The Clever Self-Care Guide

Book excerpt: Life can be full of challenges rocking our boat so strongly that we risk drowning in a sea of stress and mental ill-health. That’s why self-care is such a vital skill. Dr Nadine Hamilton has spent over 17 years in her speciality psychology practice helping professionals and businesses get on top of stress and psychological fatigue to avoid burnout, depression and self-harm. Her 2019 international best-seller Coping With Stress and Burnout as a Veterinarian targeted a profession with a suicide rate almost four times higher than the general population. Now, after two years of social, personal, and financial impacts from a global pandemic, she has found herself working with her clients (and herself) more and more on self-care — how to use self-understanding and practical psychological tools to attain and maintain better mental wellbeing. Time then, to release a new book to help anyone who is finding life at work and home a tough ask at times. Nadine gives us a clever guide to self-care covering topics such as setting boundaries, dealing with stress and anxiety, self-esteem, coping with grief, resilience, compassion fatigue, mentally healthy workplaces, and the imperative to build more hope and optimism into our daily lives.