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Some links in this article are affiliate links. We may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we find useful to our readersWe are so wired up in being kind to everyone else that we forget to do the same to our own self. There are plenty of reasons you should be kind to yourself but often times, we don’t even pay them any heed. How kindly do you treat yourself?
Recollecting the events that happened, you will often find that being kind to yourself doesn’t cost you anything at all. All you have to do is stop with the consistent self criticism.
In here, we are going to share some of the health benefits of being kind to yourself and how you can achieve that as well.
Why Is It Important To Be Kind To Yourself?
To be fair, it takes nothing to be kind to yourself, so if you are wondering why it is important, I am asking you, Why not?
This is where majority of the people go wrong. They fail to realize the fact that it takes nothing but the impacts that it has on you and your health are promising and very effective in keeping your mental health in the best state.
Not only does it help affect your mental health for the better, it also imparts beneficial impacts on your physical well being, ensuring the best of health that you otherwise didn’t know of.
Health Benefits Of Being Kind To Yourself
It is easier for us to beat ourselves down and constantly blame ourselves for things that we possibly had no control over. But, how often do you realize that it’s okay to goof up sometimes and that the same is not the end of the world?
Doesn’t happen quite often, now, does it?
This is where things need to change. If you are consistently criticizing your mere existence, we would suggest that you looking into the mental benefits of being kind of yourself and then decide why it is so important and effective for maintaining a balance in life.
1. Handles anxiety better
Anxiety, irrespective of the intensity of it, has grave impacts on one’s mental health. If you have been struggling to keep a check on your panic attacks and anxiety, it is likely that you will give yourself a hard time about it.
Read: 15 Ways To Deal With Crippling Anxiety – Fight Back!
Don’t do that.
The last thing that you want is to add to the over piling mansion of self hate and self criticism. Instead of doing that, make sure that you are being kind to yourself instead. This might not seem like much but when you treat yourself a little better and are accepting of your flaws, the same has direct positive impacts on your overall well being.
In a conducted study (R) by the researchers from the University of British Columbia, it was found that kindness, be it to someone else or yourself, does have positive benefits in helping improve your overall signs of anxiety and improves the mental health as well.
2. Handle stress better
Stress is a common part of our daily life. There are infinite triggers for the same around us, be it because of the consistent work that you have or even because of the consistent fear of people surrounding you, the options are extensive.
For the best impacts, we would suggest that you do look into ways that can further help reverse the consistent high levels of stress in the body, mainly because of the fact that it doesn’t do any good to your body.
The high levels of cortisol hamper the normal body functions and hormone imbalance which is why finding stress relieving ways is necessary.
One of the common health benefits of being kind to yourself is that it helps tame the spiking levels of stress that you have been struggling with.
Practicing self compassion has been found to have positive impacts in reducing the high levels of cortisol in the blood stream.
Read: Study Suggests Some Types Of Stress Can Actually Enhance Lifespan
3. Improves your heart health
When it comes round to the physical benefits of being kind to yourself, the same has impact benefits on your heart and cardiovascular health.
Being kind to yourself and others trigger the release of the feel good hormones in the body and even changes the chemical history in the brain.
The Oxycontin (R) that is released into the blood stream has direct impacts on the release of nitric oxide in the blood stream as well. The nitric oxide is responsible for vasodilation which further helps improve the condition of blood pressure and reduces the risks of hypertension, which has further benefits on the heart health.
As the blood pressure is managed, the same has positive influence on the heart health and keeps your cardiovascular functions in check as well.
Read: 10 Yoga Poses For Heart Health – Get That Blood Flowing Properly!
4. Better impacts on the immune system
You might not realize this but your mind and body health is interlinked. This is the reason why it is important that you treat yourself with compassion.
Having a better mental health has been found to have better impacts on your overall physical well being, especially when it comes to the immunity.
When you are under constant stress and scrutiny, the body is always charged and at a distress, causing direct impacts on the physical well being and affects your immune system as well.
Indulging in compassion meditation (R) and praising your achievements more during your lifetime does have positive impacts and benefits on your well being, helping improve the overall well being of an individual.
