The Critical Importance of Self-Care: Our Three Core Survival Needs

Through our process of living, we can sometimes become focused and fixated on big picture considerations like our careers, what’s going on culturally, or what is happening in our social circles at large. This can distract a regular guy. These are, of course, worthwhile and necessary pursuits as we need to give our lives direction and participate in the grand societal project. If we put off working toward career endeavors, we end up limiting ourselves professionally. If we avoid engaging the cultural sphere, we can risk feeling disenchanted and disengaged.

However, when we are making our way through our personal journey, we need to make sure that we are not losing the tree for the forest. Oftentimes, a refocus from the big picture to the personal scale is exactly what we need. Like a tree, we can consider our needs from the roots up. If there is a significant issue with the roots, the tree will fail. Similarly, when we neglect out core survival needs, every part of our life can be impacted intensely. This is an issue that can gradually get worse slowly over time right under our nose. This can make a core need problem very difficult to notice and detect.

It is up to each of us to discover what our core survival needs are, but I have found from personal experience and working with my clients over the years, that we all benefit immensely from prioritizing the same first three survival needs. These are hydration, sleep, and nutrition. How many issues do we throw an immense amount of time and money at that have insomnia, dehydration, or poor diet as a root cause? More than you can shake a stick at I imagine.

If we get too wrapped up in the big picture, we can accidentally deprive ourselves from meeting sufficiently our foundational survival needs. A regular guy would do well to focus on optimizing these critical core life support requirements.  

Each of the three core survival needs really do tie for first, but hydration can be considered first amongst equals here. Every cell in our body needs to be adequately hydrated to function properly. To do this, one great metric is to drink one ounce of water per pound you weigh on the high end or one ounce per half pound you weigh on the low end of the optimization spectrum. As always, it is best to consult your doctor on issues of physical health and more specifically, what your own optimal level of hydration is for you, but this is a good starting place. This is true for all the other needs we will discuss here.

When we are sufficiently hydrated, we feel sharp, clear, and focused. When we are dehydrated, we can feel foggy, spacey, and lethargic. This in turn will affect our mood and how we interact with others, but also ourselves. Chronic dehydration can cause several very alarming health issues such as kidney function complications among others that can significantly hinder our quality of life. Sometimes we can convince ourselves to prefer sugary beverages and avoid water through conditioning. The sugar triggers a dopamine response that can lock in a sweet beverage habit which can be very difficult to break. We can in turn condition ourselves to appreciate being hydrated through the numerous health benefits that accompany being well hydrated. We are shaped by how amazing we feel!

There are several indicators we can pay attention to so we can get a read on where we are at in our hydration level. The most obvious is being aware of our experience of thirst. It almost goes without saying but is important to mention as too many of us ignore the warning signs our bodies express when we are becoming dehydrated. Getting into the habit of listening to our bodies will greatly aid us in our effort to take excellent care of ourselves. Another important indicator to consider is the color of our urine where the darker it is, the more dehydrated we generally are. Another consideration is how our urine smells. A regular guy can use their senses to assess bodily general functioning. Along with monitoring our perceived level of thirst and keeping track of our daily water intake, this is an excellent way to assess our hydration. Your body and mind will deeply appreciate your commitment to staying hydrated.

The second core survival need to consider closely is sleep. Feeling sleep deprived can be difficult to notice at first but become unmistakable as insomnia persists. With many of the same symptoms as dehydration, experiencing sleep deprivation can cause severe consequences such as cognitive as well as emotional dysregulation. Poor sleep can also cause us to make poor choices and foster unhelpful judgements.

There are many reasons for why one might experience sleep issues, many of which are behavioral. People fall into a habit of staying up late and sleeping in most of the day which can initiate the beginning of an unhealthy sleep pattern. Atypical sleep patterns like this can be difficult to alter but not impossible. A great place to start as far as getting control of a problematic or chaotic sleep schedule is to work on creating and maintaining a good sleep hygiene regimen. This concept refers to the sleep conditions we surround ourselves with as our bedtime approaches. Just like our physical hygiene, our sleep hygiene can be healthy and adaptive or unhealthy and maladaptive.

There are several things to consider when one is putting together a strong sleep hygiene program. Since sleep is an autonomic process, we can create the space for sleep to occur naturally if we meet the critical conditions necessary for it to manifest.

