Taking care of oneself is not a rest cure...

Foucault, The Care of the Self, pp. 50-51:

With regard to oneself as well, [the care of the self] implies labor. It takes time...[reflection, mediation, retreats to the country-side]...

The time is not empty; it is filled with exercises, practical tasks, various activities. Taking cure of oneself is not a rest cure. There is care of the body to consider...

There are the meditations, the reading, the notes that one takes on books or on conversations that one has heard, notes that one reads again later, the recollection of truths that one knows already but that need to more fully adapted to one's own life. Marcus Aurelius thus gives an example of "a retreat within oneself": it is a sustained effort in which general principles are reactivated and arguments are adduced that persuade one not to let oneself become angry at others, at providence, or at things.

There is also the talks that one has with a confidant, with friends, and with a guide or director.

Add to this the correspondence in which one reveals the state of one's soul, solicits advice, gives advice to anyone who needs it - which for that matter constitutes a beneficial exercise for the giver, who is called the preceptor, because he thereby reactualizes it for himself.

Around the care of the self, there developed an entire activity of speaking and writing in which the work of oneself on oneself and communication with others were linked together.