“With women in India, I feel there's a lot of..”: Deepika Padukone on 4 things women should not miss prioritizing

Be honest, ladies: when was the last time you did something purely for yourself and didn't feel guilty about it? If you're struggling to answer that, you're not alone. For most women, especially in India, making time for yourself is a big deal. Amid managing careers, households, relationships, social expectations, etc, self-care is usually ignored. On the rare occasions, when women finally make some time for themselves, an unknown guilt also tags along.

Actor Deepika Padukone once spoke about this familiar reality, pointing out how women are constantly conditioned to put everyone else's needs before their own. “Especially with women in India, I feel that there's a lot of guilt attached with taking care of yourself and doing things for yourself because we're constantly playing roles and constantly doing things for other people,” she said. She's right and it's worth asking: why is this still the case? Here are four things Deepika says women should not stop prioritizing.

Image Courtesy: Instagram/ @deepikapadukone

Picture this: you finally schedule a lunch with your friends, a trip to the salon, or even just an hour of doing absolutely nothing. Within minutes, a little voice inside your head speaks up: Shouldn't you be doing something more productive? Shouldn't you be somewhere else? Deepika knows exactly how this feels. “The minute you take that one hour off because you want to go and see your friends for lunch, there's suddenly so much guilt,” she said. But here's the thing: taking time for yourself is not running away from your responsibilities. It's how you stay functional enough to handle them. A well-rested, genuinely recharged woman is better at everything: at work, at home, in relationships. The guilt is just stopping you from being a healthier version of yourself.

For too long, ‘me time’ has been considered a luxury for women. It has been treated as something you’ll get to eventually, after the kids’ exams, after everyone else’s needs are sorted, etc. But it never quite arrives. Deepika's message is simple: stop waiting. “It's totally okay to do something for yourself,” she said. An hour of doing something you genuinely love- a walk, a hobby, your favorite TV show, some ‘chai time’, etc.- isn't wasted time. It's necessary. In a culture that tends to celebrate being self-sacrificing, choosing to do something just for yourself can feel almost ‘selfish’. It shouldn't.

Late nights, early mornings, one more task to finish, one more person to check in. Between all this, sleep is almost always the first thing women sacrifice. Deepika also touched on this. Getting adequate sleep is a non-negotiable pillar of self-care and science backs this up too. Poor sleep affects your immunity, your concentration, your mood and your long-term health. The glorification of surviving on a 4-hour-sleep and still showing up is doing no one any favors. It is harming you only. And frankly, you will feel better and be kinder to the people around you after a decent night's sleep.

How many times have you made sure everyone else at the table has eaten and then realized you've barely had a proper meal yourself? Deepika also pointed to eating well as a fundamental form of self-care, and it's one that women tend to ignore almost automatically. Skipping meals, surviving on tea-biscuits, etc, can quickly feel normal, but it isn’t. These habits feel harmless until they quietly chip away at your energy, mood, and health over time. Providing yourself with proper nutrition is one of the most direct ways of acknowledging that you matter. Not only as someone's mother, wife, daughter, or colleague, but as yourself too.

What makes Deepika's words resonate isn't that any of this is some breaking news. It's the reminder that women shouldn't have to ‘earn’ the right to take care of themselves. For generations, the highest compliment a woman could receive was how selflessly she gave to others. And while there's beauty in nurturing the people you love, somewhere along the way, ‘selfless’ started to mean ‘self-erasing.’ You shouldn't need to justify a lunch break. Sleep shouldn't feel like an indulgence. Eating a proper meal shouldn't come last and a few hours to yourself shouldn't require an apology. As Deepika puts it: sometimes, the most important thing a woman can do is simply stop saying sorry for taking care of herself.