By Elvenia Gray-Sandiford
Let’s have a conversation about mental health and wellness. This conversation aims to not only raise awareness, but also open the door to us all for personal conversation with friends and family.
Mental wellness can be considered as emotional, psychological, and social well-being, and mental health is the way we think and feel about ourselves and the world around us. Always remember that mental health challenges are serious, so we should seek help from our physician or a professional early. Mental wellness discussions are important, yet highly uncomfortable and daunting. It has been a taboo topic in many families and communities.
We are aware that caring for our physical bodies affects our entire functioning, and access to a gym is available for people to proudly improve their physical appearances. What if we were to practise building our mind (mental health) with a third of that tenacity? What if we stopped treading lightly regarding services and activities geared towards our mental wellness, and maintained the same level of awareness around it as we do towards physical health?
Everything requires a balance for us to be, and function, at our best. A lack of creditable information, and misconceptions around the topic, makes finding mental health services — or even knowing when we might need care — more difficult, especially when symptoms first present themselves.
It is crucial to remember that mental wellness support is not just for people experiencing severe psychiatric issues. People feeling overwhelmed by life’s challenges may need support dealing with, or figuring out, emotions, and learning how to improve quality of life. Mental wellness awareness is crucial to our overall personal wellness in body, mind, and spirit.
Our bodies are like motor vehicles that periodically need maintenance. This involves point-to-point inspections that show all the things that we can’t see under the hood. We need to maintain our souls and protect our hearts and minds. They are sensors that signal to our physical bodies that something is out of balance, and we need a re-tuning.
Managing stress caused by the chaos in our lives helps us with flexing our mental muscles. Mental wellness care is not one-size-fits-all. Sometimes we have difficulty recognizing the switch in symptoms that indicate depression. Lacking self-regulation can easily intensify our existing mental wellness concerns and even create new ones.
It is important to exercise self-compassion, do regular self-checks, and research ways to enhance mental wellness. Let us have a better sense of where we are mentally and emotionally and set our boundaries. It is an important part of maintaining overall good health and positive social relationships.
Professionals need to receive cultural competency training and have culturally specific resources available to better understand factors that contribute to reduced mental wellness in all communities, including the challenges faced by First Nations, immigrants, and refugees. Studies show that integrating culturally responsive care improves unique mental health services. It’s okay to ask our local community health centres and counsellors for services that closely match our background or personal preferences.
Every day is a new opportunity for us to take steps towards de-stigmatizing mental health care. Let’s spread the message that seeking mental wellness support is not just for those with a mental illness; it’s for all of us, and it shows strength and not weakness.
Everyone gets sad or depressed occasionally, but not everyone who is sad struggles with depression. Here are suggestions to help with mental wellness and managing mental well-being.
1. Eat a healthy, balanced diet with lots of vegetables and fruit.
2. Limit use of (and in some cases eliminate) caffeine, vape products, alcohol, and drugs.
3. Exercise as often as we can.
4. Unplug periodically.
5. Get enough sleep or take power naps.
6. Do something fun as often as possible (remember that bucket list after high school?).
7. Take care of our minds with happy thoughts and relationships.
8. Avoid distracting things and people who create our thinking traps.
9. Stay aware of our emotions and moods.
10. Set our limits and boundaries.
11. Practice gratitude, be more mindful, and practice compassion and happiness.
12. Challenge ourselves by learning something new.
13. Give ourselves permission to stop multitasking.
14. Start small and learn what are our likes, dislikes, and like-a-lot!
15. Stop beating ourselves up for a mistake we made.
16. Pray, meditate, keep a journal.
17. Pause and think about knowledge and skills we already have that can be applied to new situations.
editorial@accjournal.ca
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter