When people have a heart attack and survive it, the advice from their doctors is usually something along the following lines: eat healthy foods, especially fruits and veggies, and stick to lean meats. Exercise regularly. Get enough sleep. Reduce your stress levels. If you smoke, stop.

If it sounds familiar, it should: it’s the same advice people get before they have heart attacks, too - classic self-care.

That’s because good habits are something that can be started at any time, but starting them before a problem arises can help prevent a problem from occurring at all, delay the problem’s arrival, and/or help keep the problem from being so severe. Once you’ve had the heart attack, there’s already some damage done, even though starting the good habits late is better than never starting them at all.

We’ve used physical health as an example here, but this applies just as much to mental health. Think about meditation: it’s often offered to people who are stressed as a thing they can take up to help reduce their stress. And that’s true! Meditation does help reduce stress! But just as importantly, if you start a meditation practice before the stress really ramps up, your meditation practice can help keep the stress from getting so bad in the first place.

This is crucial because preventive measures can often be less expensive, less time-consuming, and less stressful than treatments once a problem has arisen. In the US alone, for example, over 75% of our healthcare costs go toward treating chronic and often-preventable diseases. Hospitalization or regular treatments like dialysis can take up significant amounts of your time, energy, and resources - and the same is true for treating serious mental health issues, too.

That’s part of why we’ve been banging on about self-care around here for so long. Being kind to yourself, getting in your daily movement, eating the foods that nourish your body, checking in regularly with your mental and physical health, and nourishing relationships that sustain you are all key to maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

It’s like Emma is fond of reminding us: “Today’s vitamin deficiencies become tomorrow’s illnesses.”

Of course, none of this means that life will magically be perfect and stress-free and healthy all the time if you just follow these strategies. Nothing can prevent every little bit of worry and illness from making its way into your life. Sometimes, illnesses are caused by environmental factors outside of our control. Sometimes there are economic downturns that affect entire communities. Sometimes cells just mutate, and we don’t know why. Sometimes, even with all of the exercise and meditation and therapy available, brains just don’t produce enough or the right mixture of chemicals and need some medical help. There is no shame in that.

But when we do what we can to help prevent or reduce the things that make life harder, we put ourselves in the best possible position to enjoy what we can of life and to contribute what we can to our communities. That’s worth the effort.

Have you thought about your self-care practices as being preventive care before now? Does that change how you approach your self-care practices? Drop us a note in the comments!