May is Mental Health Awareness month. This is a topic close to our hearts here at Thryv Organics. There is no doubt, the pandemic has many of us feeling even more stressed than usual. As we head into the summer with all its uncertainty, we’d like to remind you to take care of yourself. And, while our products can help in this endeavor, we’d like to offer some ways you can “self-care” outside of our products.
Here are 7 tips we’ve come up with to help you find a sense of calm and engage in healthy habits for your mental health while learning to navigate social distancing, mask-wearing, and staying safe.
1. UNPLUG
Control what you are bringing into your brain through social media and the news. It’s okay to take breaks and keep your social media feeds positive and happy. If you feel like social media might be affecting your mental health, do a quick audit of your personal feed, and unfollow the accounts that don’t make you feel good. Follow those that inspire and make you feel good!
Turn off the news and catch it online, where you can choose what you want to know.
Taking time to be intentional with and how you engage online is essential for managing your mental health.
2. SET SELF-CARE GOALS
When there is uncertainty in life, it can be hard to remember to keep track of the simple things that have a significant impact like drinking water, taking your medication and wellness supplements, exercising, and getting to bed on time.
One app we really like is the Fabulous app. Fabulous helps you build better habits and be your best self by creating healthy routines backed by science.
Small steps can make a big impact to find ultimate happiness.
3. FIND TIME FOR DAILY MEDITATION
Even if it’s only for 10-minutes a day, meditation is a mind and body practice that has been shown to have a positive impact on anxiety, depression, stress, high blood pressure, and many other health-related issues.
If you are unfamiliar with meditation, several apps help calm your thoughts and destress. We like Headspace because of its simple, short, and guided meditations that you can do at any point in your day, from helping you to focus or relax you to get better sleep.
With many health and wellness groups going virtual to help their clients while in quarantine, we have enjoyed Breathe Meditation and Wellness virtual meditation sessions with our friend Kristin Goss and the other wonderful teachers. Make sure to follow them @BreatheMeditationandWellness on Instagram.
Give Spotify’s Daily Wellness playlist a try to help guide you through your day with music and soothing wellness sounds that help engage in positive mindfulness.
When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, press the reset button with a few minutes of meditation.
4. PODCASTS
Podcasts are a great way to unplug and listen to experts on self-help and mental care. Not only are you giving your eyes a break you’re getting mental health tips that may help you get through your days better. In addition to podcasts, Audible is a great tool to help you unplug from the screen while listening to someone reading books of interest. Whether mental health or self-care books, Audible will help you find books you enjoy.
Here are a few popular mental health podcasts:
- Emotional Badass: Nikki Eisenhauer is just that, a badass. She is a genius International Life Coach and Psychotherapist amongst many other titles. We love how she dives in and shares her own stories in her podcast of how to embrace guerrilla self-care and be more present, authentic, and a hero in our own story.
- The Life Coach School: Brooke Castillo is a Master Certified Life Coach. She teaches you to manage your emotional health by managing your brain. This is a podcast and program we have been following for a while now. Stacie Czech, co-owner of Thryv Organics, is a member of the Self Coaching Scholars class. Brooke has helped Stacie train her brain and achieve a level of happiness she never thought possible.
5. EXERCISE
What is the best type of exercise? The answer is the type of exercise you will do. Regular exercise may have a positive impact on depression, anxiety, and ADHD and help improve self-esteem, sleep, increase energy, and reduce stress. About 20-minutes of exercise per day has been shown to enhance the quality of sleep by 65 percent. We all know healthy sleep habits help improve mental health and self-care.
6. THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
With the continued social distancing recommendations, several apps allow you to speak with therapists directly to help with your deeper needs or monitor your anxiety if you aren’t ready to get back together with those you seek advice from.
Try Youper to help take care of your emotional health. Youper uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) as your Emotional Health Assistant to calm your mind, beat anxiety and depression, sleep better, and be happier. Quick conversations with Youper might help you feel your best. Using Youper will help you better understand yourself, feel more balanced, and improve relationships.
BetterHelp Online Counseling is a 24/7 professional therapy app conveniently connecting you to licensed therapists and counselors online. Don’t face life obstacles alone. It’s okay to ask for help.
7. QUELL YOUR NEGATIVE SELF-TALK
This may be the single most powerful thing you do. Notice your inner dialogue. How do you talk to yourself? Are you loving and respectful to yourself? Or are you in the habit of practicing a daily flogging of yourself for all the ways you don’t measure up? Would you allow someone to speak to your child, sister, mother this way? It is impossible to make positive changes when you are in the habit of beating yourself up. Make a commitment today to show yourself some grace. When you notice your negative self-talk, change it. Even if you feel you deserve the flogging, don’t do it. This one shift changes everything!
If you or someone you know is struggling and needs help, the following groups will be able to provide the resources you need.
National Suicide Prevention 800-273-TALK (8255)
Mental Health America for a full list of resources and information on mental health and self-care.
