As you may have read, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Making time for self-care is an important component to maintaining mental health. There is a wealth of knowledge on this topic. This article touches on just a few ideas and includes links if you wish to explore the topic further.
Stockpile coping tactics: Try collecting different coping skills and self-care strategies to keep in your back pocket. By adding tools, tactics, and strategies to your self-care toolbelt, you become less reliant on unhealthy practices (say, stress eating) and don’t wear out your tried-and-true healthy practices (you can’t always go for an hour long walk to clear your mind).
Explore the Self-Care Wheel to identify such tools, tactics, and strategies in these six different areas:
- Physical
- Psychological
- Emotional
- Professional
- Personal
- Spiritual
Make a little time to work through the exercise of completing your very own Self-Care Wheel here.
Cut yourself some slack: The way we speak to ourselves can affect us much more than we realize. It’s easy to beat ourselves up over mistakes, sticking our foot in our mouth, or falling short against unreasonable self-expectations. Self-compassion means being inwardly understanding, encouraging, and kind in the face of setbacks—a reaction we commonly extend to friends, colleagues, and family members but sometimes forget when it comes to ourselves. Try talking to yourself as you would a best friend or someone you are mentoring. When we are our own #1 fans, we increase our confidence and boost our mood. It’s important to give everyone—friends, family, colleagues, and ourselves—room to be human. It is still important to learn and grow from mistakes, but dwelling on them doesn’t do you any good.
Move more. Physical activity can help the brain cope better with stress, making it beneficial in the treatment of depression and anxiety symptoms. Regular physical activity has also been demonstrated to strengthen the immune system. And you can turn your exercise routine into a way to spend more time outdoors. Studies have shown that spending time outdoors can help reduce fatigue, making it a great way to manage symptoms of depression or burnout. We are so fortunate to have miles and miles of trails in the Des Moines area and loads of state and city parks nearby, too.
Don’t hesitate to ask for help. Sometimes it is hard to accept that we need help (eliminating stigma about seeking mental health support is part of the purpose of Mental Health Awareness Month!). If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, or anxious, remember to speak up and lean on those around you–family, friends, colleagues. If asking for help is a source of discomfort and you’re not sure how to get the help you need, Drake offers benefits for this. See last week’s OnCampus piece on mental health services available through Broadlawns and Drake’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which offers free and confidential counseling options.
Keep reading!
- 22 Self-Care Tips for 2022
- Self-Care Tips for May: Mental Health Month (see “Tools to help”)
- How and Why to Practice Self-care
- The Calming Room: Self-Care Tips For 2022: 15 Tips
- The 6 Ways Young People Can Incorporate Self-Care At Work In 2022 (this seems like good advice for all of us, really)
— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources