One Good Thing: why you should treat yourself like a baby

one good thing baby

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Frame Of Mind


One Good Thing: why you should treat yourself like a baby

By Ellen Scott

7 months ago

4 min read

This is Stylist’s Sunday series One Good Thing, part of Frame Of Mind, that asks experts for the one good thing we can all do to boost our mental health.


This time around we’re chatting with Dr Carolyne Keenan, a registered psychologist with a passion for sharing mental health information outside the clinic room and a regular contributor to Life Hacks on BBC Radio One.  

Hi, Carolyne! If you could recommend One Good Thing everyone can do to improve their mental health, what would it be?

Treat yourself like a baby – strip all your self-care back and look after yourself as if you were looking after a small baby. I have five pillars to this: nutrition, hydration, sleep, fresh air, movement.

Why is treating yourself like a baby your One Good Thing?

There has been a real commodification of self-care over the last decade. There are apps, pills, greens powders, courses, programmes and hundreds of people on social media talking about it. The bottom line is if we aren’t nailing the basics, the rest won’t really make the difference we want it to.

Good point! OK, so how do we do it?

Focus on the basic needs we have for optimal health. Colourful, less-processed foods to support a healthy gut and boost mood, enough water to hydrate our bodies to reduce brain fog and fatigue, sleep for rest and repair, fresh air to boost health and connect with nature and movement to relieve physical tension and improve circulation.

Strip all your self-care back 

And how will doing this benefit our mental wellbeing?

When the world feels overwhelming, treating yourself like a baby cuts through the to-do list to give you something you can use to anchor yourself. It also comes with the guarantee that treating yourself like a baby will make you feel better almost immediately, certainly within a few days. Although these fairly simple straightforward pillars are usually the first things to be neglected when we get busy and things feel too much, they are things that have an immediate positive impact on how we feel. 

Are there any common pitfalls of your One Good Thing? How can we avoid them?

Although it’s a simple concept, the pillars I’m talking about here are the things we forget about first when we start to get busy – in my experience, anyway. When life gets a lot, I stop planning and shopping for meals in advance and can end up buying things last minute. This tends to be more packaged, processed foods, which are fine every once in a while but definitely take a toll on my mood after a few days. When I’m tired and working a lot, I can get drawn into less helpful behaviours like scrolling through social media in the evenings and staying up later to try to steal back a bit of quiet time – this really impacts sleep and productivity the next day. That, in turn, affects how I prioritise movement and getting some time in the fresh air.

This can be avoided by taking the way we care for ourselves as seriously as we would care for a baby. There is no other choice, really; if we don’t take care of these things, we will find ourselves getting sick more often and unable to focus on the things that matter to us.       

How do you personally do your One Good Thing?

It takes some planning and organisation but the pay-off is so worth it. The reason we prioritise these things for babies is because they are important. We deserve the same care and attention as we become adults. To get good nutrition and a variety of plants into my meals, I plan for the week and get a supermarket delivery slot to save the time it takes to do the shop. I book in time outside in the fresh air in the same way I do meetings so that I commit to it and use that as an opportunity to go for a walk and get some movement in. I start the day with a big glass of water rather than a tea or coffee, which I find helps me to keep up with hydration as the day goes on. I try to have a set bedtime each evening and leave my phone downstairs once I am ready for bed. Sometimes I need to be even more intentional about this and I set notifications on my phone to remind me to drink water or start getting ready for bed on time.

And how has doing this changed your life for the better?

It has given me a strategy that supports my mental and physical health whatever’s happening in my life. Stripping things back to this basic concept means I can give myself all the ingredients needed to feel looked after and energised without overcomplicating things. When I am overwhelmed the last thing I need to feel is overwhelmed by my strategy for self-care.   


Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.


Image: Adobe

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