The holiday season often brings unwelcome guests — stress and depression. And it's no wonder. The holidays often present a dizzying array of demands — cooking meals, shopping, baking, cleaning, travel and entertaining, family demands, to name just a few.
This year with COVID, flu, and RSV spreading like wild fire, you may be feeling additional stress, or worrying about you and your loved ones' health. You may also feel stressed, sad or anxious because your plans are looking quite different.
With Christmas in the rearview mirror, and the New Year coming right at as, it may be time to take a few days to practice some much-needed self-care before we start going full steam again.
“Self-care, essentially, is more of a conscientious decision to prioritize yourself and deal with the things that are really the foundation for a lot of the stress,” explains Alishia Rowley, Ph.D., a mental health clinician and associate professor in counselor education at FAMU. “We all know that in life that if you don’t take a break, that like will sometimes break you. That’s why self-care is so important.”
Self-care *is* selfish— and that’s the whole point. If we don’t make time to care for ourselves, we deal with burnout, crankiness, and are more likely to get sick—and we definitely won’t have the energy to make an impact on all the other important matters at hand.
There are significant benefits to practicing intentional self-care, experts suggest.
Coming off the added stresses of a worldwide pandemic, where physical distancing, protests, and social and political systems upheaval.
One hundred years ago, in the 1920s, individuals incorporated alcohol into their self-care routines by having a drink and relaxing. Alcohol at the time was a prohibited substance. Fast forward to today,cannabis has become a part of the self-care routine for many.
Cannabis, like alcohol so many years ago, is making its way through the legalization process. Today, cannabis legalization is following suit with 21 states having legalized recreational cannabis use in the past few years.
Science has shown that you can’t overdose on cannabis. While psychological dependence is something to personally monitor, to be sure, weed isn’t addictive. And a gateway drug? You’re much more likely to snort something you shouldn’t after tequila shots than a joint.
Self-care *is* selfish— and that’s the whole point. If we don’t make time to care for ourselves, we deal with burnout, crankiness, and are more likely to get sick—and we definitely won’t have the energy to make an impact on all the other important matters at hand.
Coming off the added stresses of a worldwide pandemic, where physical distancing, protests, and social and political systems upheaval.
One hundred years ago, in the 1920s, individuals incorporated alcohol into their self-care routines by having a drink and relaxing. Alcohol at the time was a prohibited substance. Fast forward to today,cannabis has become a part of the self-care routine for many.
Cannabis, like alcohol so many years ago, is making its way through the legalization process. Today, cannabis legalization is following suit with 21 states having legalized recreational cannabis use in the past few years.
Science has shown that you can’t overdose on cannabis. While psychological dependence is something to personally monitor, to be sure, weed isn’t addictive. And a gateway drug? You’re much more likely to snort something you shouldn’t after tequila shots than a joint.
But while some cannabis is legal is Florida, recreational use is not . Florida law only authorizes medical cannabis (marijuana), less than 0.3% THC, available for use. Those with a license to smoke should know that a registry identification card is not a license to openly smoke cannabis. Nor does it allow them to smoke cannabis other than those recommended to them by a qualified medical marijuana physician.
“Cardholders can run afoul of law enforcement just like anyone else in Florida, if they’re caught with recreational pot, even if they’re using it strictly for medicinal purposes,” according to the Medical Marijuana Education and Research Initiative (MMERI) at FAMU.
In Florida, a license doesn’t allow you to smoke in open areas. If you smoke in your car you run the risk of being stopped by police, with the a possibly leading to a search and arrest.
So, if you are practicing self-care this season and using cannabis you may want to brush up on the facts around its use.