Category: Self-care

Mental Health Awareness Month is in May. But every day is an opportunity for wellness and mental health awareness for everyday people.

Mental health disorders and anxiety run rampant for people in our lives. In keeping wellness up, we can only do our part and be supportive of others and ensuring our own mental health is in order.

Mental Health Awareness Month is one of the several recognized events throughout the year to keep a reminder going.

And we can all check in on how we’re doing these days.

And others have strayed away from natural growth and becoming better and healthier, into less productive habits that lead to their self-inflicted destructive behavior patterns.

In some cases, this has led to a growing anxiety medication epidemic crisis in America. Too many people are taking them willingly like popping candy without questioning their doctor’s recommendation, and for longer than prescribed.

In college when I didn’t know any better, I took OTC sleeping pills for a semester. When I got off of them, I felt like I was drowning.

That was the wake up call that was needed to get me up and out of looking for a med crutch, when there is a choice to self-medicate and seek inner peace.

We’re all here to evolve and get better, but that’s up to each of us.

And some of the best remedies any of us can apply in Mental Health Awareness Month is wellness practices.

This can be in yoga, meditation, nature walks, and all of the above. Wellness and self-care is the best mind-body answer.

You’re the only one who can choose and do your better life. So for Mental Health Awareness Month (with emphasis on awareness), these are some ideas that you can implement for your healthy wellness lifestyle changes:

Healthy Wellness Lifestyle Changes You Can Make (For Mental Health Awareness Month)

And in your practice, you can get to the root of discovering the healthy you!

Through mind-body connection, maintaining both mental and physical health plays a big role.

When you’re aware that the mind-body directly communicate with each other, you can make positive changes to your life.

Let’s look at mental health (mind) and physical health (body) that we can influence in our wellness.

For physical health changes:

Many recurring or chronic flare-ups don’t have to be a regular or seasonal occurrence when you know the source.

With many interruptive symptoms, you can avoid them with better lifestyle choices and making healthy changes like having less stress in your life or purging past memory baggage.

And removing post-trauma that can stay invisible to you today, and be a part of your everyday.

And general symptoms such as eczema, acne, acid reflux, other GI tract, IBS issues, or sinus infections are preventable.

If you make a simple lifestyle adjustment, you can live more enjoyably, and prevent bothersome symptoms that can otherwise leave you worried, stressed, or moody.

Let me show you how simple these lifestyle changes can be.

Eczema – too much sugar can trigger eczema and food allergies, so finding alternatives. When you don’t eat sugar over time, your cravings can disappear as your tastes change. So slowly removing refined sugar and eating plant-based including fruits is a solution.

Acid reflux – a diet such with highly acidic foods and beverages, and wrong combinations of food eaten together can exacerbate. Using ACV with “the mother” as a food as medicine ingredient in your daily or weekly plan could benefit you. And changing up your meals as most of us eat the same categories of food. Adding more alkaline foods can do you good. For example, if we eat cheese, we tend to eat more than we need. Or we lean into tomato sauces when we could alternate with a butternut squash or other healthy alternative.

Sinus infections – we can’t do anything about the air we breathe in around us, but we can use a neti pot to clean out our nasal passages regularly to prevent sinus infections.

The preventative neti pot me saved me, a person who had experienced back to back sinus infections from a work environment that had mold behind the modern-built walls.

And like a magic potion (there’s no magic!), the prevention prescription for these annoying symptoms can be natural. If we can prevent ailments and nip-them-in-the-bud before they grow, then we don’t have to take medicine that hurts our microbiome.

Some of these “grandmother” and “old world” ways that are Ayurvedic ways, come from generations before us where modern medicine didn’t exist and the people then were able to live longer than they would have because they found natural solutions, like these:

A low sugar and balanced diet, apple cider vinegar, and sinus cleansing (neti pot). Those are pretty easy healthy fixes compared to the physical symptoms.

These changes are all healthy and easy to implement with a desire to change small habits.

We can pick up habits easily and unaware we don’t notice what we’re consuming, doing, or not doing. Being sensitive to our body’s “calling out” through imbalanced body symptoms can wake up our awareness.

For happiness-sadness mood swings:

Taking supplements such as the correct amount of daily Vitamin D3 can change your daily happiness.

Had I known this back when I was a teenager and young adult, my SAD (seasonal affective disorder) mood that came up every February (when naturally Vitamin D sunlight was far less) could have been better or non-existent if I took the right amount of Vit D. Proper vitamin and mineral nutrients are essential where some are daily critical.

And getting enough tryptophan from foods helps with your serotonin “happy hormones” where 90% is produced in your gut.

In our wellness age, we’re learning that a healthy gut is a happy life.

And finally taking the right amount of magnesium that most people don’t usually get enough of absorbed into their system or in their diet, can be helpful to relax a stressed, anxious, or worried mind-body.

For mental health disorders:

Feeling anxious, severe Impostor Syndrome, or prolonged depression can often be naturally altered. For those who are born healthy, we learn behaviors that if kept unaware to us, can turn into mental health disorders that affect daily life.

Getting your heart rate up in exercise, taking a shower, or getting outside to take a walk and appreciating those moments where you can see nature can help you stop wanting what you can’t have right now.

Our brains can be our worst enemies or best friends. You choose. Exercise ignites happy chemicals in your brain.

Your ego may influence you to overindulge or overinflate (e.g. overinflated ego). Be aware. And walk away from those thoughts with a nature walk or doing yoga.

Challenge your thoughts. They don’t always help so tell the ones that are not helpful, to take a hike! And you take your healthy hike outdoors. 😊

Walking away is better as there’s nothing more dangerous than an ego that’s unleashing thoughts affecting your counterproductive behavior. Catch your ego in the act in observation. And do the opposite. Find the loving and productive thoughts.

And one thought change at a time, changes your mind’s perspectives  where you develop your happy, loving, and healthy mind for life.

If you have a situation or trial, find a positive to be gained. There is one if you look hard enough. On the other side of the rainbow, you will gain patience, resilience, self-control, and other traits that you couldn’t have learned otherwise or through other people’s lessons.

If you feel stuck in your current situation, you can try to come up with one step you could take today to change or start exploring a new direction?

In the beginning, a baby step is all it takes. Getting to the shower or your yoga mat even when you don’t feel like it. Do it anyway. And afterwards, you’ll feel much better.

And then you will have trained your mind to “just do it anyway” because it works! And the brain loves when it works, because that’s a sign of accomplishment and success.

Peace and wellness be with you.

A healthy wild cod with Vitamin D with a “3 Sisters” plant-based accompaniment is a good source of Vitamin A, K, protein, and fiber. Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and the fat-soluble vitamins will absorb better.