Self-Care Vocabulary in English [Phrasal Verbs, Idioms, and Collocations]

Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want

for your life and work in English.

And today we're all about the vocabulary you need to have confident

conversations on a topic that absolutely impacts our life and

work. The topic is self-care. In 2020,

we're all feeling it. Anxiety, stress, fear,

uncertainty, tension, feeling overwhelmed, lost,

or out of control.

Even if you've had moments of feeling grateful for more time at home,

time to spend on things that you care about, or spending time with family,

now more than ever self care is a topic of conversation

and a matter of urgency.

I'm certain that you've been asking your friends and family members questions

like how are you coping with working from home,

or how are you coping with your kids learning at home?

How are you coping with new restrictions? You might also ask questions like,

how are you finding joy in the midst of all of this?

Or what are you doing for fun while staying at home?

At the end of the day,

what we're really asking about in those conversations is self-care.

So in this lesson today,

I want to help you develop the vocabulary you need to effectively have

conversations in English on this topic with friends, family members,

and coworkers. In this Confident English lesson today,

you're going to learn an array of phrasal, verbs, idioms,

and collocations that we use when we're talking about what is self-care,

how do you prioritize it and what kinds of activities allow you to

build a practice or create a practice of self care?

So whether you're looking for permission to begin including self-care

in your daily routine,

or you simply want to advance your vocabulary on this topic in English,

this lesson is for you

To get started,

let's do a quick review of what exactly is self-care.

What does that mean?

Because some of us might have the impression that self care is a

luxury and that's not quite accurate.

Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately intentionally to

take care of our emotional, mental, or physical health.

I'm sure that, you know, the healthier you are,

the better you're able to care for others in your life.

And the better you're able to manage stress and do your job.

In a year like 2020,

all of us definitely need a little bit of self care

to regain some control over that anxiety and for overall

improved well-being.

We're going to talk more about that word well-being in a moment.

But first let's look at several verbs we use.

When we talk about including self care in our daily routine.

Earlier in this lesson, I used the word practice: to practice self care.

That's such an interesting verb to use here. Of course,

the verb to practice means to do something repeatedly,

to develop a routine in order to improve in order to get better. For example,

to practice the piano, to practice a sport, to practice singing.

The reason we use this verb here is self-care,

isn't something we do easily or naturally. In fact, it's hard.

It takes quite a bit of self discipline to create time every

day for yourself to successfully develop a self-care

practice.

We have to be intentional or proactive about self-care.

Before we get into some collocations that we use,

when talking about the benefits of self care, I have a question for you,

and this is where we can practice some of the verbs we've just learned.

Have you, in 2020, developed a practice for self-care?

Have you been intentional about it every day?

An example of how you might answer that question would be to say over the

last few months,

I've started to prioritize self-care by including 15 minutes a

day on my calendar to do something relaxing or something that is joyful.

So I'm curious, how would you answer that question?

What have you been been doing to develop a self-care practice?

And now let's move on to some common verbs and collocations we use when we're

talking about the benefits.

The number one benefit of self-care is a boost to your well-being.

Wel-lbeing is a term that means the overall experience of

health, happiness, and prosperity,

a feeling of life satisfaction,

and an ability to cope or manage with stress.

Even with just 10 or 15 minutes a day of doing something relaxing or

joyful, there can be a significant boost to your overall well-being.

Self-care also allows you to reconnect, reduce and reassess.

These three verbs we use in multiple ways to talk about the benefits of

taking time for yourself. When you are emotionally, mentally,

and physically healthy, not only are you able to reconnect with yourself,

but you're also able to better reconnect with others.

When you take time for yourself,

you're also better able to reassess what's working in your

life and what's not working in your life.

You might even find that there are things that you can remove from your life

that stress you out. When we do that, we're able to reduce anxiety,

reduce tension, and stress,

and reduce the pressure of always being on top of your game.

I love that idiom.

The idiom to be on top of your game means to do something or perform at your

highest level of ability.

And there's a lot of pressure to do that a hundred percent of the time.

A little bit of self-care can help reduce that pressure or sense of

obligation that might stress you out.

So now that we know how to talk about the benefits of self-care in English,

the next question becomes, how. How do you do this?

