‘The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race or colour, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever.’
—Simone Weil,
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations (1943) (translation by Richard Rees)
So far I have considered the first two elements of the VALUE acronym for improving your self-esteem, value yourself and accept yourself. The third element is about looking after yourself.
Why looking after yourself is important if you have low self-esteem
If you don’t value yourself very highly then you may be inclined to ignore your own needs or wishes or put them behind those of others. In some cases you may even feel that you don’t deserve to do things that you want to do or that are beneficial to you, or that you deserve to experience hardship. If this happens, then it can lead you either to think that you have to or must put everyone else’s needs before your own or that there is no point in you making an effort to do very much because you are not worth it. In either case the potential result is that you end up not looking after yourself and your basic mental and physical health is disregarded, as illustrated in the following flow chart:
A twofold approach to looking after yourself
There are two approaches which can help you to deal with this kind of issue, if you suffer from low self-esteem and are consequently not paying sufficient attention to your own needs and wishes:
1. Try to address the underlying thought patterns about yourself and what you deserve that are leading you not to value yourself by using the techniques described in the previous two chapters and in the following two chapters (on understanding yourself and empowering yourself).
2. If you have identified that this is an issue for you, then make an active attempt to look after yourself in your actions. This chapter is aimed at showing you what this might involve and encouraging you to try to make that conscious effort to look after yourself and achieve a healthy life balance if a lack of self-esteem has meant that up until now you have not been doing that.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Abraham Maslow, an American professor of psychology in the 20th century, proposed a theory of human needs and motivation that can provide a helpful starting point for thinking about what areas of your life you are ignoring or downplaying. In the most advanced version of his theory, Maslow set out a number of categories of basic needs (‘deficiency needs’) and also a number of categories of higher order needs (‘growth needs’) relating to personal growth and development.
The types of needs Maslow described are as follows:
Deficiency needs (basic needs):
• Physiological needs – basic biological needs, such as the need for oxygen, water, food. Also the need for sleep, sexual needs and the need to avoid pain.
• Safety and security needs – the need for security, stability, protection from harm, perhaps also the need for a stable job or income and a home.
• Love and belonging needs – the need for relationships of different kinds: family, friends, romance, community.
• Esteem needs – the need to have the respect of others and the need for self-respect, self-confidence, independence and freedom.
Growth needs (relating to personal growth and development):
• The need to know and understand – the need to gain knowledge and understand the world and one’s environment.
• Aesthetic needs – the need for symmetry, balance and beauty.
• Self-actualization needs – the need to achieve one’s potential and find fulfilment.
• Transcendence – the need to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find fulfilment and realize their potential.
You don’t have to agree with Maslow’s account of the hierarchical order of human needs, with some being seen as basic and others as relating to personal growth, to be able to make use of it, although it is interesting to note that Maslow classed esteem as being among the basic needs. In my view, the best way to think of Maslow’s analysis is as a starting point for your own reflections about what could be helpful for you to focus on:
Look through the categories of needs described by Maslow and answer the following questions for yourself:
1. Which category of needs do you most want to meet better in your life now?
2. What will be the potential impact on other categories of needs from you doing so?
3. What sort of balance do you want to achieve between the different categories of needs? (To what degree do you want to shift your current priorities?)
4. What would be the potential consequences of shifting your priorities?
5. What specific actions can you commit to over the next week in the light of your answers to the four questions above?
Keeping a healthy, balanced lifestyle
Maintaining a healthy, balanced lifestyle is a sensible thing to do whether or not you experience low self-esteem, because of the benefits it brings to your mental and physical well-being. However, if you are experiencing low self-esteem and related anxiety about yourself or what you are doing, then there is often a strong emotional and psychological pull on you to focus all your time and energy on trying to do better or more. It is then all too easy to forget to keep up the basic principles of living a healthy lifestyle.
If anything, it is even more important in these circumstances to keep up with a healthy lifestyle, because the more your body and mind are out of balance, the harder you will find it to approach your anxiety in a balanced way and to respond to it sensibly and practically. Below are some basic principles for keeping a healthy balanced lifestyle:
1. Following healthy routines: Try to:
• Eat a balanced, healthy diet with regular meal times
• If possible, try to follow a regular sleep pattern, getting up at a similar time each day and going to bed at a similar time each night
• Do a reasonable amount of moderate exercise (you don’t have to run a marathon – half an hour’s walk five days per week would be sufficient)
• Avoid drinking alcohol to excess (and don’t drink it in order to relieve anxiety – that may give you instant relief for a short period but once the initial effect wears off it will make the anxiety worse and your sleep may well suffer too).
2. Paying attention to priorities: If there is a possibility that you may be stressing your mind and body by trying to do too much, then it is important that you:
• Reflect on what is important to you and try to focus on those priorities
• With regard to tasks that are less important which you do perhaps by habit, evaluate what the consequences would be if you did less of them – if the consequences would not in fact be too bad then make a decision as to whether you are going to cut down and if so by how much.
3. Giving yourself permission to relax: If you spend ten to twelve hours a day working, or alternatively if you are on the go all the time in some other way such as doing household tasks and supporting a family without any opportunity for a break, then the chances are that you are not carrying out your tasks as productively as you could. You may also be putting excessive strain on your mind and body. At some point this is likely to show in the form of ill health, moodiness, anxiety or in other ways, so if possible build short breaks into your day to keep yourself refreshed. Arrange some times in the week when you are going to do something you want to do.
Dealing with anxious or guilty thoughts
If you find that anxious or guilty thoughts are getting in the way of you living a balanced lifestyle then use some of the techniques described in other chapters to help manage those thoughts, such at the balancing thoughts techniques outlined in chapter 2.
General principles to remember if you find yourself thinking that you should be doing certain things that you are not doing, or if you think that you should be doing them better, or if you think that you can’t possibly stop doing them (even though they are harming your health or life balance) are as follows:
• Try to be kinder to yourself and try to put criticism in perspective
• Remember that nobody is perfect
• Acknowledge your weaknesses and try to do something about them if you can in a practical way, but before you go on too extensive a self-improvement programme, ask yourself just how serious those weaknesses are – do they significantly harm or hamper you or others or are they just minor blemishes? If the latter, then remind yourself of that – give yourself a break! Of course, if you think that your weaknesses really may amount to serious problems, such as a mental disorder or a damaging level of alcohol use or a tendency to violence, then seek help from an appropriate professional.
• Identify your strengths and be proud of them (see the part of chapter 1 that deals with creating affirmations). See if you can put your strengths or interests to use in a creative way to help manage the issues that are worrying you.
Research suggests that you have a greater chance of achieving changes in your routine if you set yourself specific goals and keep a record of your progress:
• Set yourself daily or weekly goals that are achievable and realistic
• Write down your commitment to achieving them
• Keep a record of how well you do in respect of the goals you set
• Reward yourself if you achieve your goals
• If you fall short on a goal, don’t punish yourself. Re-evaluate whether the goal needs to be modified or changed and if there are ways you can increase your chances of achieving it (by for example, putting it in a calendar or by telling someone of it), then try to do that to help you achieve the new or modified goal.
Andy: improving life balance
Andy has suffered from low self-esteem ever since he can remember. This is fuelled by high levels of anxiety. He runs his own building company and finds himself frequently worrying about whether customers are going to complain about work he had done (his standards and competence are actually very professional). He employs several labourers to work for him and finds that much of his day is spent in rushing backwards and forward to different jobs they are working on to check on their work or deal with minor problems as they arise. He works about 60 hours in a week and rarely has a break. After reflecting on his lack of life balance and the fact that although he has quite a high level of income he rarely gets the chance to use it, Andy sets himself the following short-term goals:
• To promote one of his more experienced labourers to the role of foreman, thus freeing up some of his own time
• To make sure that he has at least a half-hour lunch break each day
• To set aside two evenings each week for doing a leisure activity that he wants to do
• To make a list of the tasks that he might usually do himself in a week and to delegate any of those that he doesn’t actually have to do himself.
Andy finds it quite difficult at first to carry out the above aims but after writing out his commitment and evaluating at the end of each day whether he has stuck to it, he finds that he is beginning to get used to the more balanced approach. He notices that he feels less stressed and that he has more energy to devote to important tasks as well as to the things he wants to do. Consequently he feels more positive about himself and his work.
Read through pages 105–110 on keeping a healthy, balanced lifestyle, then answer the following questions:
1. What aspects of a healthy, balanced lifestyle do you think you do to some degree already?
2. What aspects of a healthy, balanced lifestyle do you think you could most improve on?
3. In light of your answers to the above, list three aspects of life balance that you are going to commit to trying to implement in the next seven days (these might be positive things you already do that you are going to continue or they might be changes that you are going to try to make in your lifestyle). Set yourself a specific action to undertake in respect of each aspect.
Keeping up with day-to-day activities
In the flow chart at the start of this chapter (page_102) I suggested that not valuing yourself may lead to you not taking care of yourself in one of two ways – either by leading you to push yourself too hard and not take care of life balance considerations such as those covered in the last few pages or by leading to you finding it difficult to get motivated. If the latter is the problem for you (i.e. if you are doing too little rather than too much) then it is easy to fall into the following cycle of feelings and actions:
If this pattern applies to you, then often the best approach you can take, although it is difficult, is to try to get back into a reasonable routine of activities, making sure that the routine you decide upon is achievable.
This will partly involve doing things that you like doing (as highlighted in the previous pages in relation to life balance) but it may also involve doing some more mundane regular daily activities – at least until you find something better to do. There are a number of reasons why it is good to keep up with day-to-day activities to a reasonable level (without overdoing it) if you have a tendency not to do very much and to spend the time worrying or feeling down:
1. Doing day-to-day activities can help to take your mind off anxious thoughts and lessen anxiety.
2. If you have become caught in a pattern of negative thoughts about yourself and it is causing you not to do very much, then if you can get back to something like normal activity you may well feel better about yourself and not feel so inadequate.
3. If you don’t get back to normal activity then some tasks may build up, creating more problems and anxiety.
Creating an activities schedule
List under the heading ‘possible activities’ any activities that you:
• Need to do during the week
• Would like to do if you had time
• Would do if you could relax
• Might do to give you some physical exercise (even if it’s just walking to the shops).
After looking at your answers to the above, set yourself some specific actions to do during the next seven days, putting them in a schedule like the one below, to indicate when you plan to do them:
Try putting just one or two actions per day into the table at first. If you think that more than that may be unrealistic in your current situation then just leave your intended commitment at that level for the first week or two, or put other actions in but indicate that they are optional so that you can make a choice whether to do them or not when the time comes.
Success, pleasure and motivation
If you find it hard to motivate yourself to create an activities schedule, then write out a list of potential benefits for you from carrying it out and remind yourself of those when you hesitate before doing a scheduled activity. Also keep your schedule to hand so that you can refer to it.
If your reason for hesitating before creating an activities schedule or doing some of the things on it is that you doubt that you can or will achieve them, then you may find it helpful to write out the reasons and ask yourself in each instance, ‘What have I got to lose by trying it out?’ or if it seems too much, ‘Is there a way that I can reduce the action to a more achievable level?’
Aaron Beck, one of the developers of CBT (see page_67) also suggested that for people who are feeling depressed or doubtful of their ability to carry out tasks, it can be helpful to keep a record of each time you master an activity by noting ‘M’ for ‘mastery’ against it, or for each time you enjoy an activity by noting ‘P’ against it for ‘pleasure’. (If you think that the word ‘mastery’ has an unnecessarily masculine connotation then using the letter ‘S’ to denote ‘success’ is an alternative notation system you can use.) Noting down your successes and pleasurable experiences can help to counter the natural tendency of people with low self-esteem or who are feeling down not to notice things that go well or that they enjoy but to dwell more on negatives.
Ruby: scheduling activities
Ruby was recently made redundant from her job. For the first couple of weeks she found it quite a relief as she had been struggling to keep herself motivated in the job anyway, but as time passes and she is still unable to get work, she begins to worry more and do less and her self-esteem suffers.
Using an activities schedule, she creates a list of daily activities with a balance between those relating to job hunting, those relating to necessary but not particularly pleasurable tasks such as domestic chores, and those relating to enjoyable activities that she wants to do for herself but hasn’t got round to. She creates the week’s schedule on a Monday morning and at the end of each day she marks ‘S’ against those tasks she has successfully achieved and ‘P’ against those she has enjoyed. After the first week, she notes that her productivity has increased and also that the balance in the schedule enables her to do some things she likes without feeling guilty. She begins to feel more positive about herself and her prospects.
If you are setting yourself a schedule of activities try to follow these principles:
• Be realistic – don’t set yourself activities to fill every minute of the whole week if you know that realistically in your state of mind you would not be able to achieve half of them! Instead perhaps set one activity for the day, or one for the morning and one for the afternoon or whatever you think you can reasonably achieve in your current situation and state of mind.
• Aim to achieve a balance between things that you need to do and things that you enjoy doing.
• Remember when you schedule a programme of activities, it is okay to adjust the programme if circumstances change or if you realize your schedule is not realistic for you. Aim to have an experimental approach if you’re not sure what to do: try out possible options, see how they work for you and adjust them if appropriate.
Insomnia and self-esteem
Daily activities and occupying yourself sensibly can help to raise your self-esteem and take your mind away from negative or self-critical thoughts. Another area where anxieties or negative thoughts about yourself could be affecting you adversely is in terms of sleep. If you are continually worrying about whether you have done the right thing or criticizing yourself for actions you have or have not taken, this can affect your ability to sleep. This can then become a vicious circle where your lack of sleep makes it harder for you to think clearly, contributes to your own negative thoughts and feelings and makes it difficult for you to act constructively and positively. It can be helpful to follow some basic principles to help you sleep better.
Sleeping well – some simple tips
The occasional missed night’s sleep may make you feel tired the next day, but it won’t harm your health. However, if you frequently miss sleep this can lead to:
• Prolonged bouts of tiredness
• Difficulties concentrating and lack of productivity in daily tasks
• Irritability or anxiety, which may also affect the way you relate to others
• Feelings of depression and/or frustration and low self-esteem
• Poor judgement.
On average, adults need around eight hours’ sleep per night but the amount of sleep needed can vary quite significantly for different individuals and you probably know best how much sleep is helpful for you and how you react if you have not had enough sleep.
If you frequently have difficulty sleeping, this may be due to:
• Practical causes, e.g. the bedroom being noisy or the bed being uncomfortable
• Psychological or emotional causes, e.g. worrying about something or feeling low
• Physical or physiological causes, e.g. illness, physical pain or the response of your body to your diet or to medication.
Do’s and don’ts for people who have difficulty sleeping
Do’s:
• Go to bed at regular times and get up at regular times
• Exercise moderately four to five hours before bedtime if possible (but not just before sleeping as that is likely to keep you awake)
• Establish a regular, relaxing routine just before you go to bed – for example, by using a simple relaxation exercise (some are given below – see pages 121–4)
• Sleep on a bed that is comfortable
• Ensure as far as possible that your bedroom is not too hot or too cold or too noisy – for some people it can help to have relaxing music playing in the background when they fall asleep.
Don’ts:
• Don’t drink anything with caffeine in it after early afternoon. Caffeine is a stimulant drug which can keep you awake and can stay in your body for up to eight hours (sometimes even longer) after your last drink of tea or coffee. It can also increase feelings of anxiety
• Don’t eat a lot shortly before you go to bed
• Don’t drink a lot of alcohol – it may help you to fall asleep initially, but it is likely to disturb the quality of your sleep and you may well wake up after getting to sleep initially
• Try not to make up for lost sleep by sleeping during the next day or on the weekend if you have had a poor sleeping pattern or episode. This can make it harder to get to sleep the next night.
Dealing with worries that keep you awake
If you find that you are lying in bed worrying about something that may happen and that is preventing you getting to sleep, then you may find it helpful to get out of bed, go to another room and try the following:
1. Ask yourself what is the realistic likelihood of the event or situation that you are worrying about actually happening. If you give it a very high percentage, then ask yourself what percentage other people whose judgement you trust might give to the event happening. You can write down these estimates and who might make them. You don’t need to decide which is correct.
2. Then ask yourself what is the worst that could happen and write down the most positive response that you could have to that if it did happen.
3. Next write down one or two simple things that you can do to reduce the likelihood of the event or situation you are worrying about happening, or to reduce its impact if it does happen, even if only in a small way. If you judge that there is nothing that you can do to reduce the likelihood of the event occurring, then acknowledge that the event may be beyond your control.
4. Finally, write down in a short statement of one to four sentences a summary of what you have learned from steps 1–3 above.
Once you have completed the exercise, try not to dwell on it but spend ten to twenty minutes (still in another room) on a distracting and relaxing activity such as watching television, listening to the radio or reading. Then return to bed. If helpful, practise a short relaxation technique before you get back into bed to help you unwind and relax – see below.
Relaxation techniques
If you are prone to negative or anxious thoughts about yourself then you may find it difficult to ‘switch off’. That can make your stress worse and also impact on your ability to get to sleep. It can therefore be useful to learn some simple relaxation techniques, which you can use either regularly if you find it helpful to do so or else on specific occasions when you are feeling particularly stressed. The aim of the exercises is to help you switch off and to take your mind away from the immediate thoughts which might otherwise preoccupy you – so don’t use the exercises in any environment where for health or safety reasons you need to concentrate fully on another task, such as when you are driving or operating machinery!
When you get a convenient opportunity, try out one of the relaxation exercises below.
Exercise A: counting backwards
Shut your eyes and start counting backwards from a number of your choosing. This might be 30 or 40 or whatever number you feel is realistic for you in the time frame you have allocated for the exercise. I would suggest that if you think you might want to use relaxation exercises as a part of your daily or weekly routine, then don’t set yourself too high a number to count from if you feel that you will not be able to keep this up on a regular basis. It is better to build up gradually from a relatively low starting point than to set yourself a target that you are unlikely to be able to keep up. If you do find yourself losing impetus, then lower the target number.
Count backwards in the following way:
1. Breathe in slowly and deeply, filling your lungs (if you are breathing in a relaxed way from your diaphragm, ideally your stomach should be filling out as you breathe rather than your upper chest)
2. After your in-breath has finished, breathe out in the same slow, relaxed, measured manner
3. At the end of your out-breath say to yourself the number you have reached
4. Once your breath has expired you will naturally begin to breathe in again, without having to force yourself. Allow this natural process to take place and repeat the in-breath, followed by the out-breath, followed by the next number down
5. Repeat this process until you have reached zero. You can if you wish, then repeat the whole process again, starting from your target number.
Note: If you find at any time that you lose count of where you are or that your concentration wanders, just draw yourself back into the exercise and resume counting at the last point you can remember.
Exercise B: tensing your toes
For this exercise you lie on your back and close your eyes, then:
1. Focus your attention on your toes and how they feel
2. Flex your toes upwards towards your face and count slowly up to five
3. Relax your toes
4. Count slowly up to five again.
Repeat steps 1–4, eight to ten times.
Exercise C: guided imagery
For this exercise, decide how long you are going to do it for – perhaps five or ten minutes initially, or a bit longer if you wish and have time. Once you are in the comfortable setting and position that you have chosen for the exercise:
1. Shut your eyes and imagine yourself in a place or environment that you find enjoyable, doing something relaxing and pleasurable. This will vary depending on what you as an individual enjoy. You could, for example, be by a lake or the sea or in beautiful scenery, or you could imagine yourself socializing with good friends or on a journey. Whatever situation you choose, make sure it is a harmonious one and not connected with current activities or stresses. The exercise should take you into a relaxing world.
2. Once you are in that relaxing world, try to imagine it in as much detail as you can – what sounds can you hear, what sensations are you experiencing in your body, who or what else is there, what is happening between yourself and others or the environment?
After the time period you allowed for the session, open your eyes and resume your normal activities.
If there is a particular calm preparatory routine (e.g. putting on particular clothing, having a drink of water or adjusting the lighting level in the room) which you can establish and repeat so that you associate it with doing whichever relaxation exercise(s) you choose, then this can also help to engender the relaxation. On the other hand, avoid ingesting substances which might alter your mood or create health risks as part of the routine, except under medical advice, as these may have detrimental effects (for example, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco or other drugs).
Key ideas from chapter 3
From the information in this chapter on looking after yourself I would particularly stress the following:
• If you have low self-esteem you may pay insufficient attention to your own physical and mental health, so it is important consciously to look after yourself
• Make sure that you do some relaxing (but healthy) activities for yourself each week
• Set yourself achievable goals and give yourself credit if you are successful in achieving them
• Do some regular moderate exercise
• If you are not feeling great about yourself, be wary of drinking alcohol to help you feel better or to try to relieve your stress or anxiety
• Try using some simple relaxation exercises if you have difficulty sleeping and cut down on caffeine use.