• A regular guy can and should assess what their stimuli environment is like when considering sleep issues. It could be that our sleep environment is far too over stimulating for us to even consider sleeping. Being overstimulated can put us into a state of physiological arousal or trigger the stress response. In situations such as that, sleep will be the last thing our bodies will feel comfortable doing. Going through an inventory of potentially over stimulating sources in our sleep environment can greatly increase the likelihood that we will go to sleep and stay asleep.

• It is also important that we meet a physical activity threshold for us to feel tired enough for sleep. Due to this fact, living a sedimentary lifestyle can go a long way to inhibit natural sleep.

• One of the most common sleep barriers is anxiety. Often, it is when we get ready for bed and eliminate our distractors that we begin to get bombarded by intrusive thoughts. Counseling can be a very effective way to treat sleep issues related to anxiety as we can work to discover the root causes of our anxiety and make a plan to intervene and correct those issues.

One cannot expect to a regular guy if their sleep is not itself, regular.  

Our third core survival need to consider is nutrition. It is from our diet that we derive the precursors for most every biological process, chiefly the synthesis of our neurotransmitters. If our diets are poor, then it is reasonable to assume that our emotional lives, down to the electro-chemical components, will suffer in turn. Each neurotransmitter to be shot out across the synapse between neurons is a finite resource that can be depleted. A healthy diet will afford us a neurotransmitter tank of gas that will generally get us wherever we need to go, with some exceptions. If we fall short on getting this need met, we act and feel like we’re nearly always on empty. Our fuses are short which can render us difficult to be around. This can lead to us feeling isolated and potentially reinforce a core belief that we are disliked and unlovable.

What counts as a healthy diet has a lot to do with individual and cultural considerations. It is highly context dependent for any given individual and what their caloric/nutritional needs are. One thing to consider when a regular guy is putting together a nutrition plan is to do some research on what their ancestors traditionally ate. This of course should be countered and informed by current ideas regarding diet that one can find in the nutritional empirical peer reviewed literature.

When we are hungry, just like when we are tired or thirsty, we of course become more irritable, impatient, and disagreeable. Like the other core needs we have discussed, we too often become distracted from our need profile and lose sight of why we might be functioning below our fairest expectations of our process of life. Our relationship to food can reflect other relationships we are engaged with. Those relationships can be functional or dysfunctional and range within the continuum there.

As regular guys, let’s assess the quality of our relationship to food and make some honest assertions about the nature of that relationship. Are we eating to sustain ourselves or to self-sooth in times of distress? Are we eating in a planful and deliberate way during the day or are we allowing an overly indulgent night eating binge session to wreak havoc on our bodies and self-image? So, let’s be intentional about what we eat and when.

One great way to foster a healthier relationship with nutrition is to make a food prep plan and work toward making that a reality for ourselves. These habits can be ritualized in our lives and when we do that, our quality of life can be improved significantly.

These three core survival needs are an imperative place to start when a regular guy is attempting to optimize their lives. When things go wrong, when we consistently feel subpar, when life feels exceptionally difficult, consider these three core survival needs as a launch point for your discovery plan.

Once you spend a sufficient period of time doing this critical triage work and you feel like you understand what the issues are, a plan to change can begin to take shape. Sometimes, the biggest obstacle to the change process is not fully understanding what the problem is at its core. We end up spinning our wheels trying to mitigate symptoms of a deeper issue.

You might find yourself depressed because you can’t seem to get anything done ever. You lack the drive and motivation to accomplish your goals but also have trouble coming to a conclusion regarding what your goals even are. Could you be chronically dehydrated?

You might keep snapping at your significant other which leads to intense arguments and continually getting lost in the minutia of what is said in the situation. Could the actual problem arise from staying up till 2:30 playing video games, not getting nearly enough sleep?

You might feel totally alone and the thought of trying to get out to meet people is paralyzingly terrifying. Could you be locked into an abusive relationship with nutrition where your comfort and pleasure needs are being met by binge eating?

A regular guy will take their time within the process of looking deeply into the mirror, asking the difficult questions, and finding honest answers. This is our due diligence toward ourselves. This is self-love and self-respect. When issues related to our first three core survival needs are addressed or ruled out, then and only then can we move on to other potential sources of our problems.