Eat, pray, face mask: is self-care about more than self-indulgence?

Don't be fooled — self-care is hard work. In the past two years, I have had a subscription to Yoga International, become a vegan more times than I can count, and taken my long-suffering therapist Greg on a journey into my busy mind. And it's not just me.

Millennials and Gen Zs are doing everything from peel-off masks and goat-assisted yoga to dropping jobs and livelihoods to mimic Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love voyage in search of greater quiet and self-assurance.

Not everybody buys into the self-care hype, though. Notwithstanding the pretty pink Pinterest boards and subscriptions to Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations podcast, self-care is perhaps not as successful as we would like to believe.

Just weeks ago, Netcare reported a staggering 20% increase in day patients in its mental-health facilities. And the Harvard Business Review says self-care is fast becoming just another item on a long list of things for young people to do.

The question of self-care is to me as much about community as it is about the self. And so, over the past two years, I've asked more than 20 South Africans from different backgrounds and professions to tell me what self-care means to them.

Essentially, the self-care conundrum prompted me to ask: can we go beyond the face-mask version of self-care? Can we create self-care in communities with others? And, ultimately, who benefits from our collective journey towards nirvana (the Buddhist kind, not the Kurt Cobain kind).

THE SECOND SELF

In terms of defining self-care, the responses have varied - it is, inevitably, a personal exercise.

For public relations maven Marang Setshwaelo, the objective is clear. "It's about unapologetically taking time out to restore my sense of balance, whether physically or mentally, by engaging in activities that soothe and calm me," she shares. In practice, this involves travel, diving deep into films and series or just the slow, loving process of deep conditioning her hair.

For others, the quest is not just to soothe but to survive. In line with greater visibility and access globally around mental-health issues, self-care also involves the management of symptoms related to mental-health challenges.

One interviewee, who requested not to be named, put it bluntly. "I'm an accountant. All day I'm reaming through numbers, knowing that I could mess up at any time. Of course I need self-care. The anxiety of it all would probably kill me if I didn't look after myself," he says.

But this insight adds yet another level to an abstract and complex picture of self-preservation and self-love. It's not just personal - it's tied to your profession as well.

In 2019, when a personal website acts as a CV, Instagram is your portfolio and followers somehow equate to influence and impact, it's hard to tell the wood from the trees.

The New York Times, in its exposé on social media and social capital, reported that almost 15% of Twitter "followers" are purchased on bot sites. Similarly, it revealed that everyone from politicians to athletes and supermodels is spending bucketloads to look successful.

Photographer Londeka Thabethe says this is exactly why she unplugs - personally and professionally.

"There are a lot of dope creatives out there and I love seeing and being inspired by their work. However, I also don't want to immerse myself so much in their worlds that I start producing similar work. Own race own pace type of thing," she says.

Chef and social media "fave" Lesego Semenya understands this pressure all too well. His account @LesDaChef sports about 53,000 followers - jostling for his attention, his advice on their meals and his secrets to culinary success.

Despite using baking and slow R&B tunes to drown out the tweeting of his online friends, Semenya believes that his socialisation still affects his ability to detach sometimes, and that sometimes self-care is not all smooth sailing.

"Growing up in a society and culture like ours in Africa, you're expected to be social and communal in your approach to life. The same applies to African businesses. Everyone expects you to always be ready and available for them.

"The challenges I experience revolve around that. Trying to explain to loved ones that you need time alone and away from them is something uncommon in our culture," he says.

This social element, while prevalent in Africa, is not unique to us. Our increasing status as what the band Placebo calls "screenagers" also complicates our relationships with ourselves. While we might want to crawl into bed, binge Being Bonang and be away from the world, our online self demands build.

Psychosociologist Sherry Turkle coined the term "the second self" to refer to our online identities - arguing that the secondary internet identity begins to require the same attention and nurturing as our IRL (in real life) selves. So we ditch the well-deserved slow Sunday, slap on a facebeat and a filter and, to quote the above-mentioned queen of screen and social media, "give the people what they want".

DUVET DAYS

But it's not all pessimistic. If anything, the awareness of a complex web of selves has allowed businesses, governments and social groups to respond differently to some of these challenges. Many artists and club venues have imposed tech-free concerts and party experiences, to get individuals to live in the moment, and some corporations (abroad, not here sadly) have instituted "duvet days" to get people to stay home and look after themselves.

Other solutions include the "back in my day" parental advice that has most of us rolling our eyes: just go outside. For veteran political journalist Carien du Plessis, this sentiment, though simple, works just fine.

"Self-care for me? Exercise. I've always been active and liked the outdoors since I was a kid, and when I felt down at school my mom would tell me to go for a run or a walk with the dog until my mood clears. So it's a habit that I grew up with. And I'm travelling a lot. I've been saving for 10 years to take a gap year," she says.

Carien's position is interesting, considering that she re-engineered her work to suit her life. But with as many articles on life hacks, more productivity and ways to survive the 50-60-hour work week have become the new normal in many areas.

For example, Forbes magazine published lessons from CEOs on how to do more at work, and business website Inc magazine included an article titled "Why I use three monitors for productivity". That works for a nine-to-five existence, but the work-life dynamic is complicated further for freelancers, creatives, researchers and entrepreneurs.

When I started my master's thesis, which is focused on Black Twitter, I thought, great, now my work can be fun too. What I know now is that it becomes hard to separate work from a pastime. The constant pressure to self-motivate often undoes the buzz I get from my 10-minute guided meditation.

Worse still, it would seem that the self-care environment has fallen prey to rapid commoditisation. You can order monthly "pamper packs" that contain a package of goodies - with a whopping R700+ price tag.

In Japan, the latest trend is adult swaddling, which involves a 20-minute session in which burnt-out employees are wrapped in cloth and rocked back and forth, to simulate the experience of being in the womb.

Elsewhere, self-care conferences and the Iyanla Vanzant (one of Oprah's favoured "gurus") brand of tough-love (no credentials) counselling has become all the rage.

Whatever the choice of self-love medicine, there are no guarantees. For some, a walk through the park is enough. For me, an arsenal of actualisation techniques will always be necessary to quiet my mind and take some time away from work, websites and personal pressures.

To quote a post from the apex of my self-care regimen, Pinterest (corny, I know), self-care is not about a face mask, it's about anything that helps you be your higher self.