- Self-care is extremely important because it's how you take care of yourself between doctor visits.

My name is Dr. Sands, I'm the medical director for Nashville Healthcare Center at Bordeaux.

On today's For your Good Health I have tips on self-care.

Personalized self-care treatment plan is when you discuss with your doctor your particular conditions and then you come up together with how you're going to take care of yourself at home.

That would include how you're gonna monitor yourself, what you're going to watch for, how are you going to take your medicines, of course, when to contact the doctor between visits, what things to pay attention to and what things you can ignore.

There are eight parts to self-care.

Self-awareness is paying attention to your body and the changes that might come.

It's very important that you make a list and write them down.

Your doctor is gonna want to hear about those changes.

Everybody needs to pay attention to their body.

Their body tells a story, and it can give symptoms and clues to what's going on with you.

It's very important to pay attention to those things.

For emotional wellbeing, you're keeping track of the things that cause you stress, low worry or wellbeing.

So everyday things that you are dealing with that can contribute to your stress.

Lifestyle changes are what you agree to change, what bad habits you wanna give up and replace them with better habits.

Lifestyle change would be decreasing your salt or avoiding sodas to decrease your risk of diabetes.

Future risk management is being aware of your health problems that you may develop because of your family genes.

You cannot escape your genes but you can reduce your risk.

Talk to your family about what's going on in the health of your family.

Contributing factors refers to what we call social determinants of health.

It's the things that contribute to your environment where you live, are born, work, play, and those factors that can play a part in your health.

I really like to use the characteristics of the patient to give them confidence.

It's just letting them know what they can do to defend themselves.

Research management is connecting to the right resource at the right time.

For example, if you have chest pain and you don't wanna go to your doctor's visit you might wanna go to the emergency room.

Empowerment is putting it all together so that you're empowered to take better care of your health and to reach your health outcomes.

It's very important for you to take care of yourself at home and to create a self-care plan with your provider.