May is Mental Health Awareness Month. While it is important to regularly check in on your mental health, this is a great time to do a comprehensive check-up. There are many elements to consider when checking in on your mental health. Take stock of how you are doing in areas like connections, support, mood, nutrition, sleep, exercise, mindset.
This week we are focusing on things to consider when doing a mental health check-up for adults. Explore optimizing each of the seven areas below:
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- Connections: Take stock of who you are spending your time with—both in real life and online. The people and connections we focus on have great influence on our mental health. Focus on the connections that fill you up, not those that drain you. Do you need to set boundaries around your connections? Do you need to let some go?
- Support: Which people have been there for you the most in the last year? Do you feel you have a support system you can rely on when you need help?
- Mood: Have you been experiencing significant mood swings, crying, or lots of negative thoughts? Tune-in to your emotions and notice what is happening when you are happy, sad, anxious or angry. Take a moment to actually think about your thoughts. Become aware of where your mind is spending time – is it helping or hurting you? Try to recognize and track negative “triggers”. This can help you better identify, prepare and make changes the next time around.
- Nutrition: How is your appetite? Has your appetite or eating habits changed in any way recently? Are you taking time to enjoy meals and including a variety of foods in your diet? Nutrition is important, but low appetite can also be signs of depression and other mental health concerns.
- Sleep: Have you been getting quality sleep and going to bed and waking up at consistent times? Are you overly fatigued or tired at the end of the day? How about at the end of the week?
- Exercise: What have you been doing for exercise lately? Have you found movement that you look forward to each day? Moving your body every day can have a drastic impact on your mood and mental health. Simply taking a short walk can shift your day immediately.
- Mindset: What’s taking up most of your headspace right now? Are those thoughts serving you or could you use a mindset shift? Are you focused on the future? What could you start doing that your future self would thank you for?
Remember that everyone needs a little help sometimes. Whether for yourself, for your child, or for your relationship, there are seasons where it’s best to seek outside help. We are here for you. We help people like you.
Whenever you’re ready, here are ways we can help:
- Schedule an appointment – Schedule Now
- Try virtual counseling from home – Learn about telehealth
- Text WECARE to 474747 and our Client Care Coordinator will reach out
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