Steps I Took To Improve My Mental Health

Mental health has always been a main topic of conversation here on my blog. Even though I do understand that I have spoken about this hell of a lot. There is still an enormous stigma around mental health. I understand that me writing a post every couple of months isn’t going to make the issue go away, I do want to help. Even if I help just one person with all of these posts, that is good enough for me.

 

 

Because of that, today I am going to speak about the steps that I took to help my mental health. Some of them are really simple, but they have helped me exponentially. If you too struggle with your mental health, here are the steps I took to improve my mental health.

 

Spoke to people openly.

This is something for me that has really taken time. When my mental health first really started to intensify, I couldn’t speak about it. I felt like I was going mad, and I hated it. Because of that, I internalised everything and didn’t like to talk to other people about my concerns. I have gotten much better at this over the years and I really needed to. Luckily for me, my husband is an amazing listener and such a supporting person. I can rant at him; shout and scream and he is the calmest person. However, I have found that the more openly I have spoken about my conditions, the more comfortable I am speaking to anybody!

 

Sought independent help.

For a very long time, I didn’t want to get independent help. I fought it to a degree. I hated the fact that I couldn’t get my own mind into check. To be honest, I refused the thought that somebody else that was a complete stranger to me could possibly help. Oh, how I was wrong. Speaking to somebody that cares about me on a professional level, but not a personal level, helped me exponentially. I can talk about anything, everybody and everything else. They have no judgement, do not know people in my life personally and it helps me so much. A truly impartial ear that has to listen to me.

 

Took time to decompress on my own.

I found that many of the times when I get overwhelmed, it is because I cannot process. I have that much to do, whether it is at work or in my personal life. Because of that, I am just doing thing after thing and I never take time to process things. Now, I try to make time to do that. If I begin to feel myself getting overwhelmed, I will take 10 minutes and do the things that my mental health wants me to do. For me, that is typically looking at my lists, making plans, etc. It may sound crazy, but it is what I need and it helps.

 

Built my day around my mental health.

For many years, I didn’t like to let my mental health dictate to me how my days should be. I had a vision in my mind of how my days/weeks/months should be and I didn’t want my mental health to change that. However, I realise now the importance of my impulses and how my mind works. I need to make allowances for how my head works and structure that into my day. For example, I now leave gaps for breathing, taking time, processing my thoughts. If something doesn’t happen as planned, I make adjustments. I am much kinder to my mental health.

 

As always, I hope that this can help you guys. One thing to understand about mental health is that everybody is different. What works for me, maybe triggering to another person. One thing that you should always do if you struggle with your mental health or you chat to somebody who does, give them time. Give them time to think about how they are feeling. Allow them space to develop their thoughts and think about how they want to articulate them. Or if they even want to be open. Not everybody is as open as I am about their mental health. That is something that I have struggled with over the years. However, these steps I took to improve my mental health have been highly beneficial to me and I would recommend giving them a whirl.