Self-Love and Confident

Treat Yourself

"Treat yo-self" has become a popular mantra in today's world, but why is there so often guilt associated with someone doing something nice for themselves? Everyone deserves to feel pampered and special once in a while, and it goes beyond the superficial reasons for wanting a treat. In fact, doing something indulgent can have a positive effect on one's mental health as well as a host of other benefits. In this article, we explore those perks and get to the bottom of why it is not frivolous to treat yourself, but instead is healthy to do so in moderation. 

Human beings are the only creatures who can make themselves miserable. Other animals certainly suffer when they experience negative events, but only humans can induce negative emotions through self-views, judgments, expectations, regrets, and comparisons with others. Because self-thought plays such a central role in human happiness and wellbeing, psychologists have devoted a good deal of attention to understanding how people think about themselves.

For many years, experts have focused on self-esteem. Research has consistently shown that self-esteem is related to psychological wellbeing, suggesting that a positive self-image is an important ingredient in the recipe for a happy and successful life. Seeing this link between self-esteem and an array of desirable life outcomes, many parents bent over backward to ensure that their children had positive views of themselves, teachers tried to provide feedback in ways that protected students' self-esteem, and many people became convinced that self-esteem should be widely promoted as a remedy for personal problems and social ills. The high-water mark of the self-esteem movement occurred in the 1980s when the California State Assembly authorized funds to raise the self-esteem of its citizens, with the lofty goal of solving problems such as child abuse, crime, addiction, unwanted pregnancy, and welfare dependence. Some legislators even hoped that, as a side benefit, boosting self-esteem would enhance the state's economy.

On one level, this emphasis on self-esteem seemed well-founded. Psychological research shows that success and wellbeing are associated with high self-esteem and that people with lower self-esteem suffer a disproportionate share of emotional and behavioral problems. Yet, self-esteem has not lived up to its billing. Not only are the relationships between self-esteem and positive outcomes weaker than many suppose, but a closer look at the evidence shows that self-esteem appears to be the result of success and wellbeing rather than their cause. Although thousands of studies demonstrate that high self-esteem is associated with many good things, virtually no evidence shows that self-esteem actually causes success, happiness, or other desired outcomes.

Despite the failure of the self-esteem movement, no one would doubt that certain ways of thinking about oneself are more beneficial than others. We all know people who create a great deal of unhappiness for themselves simply by how they think about and react to the events in their lives. Many people push themselves to meet their own unreasonable expectations, berate themselves for their flubs and failures, and blow their difficulties out of proportion. In an odd sort of way, these people are rather mean to themselves, treating themselves far more harshly than they treat other people. However, we all also know people who take a kinder and gentler approach to themselves. They might not always be happy with themselves, but they accept the fact that everyone has shortcomings and problems, and don't criticize and condemn themselves unnecessarily for the normal problems of everyday life.

These two reactions to shortcomings, failures, and problems might appear to reflect a difference in self-esteem but, in fact, the key difference involves not self-esteem but rather self-compassion. That is, the difference lies not so much in how people evaluate themselves (their self-esteem) but rather in how they treat themselves (their self-compassion). And, as it turns out, the latter appears to be far more important for wellbeing than the former. Of course, people prefer to evaluate themselves favorably rather than unfavorably, but self-compassion has the power to influence people's emotions and behaviors in ways that self-esteem does not.

To understand what it means to be self-compassionate, think about what it means to treat another person compassionately, and then turn that same orientation toward oneself. Just as compassion involves a desire to minimize the suffering of others, self-compassion reflects a desire to minimize one's own suffering and, just as importantly, to avoid creating unnecessary unhappiness and distress for oneself. Self-compassionate people treat themselves in much the same caring, kind and supportive ways that compassionate people treat their friends and family when they are struggling. When they confront life's problems, self-compassionate people respond with warmth and concern rather than judgment and self-criticism. Whether their problems are the result of their own incompetence, stupidity, or lack of self-control, or occur through no fault of their own, self-compassionate people recognize that difficulties are a normal part of life. As a result, they approach their problems with equanimity, neither downplaying the seriousness of their challenges nor being overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings.

Kristin Neff, a developmental psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, first brought the construct of self-compassion to the attention of psychological scientists and practitioners. Since then, has shown that self-compassion is robustly associated with every indicator of psychological wellbeing that has been investigated. People who are higher in self-compassion show greater emotional stability, are more resilient, have a more optimistic perspective, and report greater life satisfaction. They are also less likely to display signs of psychological problems such as depression and chronic anxiety.

People who are high in a deal more successfully with negative events – such as failure, rejection, and loss – than people who are low in self-compassion. Whether the problem is a minor daily hassle, a major traumatic event, or a chronic problem, people who treat themselves with compassion respond more adaptively than people who don't. Just as receiving compassion from another person helps us to cope with the slings and arrows of life, being compassionate to ourselves has much the same effect.

In one, we asked people to answer questions about the worst thing that had happened to them in the past four days. Although self-compassion was not related to how 'bad' participants rated the events they reported, people who were high in self-compassion had less negative, pessimistic, and self-critical thoughts about the events, and experienced fewer negative emotions. Self-compassionate people also indicated that they tried to be kind to themselves in the face of whatever difficulties they experienced, much as they would respond to a friend with similar problems.

Self-compassion might be particularly useful when people confront serious, life-changing experiences. For example, a recent showed that those who had recently separated from their long-term romantic partners showed less distress about the breakup if they were high in self-compassion.

Getting older brings undesired changes, many of which involve lapses or failures, as when people can't remember things or have trouble performing everyday tasks. Even though they would treat their friends' struggles with kindness and compassion, many older people become intolerant and angry, criticizing themselves and bemoaning their inability to function as they once did. Others, meanwhile, seem to take aging more in their stride, accepting their lapses, and treating themselves especially nicely when they have particularly bad days.