A few days ago was World Mental Health Day I feel it's important to kick off this global conversation and help you make time for yourself with all new content geared around topics like “10 Ways to Have More Free Time”, “How To Stay Mentally Strong When Raising Kids”, “5 Reasons Why You Should Meditate” and how all these things relate to mental health. You may be thinking “I don’t have any free time” but the reality is that everyone has 24 hours each day – how we spend those hours determines whether they will be productive or not.
Take care of your physical health:
Take care of your mental health:
It is important to take the time each day for our mental health. Self-care of your mental health can include anything from reading a book, meditating or praying, spending quality time with friends and family members you love, listening to music or a podcast that makes you happy, exercising in some way (even if it's just a brisk walk), or even laying down to just be in the moment.
The National Institute of Health states that things like regular exercise, eating healthy, and making sleep a priority affect your mental health just as much as your physical health.
Spend quality time on your social well being:
Get rid of distractions:
Learn to identify irrational thoughts:
When we have irrational thoughts or severe mood swings it can be difficult to come up with a plan that makes sense for our mental health and this may be a diagnosable mental illness. This is because it is so easy for our irrational thoughts to take root when they provide us with a sense of justification for our mental health problems. It’s okay to seek help.
One way to combat this is by working on replacing these beliefs with rational ones. You’ll know you’ve changed your belief when time is spent productively.
Don’t be afraid to say “no”:
Take up a new hobby/learning something new:
Learn what self-care means for your mental health:
While one person’s idea of self-care might be getting away on the weekend with their loved ones, another might find that sitting alone at home watching Netflix helps them relieve tension after a long day at work.
There are many different ways we all like to focus on our mental health so make sure to identify what works best for you (and schedule this into your life!)
Take things slow:
Take a step back for your mental health:
Sometimes we get so caught up in free time-killing activities, our mental health suffers.
If this happens, take some free time for yourself and think about things from a different perspective – whether it’s seeing something with new eyes or taking an extended period off (without feeling guilty).
We all go through things throughout our lives that mold us into the person we are, and allow us to grow into who we will become. The most important piece of anything when it comes to developing a strong sense of self-care towards our mental health is identifying issues and knowing that there is helping out there. Your mental health problems don’t have to bring you down. A mental illness is not something that we control or have any say in, but we can work towards improving ourselves to live a happier and healthier life.
There are human services that exist that can not only provide the care you need, but they help to get there.
Feeling Sad is Not a Mental Illness:
Feeling sad is a normal emotion that everyone experiences, but it should go away after an hour or two. If you are feeling down and haven’t been able to shake those feelings for more than 24 hours, seek help from a mental health professional about your concerns. Talking to someone helps determine the issue so you can start working to resolve it.
Addressing Mental Health Problems
To take care of our mental health, we need to take care of ourselves first. Seeking the proper help from someone who is trained to help you can drastically shift your mindset from believing things cannot get better and help you learn to handle stress more productively. Your true thinking can be shifted by just taking on some of these daily tasks, getting involved in school or out in your communities.
There’s no shame in seeking mental health treatment as many people have been able to find relief from their problems by doing so. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Final Thoughts
We all have free time, it’s just a matter of what we do with that free time. Whether you want to spend free time doing things for other people or taking care of yourself, your mental health relies on the balance between helping others while also caring about yourself.
You have only so much time in the day to do each of these, but take it in strides and you’ll see how it can impact your life.
The important thing is understanding that your mental health is more important than anything. Take care of it!
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