Saturday 10th October 2020 was World Mental Health Day - a day to show support and raise awareness for better mental health and to start looking after your own well being.
Support and awareness can be shown through openly talking about mental health, defining what mental health is and understanding what does good mental health mean for you?
Defining Mental Health
Mental health means to me the state of our minds, what we regularly think about each and every day. Are you even aware of what you think about each and every day? Most of us aren’t aware and we think subconsciously our thoughts from the past, thoughts that others pass on to us unknowingly through their words used or through any form of social media (Internet, TV, News, etc. ) where information is passed on to us and we accept it in our minds. Our thoughts give rise to our feelings, which leads to the actions we take in life. So essentially our life is determined by our thoughts in our mind, our mental health. Quite scary when you think of it in this way.
What is Good Mental Health?
Good mental health is when we are living a life where we ultimately are happy and fulfilled. We have no worries and are able to relax and enjoy everything that comes our way. The majority of the thoughts in our mind are positive and encouraging, giving us confidence in our ability and we have a can do attitude of finding solutions and getting things done. We will still get negative thoughts arising from the external environment or in our minds, but we are able to manage and let them go, rather than dwell and hold on to them.
This doesn’t come easy for us all, as some of us never knew how to do this from day one. From day one, if we haven’t been surrounded by people who are genuinely happy with a good state of mind, how do we know how to achieve this for ourselves? We learn initially as a child what others show us, or what we choose to take on when we are capable of making our own decisions and taking on different experiences.
How Can I Look After My Own Mental Health?
We can look after our mental health by first being aware and honest to ourselves of where we are at right now, how we are truly feeling. If we don’t know where we are at, how can we know how to move forward?
Once we know how we are feeling, we can realise that we do have a choice to decide to feel differently whether or not we want to at that moment in time.
We can consciously do things that make use feel good about ourselves, even when we don’t feel like doing it. These could be any hobbies or activities we enjoy, such as cooking, dancing, walking, listening to music, etc.
Things that make us feel good also includes looking after ourselves, i.e. getting dressed up for the day, wearing nice clothes, doing our hair, eating well, exercising, spending time with people who uplift us, etc.
By looking after ourselves and doing things we enjoy regularly even if we don’t feel like it, we can help to look after our mental health and feel good over all.
On World Mental Health Day, to look after my mental health, I decided to take a lovely walk in nature to the local farm to see the donkeys, I had a nice home cooked meal and watched a movie with my family.
Would love to hear what you did to look after your mental health on World Mental Health Day, please share in the comments.