Advertisement
Self-care tips for the person holding everyone else together
18th May, 2026 02:01 PM
You are the one who checks on everyone else. The parent who gets up earliest, the breadwinner stretching the budget, the team leader who holds the group together, the friend everyone calls first.
You manage other people’s stress so smoothly that it rarely occurs to anyone, sometimes even you, that yours is quietly piling up.
That has a cost.
A 2024 study published in The Journals of Gerontology, drawing on more than 2,000 full-time workers, found that “engaging in enough self-care attenuated the negative relationship between job stress and satisfaction with one’s life and job” – in other words, it is not just comfort; it is what keeps you functional.
The trouble is that the people who most need it often feel they have the least right to it.
Guilt, time pressure, and the exhaustion of being constantly needed can make even basic self-care feel indulgent. It is not.
When life is full, start embarrassingly small
When your energy is genuinely low, grand wellness plans collapse on contact with real life.
The goal is habits so small they barely feel like habits. Drink a glass of water before you pick up your phone. Step outside for five minutes after a difficult conversation. Eat a proper meal sitting down, not over a sink or a screen.
These are micro-recoveries, and they accumulate.
A peer-reviewed cross-cultural study published in BMJ Open found that self-care activities serve as a buffer between stress and well-being, noting that a person who practises them “might use it as a strategy to take control over the situation and play an active role in the maintenance of their health.”
Protect something that is just yours
People who carry others tend to give up their personal space first and reclaim it last. Push back gently on that pattern.
One thing in your week (a walk, a phone call with a friend you actually like, thirty quiet minutes) that is non-negotiable and belongs only to you.
Not productive. Not for anyone else. Just yours.
The people depending on you need you at something closer to full. Taking care of yourself is how you sustain them.