It helps reduce the risks associated with the stress induced immune response and helps keep an eye out on the same.
Remind yourself to be kind to yourself today.
5. Enhanced life span
Another one of the reasons you should be kind to yourself is because it has direct benefits on your lifespan.
Studies believe that being self criticizing yourself all the time has direct impacts on the heart health and immunity which causes damage to the body that we don’t even realize.
One of the best ways to reverse that is by ensuring that you look into the effective ways of handling the struggles associated with heart health and the overall immunity.
When you are not constantly bringing yourself down and practicing more compassion, the same has been found to have better impacts in helping improve your life span without any roadblocks.
Being kind to yourself let’s you nurture better relationships as well, which further has positive impacts on your mental well being, thus helping promote your life span.
Read: Community Factors Can Influence Your Lifespan, New Study Suggests
6. Lets you conquer your weight loss goals
One of the most common things that makes people self critical about themselves is their weight and body shape. So, if you have been indulging in setting on a weight loss journey, we would suggest that you be a little kinder to yourself.
Not only is it important because it helps keep you on track and keep you motivated, it also helps prevent you from spiraling back to the dark places.
Self compassion does have positive benefits in helping you stick to your goals without any issue.
You would be surprised but in a conducted study(R), it was found that the group of participants who indulged in better self compassion with candies in front of them ate less in comparison to the ones who didn’t.
This itself shows how effectively compassion can help keep you on track with your weight loss goals.
Not just that, one of the mental benefits of being kind to yourself is that it reduces the risks of the body image struggles that majority of the people tend to struggle with.
Read:Meditation For Weight Loss – Everything One Needs To Know
7. Helps manage the signs of chronic pain
Not many know this but your take about your mental health can impact the way your body handles pain. It might not seem like much but it does have direct impacts, one that you possibly didn’t know of.
People who treat themselves with kindness and have compassion towards themselves have often reported to experience fewer complaints about pain and discomfort.
When you are compassionate and mindful in your life, the same reflects on the intensity and frequency of pain that you are likely experiencing.
Since they also promote the release of endorphins into the blood stream, the same has been found to have positive benefits on the pain that you are likely experiencing.
Read:Stimulation Of Brain Can Reduce Chronic Pain, New Study Suggests
8. Deal better with diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic disease the affects millions of people across the world.
If you have been looking into the physical benefits of being kind to yourself, the same helps you manage your risks of diabetes. It is common for people to wonder how and why it happens but it is believed that the heightened risks of diabetes stems from the constant issues with stress and high levels of cortisol in the body.
A conducted study (R) with diabetes patients tested out the impacts of self compassion on their overall condition and found that it let the people deal with their condition better and even helped stabilize the glucose levels in the body.
As you are being more self compassionate towards yourself, the same helps reduce the stress in the body and in turn, the levels of cortisol in the blood stream as well.
This has been found to prevent sudden and unnecessary glucose spikes which further helps reduce the risks of diabetes even more so.
Read: Enhancing Fitness With Walking For Diabetes: 9 Effective Tips!
9. Better motivation to get exercising
Exercising is important for your health. Often times when we are being very self critical of ourselves, we end up losing our motivation to get things done, exercise being one of the most important one.
We tend to have the thought process that nothing good will come out of it in the end, so there is no point doing it at all.
This is the mindset that we need to change and this is why being kind to yourself is a necessity, if not anything else.
Often times, when you are self compassionate and emphasise more on your achievements rather than the downsides, the same does have positive benefits on the overall well being, especially in helping promote your will and mindset to keep going with the physical activities.
Constantly shaming yourself will get you nothing which is why it is important that you do the opposite to churn better results from your workout.
Read:10 Important Ways To Increase Workout Motivation
10. Better impacts on the brain function
Not many realize this but one of the reasons you should be kind to yourself is because it has direct impacts on your brain function.
When you practice self compassion and meditation, the same has been found to have positive impacts in helping improve the overall brain function for the better.
One of the best ways to do so is with meditation and the same has actually been found to have amazing benefits in helping rewire the brain architecture and connections.
