Maintaining Mental Health
Here are some ways to help your mental health:
• Follow a schedule – structure keeps you grounded when you are feeling stressed.
• Prioritize rest and diet. Have good sleep hygiene with a schedule that stays consistent. Eat healthy and don’t overindulge in food and drinks.
• Exercise Regularly. Exercise is one of the best medicines to stabilize mental and physical health. Your brain produces chemicals to relieve the stress and calm the sympathetic nervous system.
• Make social connections. We have to work harder at this right now but keep this as a priority. Our social connections help us feel better, mentally.
• Hard-wire yourself with positivity through focusing on gratitude and kindness and noticing the positives in your life.
• Self-Care is critical. Engage your brain in different things to get out of the anxious thinking patterns. Read a book, do a puzzle, take the dog for a walk.
• Seek out Help – if you are feeling symptoms for a while, seek out mental health treatment. You might start by talking to your health care provider.
• Practice Acceptance. There are some things you can’t change, so kicking and screaming about it will not help you feel better. If you can’t change it, work on accepting it and moving on to how to manage your life with this situation. It might also mean that you don’t judge feeling bad. (Moog, 2022)
Works Cited:
Moog, M. (2022, March). Healthmatters.nyp.
org/understanding-pandemic-related-ptsd/.
Retrieved from https://healthmatters.nyp.
org: https://healthmatters.nyp.org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janie Pfeifer Watson
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker
Licensed Independent Mental Health Practitioner- Janie Pfeifer Watson, LICSW, is the founder and director of Wholeness Healing Center, a mental health practice in Grand Island, Nebraska with remote sites in Broken Bow and Kearney. Her expertise encompasses a broad range of areas, including depression, anxiety, attachment and bonding, coaching, couples work, mindfulness, trauma, and grief. She views therapy as an opportunity to learn more about yourself as you step more into being your authentic self. From her perspective this is part of the spiritual journey; on this journey, she serves as a mirror for her clients as they get to know themselves—and, ultimately, to love themselves.
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