As many of us enter this time of year, our social media feeds are flooded with influencers and content creators sharing everything from weight-loss tips, food habits, and cold plunges for dopamine “neuro-hacks;” to someone from your hometown getting engaged, another getting married and having a kid, and others going out drinking wine with the girls while workshopping a psychoanalysis of their ex- boyfriend that would make Freud proud. We save it, share it in our stories, double-tap for a like—and then, a week later, we barely remember any of it. For a moment, it makes us feel happy—validated, even. But when we’re no longer looking, when we’re left alone, that sadness quietly creeps back in, crawling through our thoughts as rumination, weighing us down as self-doubt, and flooding our minds with memories of all the times it didn’t work out.

The question now becomes: what can you do? Sure, you could borrow a handful of ideas from a list generated by your favourite friend—ChatGPT—to try and beat those good old January blues. But I gently ask: Is that sustainable? Is this even wise or healthy for you?

Influencers and content creators have slowly shifted the focus of self-care away from self- awareness—attending to fatigue, withdrawal, and emotional depletion—and toward tasks, hacks, and the merchandising of solutions meant to get us ahead. Rather than inviting us to look at why we are feeling the way we do. A point worth considering when consuming this content is that many influencers are being paid to present selective or biased information in the service of a product that may not be sustainable for you or compatible with your current lifestyle.

More often than not, this content sells the image of a healthy life rather than supporting genuine mental health or long-term emotional wellbeing. It rarely accounts for your personal history, relationships, or internal struggles. Instead replaces meaningful self-understanding with quick fixes that feel motivating in the moment but ultimately offer only short-lived confidence and surface-level change.

Working with a therapist can help you explore the broader picture: external triggers, internal triggers, thoughts, images, emotions, and behaviours. In that space, you’re allowed to feel heard, to talk openly about symptoms of seasonal depression, and to rebuild confidence and motivation—while also sharpening the self-awareness you already possess.

Therapy is not only for moments of crisis; it can also be a proactive space to talk about whatever feels important to you; even when nothing feels “wrong.” It offers time to slow down, reflect, and make sense of patterns before they turn into distress, helping you build resilience and emotional skills that support long-term well-being. By checking in early, especially during seasonal dips, you can stay grounded, supported, and better equipped to navigate challenges before they feel overwhelming. Additionally, having a therapeutic space—and entering that space when our nervous system is out of survival mode and more regulated—opens a wide range of possibilities. This can include reflecting on successes, preventing burnout, supporting personal growth around: identity, values, purpose, and meaning, strengthening relationships, and gaining greater clarity and confidence in making decisions about our goals, needs, and the healthy choices that align with our higher self.

Think of self-care as tending to three centres of your being: the psyche, the spiritual, and the somatic. All three are impacted by fatigue, burnout, and stress. Talking with a therapist can help you gently and organically unravel which areas need tending to, while also supporting action planning around behaviour change and meaningful self-care. Together, these shifts can improve mood and relieve stress that has quietly accumulated over time. It’s important to remember that self-care looks and feels different for everyone. For some, it may involve grounding activities such as going for a walk in nature, practicing breathing exercises, or even taking cold plunges. For others, it might look like binge-watching the new season of Love Island with friends, sipping wine on a weekday—even when you have a 9:00 a.m. class the next morning and it’s already 1:00 a.m.

Sometimes, self-care isn’t about life hacks at all, but simply about showing up for yourself and for the people in your life. Doing the most ordinary things, like wandering the mall to buy pants and somehow leaving with shoes instead. By this, I’m not suggesting that self-care is impulsive or careless. Instead, it’s about permitting yourself to be honest and authentic about how you feel, and being willing to say, "I want to do this because it feels right." Self-care isn’t something we have to earn, perform, or outdo ourselves—or others—to deserve. It’s how we demonstrate love toward ourselves through kindness, grace, and presence. We deserve self-care simply for being alive and human.

Doing the smallest and simplest things can gently improve our outlook and support our overall health. Health psychology even suggests that a positive mood can promote a stronger immune response, a greater sense of self, and increased motivation during moments of distress. Being intentional with self- care and building it into our everyday lives are something we do because we love ourselves and want to live long, happy and healthy lives — helps renew our faith in ourselves and sustain the motivation to keep moving forward. At times, all we really need is to pause and breathe. Self-care can look like reading a book, journaling, or aiming to hit 10,000 steps a day. It may also look like sitting down to watch Coco because you need a good cry. Alternatively, doing drunk karaoke at 2:00 a.m., singing Flowers by Miley Cyrus with your friends after a breakup, screaming out of your lungs while crying to your best friend and then listening (again) to your story for the billionth time.

Moving into the New Year may look like reorganizing and setting goals you want to include in your life. This might involve a more structured approach to self-care—such as therapy, reading, exercise, spending time outdoors to get daily sunlight and vitamin D, or incorporating morning and evening stretches. At its core, self-care is about offering yourself love, compassion, and grace: permitting yourself to try new things, to move forward when something doesn’t work out, and to explore what genuinely works for you, rather than following the latest “new” trend. Self-care works best when you place yourself first, with intention, faith and honesty.

I invite you to make self-care a consistent part of your life, not just as permission, but as a practice that supports and sustains your mind, body, and soul.

— Joshua Basil, Psychotherapist Intern, MA (candidate), BA