Self-care
Overview
Self-care is a general term for activities you do on purpose to maintain and restore your own physical, mental, and emotional health. The WHO (World Health Organization) includes promoting health, preventing disease, and maintaining health in its definition of self-care.
In part, self-care is a necessity. For people engaged in activities that use emotional energy for others (answering in a question box, counseling, caregiving, and so on), self-care becomes one of the conditions for being able to keep going.
Self-care that question box owners need
Running a question box can take more emotional energy than it seems. You read unpleasant questions, face serious requests for advice, choose the words of your answers carefully, and worry about the reactions after they're posted. These can turn into a mental burden.
Here is self-care for people running a question box. First, make time on purpose when you don't open your question box. Thinking about your question box 24 hours a day isn't healthy. Second, recover emotionally through activities other than your question box, such as walks, exercise, hobbies, and talking with friends. One approach is to refill your drained emotional energy with activities that have nothing to do with your question box. Third, after reading an unpleasant question, put your feelings into words, like "I'm feeling angry right now" or "That made me sad." Putting a feeling into words can give you a chance to step back from it.
Self-care isn't selfish
Some people feel self-care is "selfish" or "lazy." Among the people answering whom others rely on in a question box, some think, "If I take a break, everyone will be in trouble." But this way of thinking can also become a trap of feeling obligated.
It's the same as the airplane safety briefing that says, "Put on your own oxygen mask first, then help the person next to you." When you've collapsed, it's hard to help others. Taking a break from your question box isn't abandoning your senders. It's an investment in recovering and coming back in better shape. Self-care is a skill for keeping your question box going for a long time.