And we've got some great expressions to use in English.

As we talked about earlier, we certainly have to be intentional,

or we have to make a conscious effort to do something relaxing or joyful

every day.

That might be something as simple as going for a walk outside or reading a great

book.

We also need to make a conscious effort to reduce negative

inputs.

What that means is to remove anything that adds to your stress through

negativity, for example,

reading the news or spending too much time on social media.

We can definitely become addicted to checking in on social media every

five minutes or trying to stay up to date with the news. So again,

we have to be careful, intentional,

conscious to reduce or remove that negativity.

If you've been following me for awhile, then, you know, in August,

I'm definitely intentional about this.

Every August I unplug from technology,

or I do a digital detox.

A digital detox is a period of time when someone stops using

electronic devices, such as smartphones and computers,

and we avoid news and social media,

it's definitely an effective way to reduce that stress, anxiety,

and negativity,

while at the same time boosting well-being and even creativity.

I'm curious, have you ever taken time to unplug from technology,

reduce negative inputs or do a digital detox? If you have,

I'd love to hear about it.

And what were some of the benefits that you experienced?

Let's keep going with a couple more common collocations we use when we talk

about how we develop a practice of self-care.

One of my favorites is to schedule some me time.

Here's an example of how to use that for the last several months,

every Sunday afternoon, I've made sure to schedule some me time.

Another example, every morning, I schedule 10 to 15 minutes of me,

time to help me start my day.

10 to 15 minutes every day definitely helps to build a successful

self-care routine, but sometimes we need more.

Sometimes life is so stressful,

so overwhelming that we need to take a self-care day or take a mental

health day. In those situations. We cancel everything,

all of our obligations and responsibilities for a full day so that we can relax

and do something that brings us joy.

Or perhaps if you've developed a successful routine and you take time

to reassess what's working or not working in your life,

you might also create a no list.

This might be a list of things that you've said yes to that you really don't

want to do. And as a result,

you're feeling overwhelmed and you might begin to remove

yourself from those obligations or learn to say no to them in the future.

Now, for some of us that's really uncomfortable.

We don't like saying no when people ask us to do something.

So if that's an area that's challenging for you, I've got good news.

I have a lesson on that topic of how to say no in English politely

without feeling guilty. Okay.

Before we go on to our final idioms collocations and phrasal verbs,

here's a quick recap.

We've discussed the language we use in English to talk about what self-care is

and what it means to develop a daily practice,

what the benefits are and some language for how to do self-care.

So now let's end with some common expressions we use when we know it's

time to prioritize self-care.

One fantastic idiom we use is the feeling that you have

spread yourself too thin.

To spread yourself thin means that you are doing too many things at the same

time. And as a result, you can't do any of them well.

Have you ever been in that position?

Here are a couple of examples of how we would use that idiom in a sentence.

After years of spreading herself too thin,

she resigned from her position at the company rather than continue to risk her

health. Another example, next week,

I'm going to take a couple of self-care days because I've been spreading myself

too thin at work. And as a result, I'm not doing anything well.

Similar to spreading yourself too thin,

we have a phrasal verb in English to wear down.

To wear down means to erode, to weaken, to fatigue.

After months of quarantine,

working from home and helping kids do school at home,

many of us are feeling worn down. Here's one more example.

After weeks of working overtime, she's feeling worn down.

And finally our last expression on this list of how to know when it's time to

prioritize self-care is when you have an endless laundry list of

obligations or an endless laundry list of to-do items.

A laundry list is simply a long list of things that we have to do,

things that we should do.

And one benefit of self-care is that we're better able to manage our laundry

list of obligations when we are mentally and physically healthy

throughout this lesson. Today,

I've paused several times with questions for you to practice some of the

language from this lesson. And I've got one more question.

I would love to know what expression collocation, phrasal, verb,

or idiom was your favorite from today's list.

Try using it in your own example sentence,

and as always share it with me in the comments below.

If you've been watching my lessons consistently, then you know,

the most effective way to learn and remember vocabulary is to

immediately practice using that new word or expression and do it

repeatedly. So this is your first opportunity to do that. Before I finish,

if you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know.

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And I look forward to seeing you next time for your Confident English lesson.