Care-fully Selected Product Recs 

Every product and service listed in this section is independently chosen by us, Take Care’s highly discerning editors Maya and Eliza. We have two rules for our recommendations: We only recommend things we’d use ourselves, and we don’t earn a commission from these links —  we just want you to have the best of the best. No, seriously. 

The concept of self-care has become increasingly commercialized — and while a lot of stuff we buy for ourselves in the name of wellness can be superfluous, these are the products we buy for ourselves and that our friends swear by.

• Dieux’s Forever eye masks are reusable, thin, and lightweight, and they last for a year. At $25, these are one of our favorite indulgent ways to relax at the end of a long day.

• Dumb down your smartphone to do a real digital detox. Using a phone that only has basic functionality — like phone calls and texting — can eliminate the distractions. The Light Phone includes tools like directions, a calendar, an alarm, and a music player, so you won't be without your creature comforts.

• Remember Tamagotchis? When you use the Finch app, you’ll get reminders to practice daily self-care by taking care of a pet avatar. (Did you remember to put on sunscreen this morning? Have you eaten yet today?) It’s better — and way cuter — than the to-do list in my Notes app that’s collecting dust.

News you can use

What we’re reading

• Nursing parents still have no place to pump at work. Now they’re suing. The 19th reports that a wave of lawsuits is hitting major companies after the PUMP Act gave employees the right to sue over a lack of workplace accommodations.

• How the NDA became the defining legal document of our time. Non-disclosure agreements used to just be for work, but The Cut reports that they’ve wormed their way into every part of our lives—from dating to divorce and beyond.

• Contraception is free by law. So why are a quarter of women still paying for it? Since 2012, the Affordable Care Act has mandated that private insurance plans cover the “full range” of contraceptives for women approved by the FDA, so you shouldn't have any associated co-pays. Yet some insurers still charge for contraceptives.

• The people of Phoenix will fry this summer. The city has workers for that. A member of Phoenix’s Heat Response and Mitigation Office tells WIRED what it’s like to go out on the streets every day in temperatures that reach 110 degrees — or higher.

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How to Practice Self-Care When You Barely Remember to Eat Breakfast

Four weeks ago, I moved apartments. Moving is my least favorite task. What could be a less stressful situation in any other city is, in New York, riddled with unknowns you just have to figure out. Things like: Am I on the hook if the movers get a ticket for illegally double-parking? Will my dresser fit through the doorframe of my 114-year-old building? Is the box that the mover just dropped on the sidewalk the one holding all my glassware?

When I move, I become the most feral version of myself. I pack up my plates and silverware and forget I need those things to continue eating, a task I need to do to sustain myself. I eat and sleep poorly. I abandon my gym routine. Thankfully, my friends and my partner know what’s best for me even when I don’t — they dragged me out to the park for a picnic and made dinner with me (at their unpacked apartments), and brought me flowers once the big move was over.

Why practice self-care?

In today’s psychology jargon-filled world, where any malady is diagnosable by an unqualified 20-something on TikTok and any problem can be cured through the magic of consumerism, it’s all too easy to tell someone to prioritize self-care when the going gets rough. But it’s also the last thing I feel capable of doing when I feel too stressed out to deal with even basic maintenance. (Plus, in my case, I had already packed all my bath bombs and candles weeks ago.)

Though the action of caring for oneself has been around forever, self-care is a relatively new concept in medicine and wellness circles — the first PubMed article on self-care was published in 1946, and the subject peaked in 2015 with 2457 articles published on the topic. “Self-care” was only added to the Medical Subject Headings of the National Library of Medicine in 1981.

If for no other reason, engaging in self-care routines has a tangible benefit on your health — it can help you eliminate anxiety, reduce stress, adapt to change, and build stronger relationships. From a physical standpoint, it can reduce your risk of heart attack, cancer, and stroke. In one study, Americans cited benefits of self-care including enhanced self-confidence (64%), increased productivity (67%), and happiness (71%). Researchers and healthcare professionals have found that given the minimal amount of time most patients with chronic illnesses spend with healthcare providers, empowering patients and their caretakers and helping them perform self-care has a tendency to improve patient well-being and decrease mortality.

What self-care really means

The hard truth about self-care is that at its core, it involves carving out time for yourself, and in order to do that, it’s always done at the expense of something else. If you’re a single parent of twin toddlers, you can certainly take a bath after getting the kids to sleep for the night — but it might mean not doing the dishes or folding laundry that evening as planned. If you’re caring for an aging parent, it might mean stepping out of your mom’s elder care facility for a quick walk to get some air. 

Like anything, finding time for self-care gets easier with time — you’ll become more mindful about scheduling your time to accommodate the routines that become important to you. 

If you don’t know how to get started, it helps to pick a tangible goal and build small routines that carve out time to address that goal. Some ideas:

• Manage your daily stress levels, and try to reduce them

• Take better care of your physical and psychological health

• Foster and sustain the different relationships in your life

• Achieve better work-life balance

Pleasure and indulgence matter

Self-care is about keeping yourself refueled so you can keep doing not just the things you need to do every day, but the things you’re passionate about — and that’s worth indulging in regularly.

Our ability to experience pleasure is just as important to our happiness in life as our self-control. Sometimes, self-care is uncharitably considered selfish. But it’s actually quite selfless — by prioritizing your mental and physical health, you’ll be in better shape to care for yourself, and others in your life, in the future.

Thanks for reading Take Care! We’ll see you next week.