, and she’s trained her family to respect that. If they want her to do something for them they know she’ll do her utmost, just not during the time she’s set aside for herself.
Even when we retire from paid work, creating time for ourselves isn’t necessarily easy. Without work to structure our lives we need to do that ourselves, and we can soon find our days and weeks so full that we wonder how we fitted our work in.
The key is to start by carving out time for your self-care needs, and let everything else fall around that. If you say yes to everything else first, assuming there’ll be space left over for you, you might be in for a disappointment. Sometimes family and friends are needy, but remember that you’re better able to provide support when your tank is full.
If your time all seems to be accounted for, go back to the drawing board and take another look at what’s going on. You’ll need to have conversations with family, friends, committee members, and so on. And become terrific at saying ‘no’.
Self-care means accepting and asking for help
How often does someone ask if you’d like a hand with a task, and you automatically say something like, “Thanks, but it’ll take me no time at all”.
Some of us worry about being a burden, or we assume that other people aren’t really interested in helping us. But that has more to do with our view than with reality.
So instead of your usual response, stop, take a breath and accept their offer.
Independence is wonderful, but we also need capacity to receive. It’s not a sign of weakness or selfishness, and when we can’t receive, we deny other people the opportunity to contribute to us.
The next step is asking for help. Try it and you might be surprised. And if the first person says no, ask someone else.
Self-care means trusting your intuition
This applies in all areas of life, but one place where it’s easy to overlook our intuition is in dealing with the healthcare system.
How often have you looked back on an appointment with a health practitioner and realised that you took their recommendation as gospel and didn’t ask the obvious questions? Or you felt uneasy about their recommendation, but went along with it?
We can forget that our body belongs to us, rather than to healthcare providers.
Here are a few basics to help you stay empowered:
- Be proactive: Assume that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. If you don’t understand something there’s every chance that it hasn’t been explained clearly enough. Don’t be afraid to go to a consultation with a list of what you want to ask, or a notepad to write down key points. Keep copies of your health and medical information for your own records. You’re entitled to have these, so even if your health professional doesn’t offer them, ask. Get second opinions and be willing to switch providers if your needsaren’t being met. If you want to, you have every right to use a combination of mainstream and complementary approaches, so stand your ground if a provider won’t cooperate with the way you want to do things. Follow up. The health system is overloaded, and mistakes are made, so be the squeaky wheel. And if you have a hunch that something isn’t right, follow it up.
- Do your homework: The Internet puts information at your fingertips, so take advantage of it. Websites such as WebMD, Mayo Clinic or Jean Hailes will give you good basic information about a condition. It’s also easy to check the manufacturers’ information about medications and their side-effects. Know why your doctor wants you to have particular tests; why you’ve been prescribed certain treatments, medications or supplements; and what you should expect from them. We’re all different, so be observant and notice how you react to these. If anything seems out of the ordinary, make your own notes. This will help your practitioner manage your treatment, but it also increases your knowledge and ownership of your health. Patients who live with their conditions often understand them better than their healthcare providers do.
- Take your time: Few decisions need to be made on the spot, so ask for more time if it feels like you’re being led down a path that doesn’t feel right.
- Bring your mind too: It’s not just your body that’s involved in various treatment regimes. Your thoughts, feelings and beliefs also play a huge role. Negative emotions can hamper your intention to get and stay well, so be aware of them, and do everything you can to bring a positive approach to the process.
Self-care means expressing your emotions
Cardiologist Dr Stephen Sinatra says there’s a huge mind-body component in heart disease, and that deeply negative emotions such as anger, hostility, bitterness, jealousy and lack of forgiveness can increase our release of stress hormone.
His advice is that it’s far healthier to experience strong emotion so we can let it go, rather than hanging on to it. Conflict can be a major source of emotional stress, and it’s often hard to be objective about the role we’re playing in it or to let the emotion go. If you’re having difficulty with that, a counsellor or psychologist can help.
A loss through the death of a loved one (including a furry or feathered one), a brush with our own mortality or a dramatic change in circumstances can activate our stress hormones in a big way. Make sure you reach out in those times; there are no prizes for being stoic and going it alone.
Self-care means having a support team
Think about the kinds of people you need to support your health. Your team will probably include professionals, such as your doctor, but each of us will have a slightly different team depending on our needs and inclinations. Your team members might include a counsellor, a masseur, an acupuncturist, an exercise specialist, a dietitian, a naturopath, your partner, your art teacher or your best friend.
This is an edited extract from Life After Menopause: 5 Key Habits of Healthy, Vital Older Women by Dr Rhonda Anderson, available here.