It also does enhance the cortical thickness which has further benefits in improving the efficiency and functioning of the brain for the better.
Not only does it promote better cross communication, it also does help the brain be more engaged and integrated with the functions.
Read: Brain Fog – Causes, Symptoms And Treatment
11. Lets you tackle challenges better
Often times, when we are busy criticizing our own self, we fail to understand our capabilities in tackling challenges. When you are being kind to yourself and nurturing compassion, one of the best benefits that come out of it is that it helps you tackle challenges better.
You are likely going to have better results with the constant struggles and conquer your issues and struggles that come your way.
The only thing that is worth looking into is to ensure that you find better ways to practice and preach self love, because at the end of the day, that is what matters.
When you are not being extremely critical about yourself, the same has been found to have better impacts in helping achieving things that life throws your way.
How do you practice being kind to yourself?
With the health benefits of being kind to yourself set aside, we wanted to share some effective ways that you can opt for being kind to yourself.
It doesn’t take you a lot but just small but effective changes in your attitude to bring better changes to your life.
Let us take a look at some of the best ways that you can practice self compassion.
1. Spend some time with yourself
You wouldn’t know how much you enjoy your own company and start appreciating yourself unless you actually spend time with yourself.
This is where you need to introduce changes in your life.
If you want to practice self compassion and experience the physical benefits of being kind to yourself, start by isolating some of the time in a day just for yourself.
You can do nothing and everything during that time. Just try and understand yourself better during that time and analyse what is making you so self critical of things.
Read: 12 Positive Self Talk Practices – Know The Details And The Ways
2. Embrace your flaws
Another amazing way of being kind is by embracing your flaws and yourself just the way you are. You technically wouldn’t know or realize this but often times, embracing your flaws is the best way to nurture a good relationship with yourself. It might not seem like a lot but when you start small, the results are usually very effective and grand in the long run.
If you are struggling with issues concerning yourself, pick yourself up and tell yourself that it’s okay. Every person comes with their own set of flaws. Just, don’t let that get to your head because that is what ends up making one more self critical of things.
3. Tame your inner critic
Even when you are trying to be kind to yourself and not let the subconscious take over, it is your inner critic that needs to be tamed. Make sure that you tell yourself that you are worth it and that the inner critic is just nothing but being judgmental of things.
This is where you need to look into better ways of tackling things around.
We are often very harsh towards ourselves when we let our inner subconscious take over. This is exactly where you need to put a stop to things.
When you find yourself being too self critical, take a pause and analyse the reasons and the ways that you can get out of the funk.
Read: How To Find Inner Peace? 25 Things You Can Do For A Calmer Mind
4. Practice meditation
Not many pay much attention to this but meditation is actually an amazing way to tame your mind, instill positive thoughts and even nurture your relationship with yourself.
If you have been struggling to keep your head and thoughts in one place, meditation does help achieve that.
Just ensure that you take some time out of the day and focus on meditating sitting in a peaceful surrounding.
Read: 20 Health Benefits Of Meditation According To Science
5. Acknowledge your achievements
It is very easy for us to appraise others on their achievements but often times, we fail to do the same in our own case. One of the best ways to nurture a healthy relationship with yourself is by ensuring that you acknowledge your achievements.
Instead of pointing out your own disappointments and constant self hate, appreciate even the small wins that you achieve in life. This itself has been found to have amazing benefits in helping improve your own relationship with your own self.
6. Let go of the past
If you want to experience the mental benefits of being kind to yourself, you need to let go off the past. The reason why that is the case is because of how impactful it is in worsening your thought process.
When you hold onto things and mistakes that you did in the past, chances are that it won’t let you prosper in the future.
You don’t want that to end up taking a toll on your mental health, which is the reason why it is important that you learn from the past experiences and not let the same end up taking control over your present.
If you have been looking into the reasons you should be kind to yourself, we have sorted you out with some of the most insightful information. This day forth, treat yourself with a little bit more compassion than you did yesterday. Every day is a new beginning, so learn how to give yourself second chances at things that you possibly goofed up before.
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