With May being Mental Health Awareness month, I wanted to share a few things you can do to protect your mental health. While these are things we should do every single day, it’s a good time to think about what we can do better for our own mental health. Plus, I’m sharing a spring work wear look that’s perfect for the office.
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health Click To TweetIf you’re new around here I try to be very open because I think it’s important to end the stigma around talking about mental health. Six years ago, I was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression & being able to get mental healthcare has made me a better person.
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5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | Drink Sparingly
One thing I do to protect my own mental health is limit my alcohol intake. While I’ve never been much of a drinker, I did use alcohol as a bit of a social crutch in the past. Today I’ll still drink alcohol at events and socially, but I try to be very mindful of doing so minimally. Since I do take anti-depressants to deal with the chemical imbalance in my brain, it’s important that I not drink heavily. Admittedly, this step to taking care of my mental health isn’t too hard for me. I prefer my alcoholic beverages to be super sweet to the point that I can’t taste the alcohol when I do drink. It’s easy for me to substitute a Shirley Temple or Italian cream soda for the fruity drinks I favor.
Why I Limit My Alcohol Intake for My Mental Health Click To TweetRELATED: 5 Crazy Things & the Stigma Around Mental Health
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | What Happens When You Do Overindulge?
Since I don’t drink frequently {think 1-2 drinks a month at most with the exception of Derby month}, I have a very low tolerance to alcohol. Exceeding two drinks in a few hours puts me where I can’t drive. While I’ll physically be okay, I usually experience increased anxiety and depression in the days after a night out. I’m lucky that my friends are respectful of the fact that I’m not a huge drinker and also that I don’t feel pressure to drink just because everyone else is.
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5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | Decompress and Take Time to Myself
Being in large groups can be very draining for me and so one thing I make sure to do is allow myself to decompress and take time to myself. I haven’t always recognized how important this was, but making sure I have time to read before bed, surf the Internet uninterrupted, or just sit and reflect makes a huge difference in my mindset. Creating boundaries around my me time allows me to present my best self and function at my highest level. When I notice that my mood is lower, I usually haven’t been being reasonably selfish with my time to myself.
Why decompressing and taking me time is so important to your mental health. Click To TweetRELATED: How to Make it as an Introvert in an Extrovert’s World
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | Know Your Own Limits
Entwined with the idea of decompressing is knowing your own limits. Limits can apply in all realms of your life, but recently I’ve been working really hard to respect myself by creating limits with work. I’m very lucky to have opportunities presented to me because of my blog and for a long time I felt like I needed to say yes. Yes to every partnership, yes to every event I was invited to, yes to helping bloggers that reached out to me. It was exhausting and I couldn’t figure out why I was dealing with burnout so often.
Saying no -can- lead to more opportunities. Click To TweetRELATED: Why I’m Making 2017 the Year of Saying No
When I took the time to think about it, it was crystal clear that not setting boundaries with my blog work was impacting my mental health negatively. Pretty soon after that, I started being more picky about which events I would attend. How would going to this event better my business? Was there a great networking opportunity that I wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere? How many events had I already agreed to be at in that week/month? Being a people pleaser, I -hate- having to say no, but doing so has made me a happier (and more pleasant) person. I’m able to be mentally present when I’m at events and I’ve found that’s more beneficial than being half there at multiple events.
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | Lean on Trusted Listeners
Let me start about by saying that therapy is 100% worth the money if you can afford it/it’s covered by your healthcare. It was something that terrified me, but finding a therapist that you like and feel comfortable with can help so much. For me, just hearing that the things I worried about didn’t make me any less of a person helped boost my self confidence. If the thought of going into an office to meet a therapist gives you anxiety, there are options like Talkspace and more where you can talk to a licensed therapist online.
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However, I also find it helpful to have trusted friends and family that I can lean on and be very honest with. Sometimes, it’s good to even say “I don’t want you to solve this for me, I just need you to listen.” My mom knows that when I say this, I’m talking through something and that I don’t want her to interject to present solutions. She’s gotten ridiculously good at hearing me all the way out and then asking, “do you want to know what I think?” Having this kind of system helps me feel like I can say what’s on my mind and how I’m feeling.
5 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health | Verbalize How You Feel
One skill that seeing a therapist helped me develop was learning to verbalize how I feel. Before therapy, I’d worry about rocking the boat and if someone hurt my feelings I’d internalize it. Just like it’s important to tell loved ones when they’ve done something that’s made us happy, proud, or feel loved, it’s important to let them know when they’ve hurt us, left us disappointed, or not respected a boundary. The thought of this was really intimidating at first and so my therapist had me start journaling. Doing that helped me reach a point where I felt more comfortable having tough conversations.
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We have to understand that some people won’t feel comfortable with directness, but I’ve been really impressed by how many of my family and friends are able to listen to what I say and calmly respond when I approach it in a calm manner. It also helps to pay attention to which people in your life do and don’t respond to well to you expressing how you feel. A guy I dated would always start joking about my feelings or say that it was my fault that I felt that way. It made my time in that relationship really difficult for me. When I ended that relationship, I knew that going forward I wanted to date someone that could respectfully deal with me saying how their actions may make me feel.
The shoes in this post are SO CUTE! I want!! Also all of this is so great- thank you for using your blog to talk about important things like experiences with anxiety! Your transparency is amazing.
xoxo A
http://www.southernbelleintraining.com
These are great tips! I have realized I need a lot of alone time.