self-care is care for oneself — specifically, health care a person provides for themselves, often without consulting a medical professional, and more broadly any deliberate practice of tending one's own physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
For most of its history the word was clinical. Merriam-Webster dates its first known use to 1841, and through the twentieth century it described patients managing their own conditions and the routine tasks of daily living that a person can perform unaided. In that sense self-care is a measure of independence: what someone can do for their own health without outside help.
The word's modern weight comes largely from Audre Lorde, whose 1988 essay collection A Burst of Light, written after her second cancer diagnosis, framed caring for oneself not as indulgence but as self-preservation and a political act. Since the 2010s the term has spread through wellness culture and marketing, and critics argue that its commercial form — products, pampering, and treats — drifts from Lorde's sense of survival under pressure.
Self-care differs from 📝self-love, which names a regard for oneself, while self-care names the practices that act on it — rest, movement, 📝breathwork, boundaries, time alone. It is also distinguished from self-indulgence, the distinction Lorde drew, and is often paired with community care, the idea that wellbeing is sustained by mutual support rather than by individuals alone.
In my own notes the word usually arrives as a self-care night — an evening deliberately given back to myself. 📝Sunday Salon makes room for it inside a shared room, beside reading, crafts, and conversation, and a 📝codecation pairs focused building with a strong self-care regimen.