Mental Health Waves

Happy Wellness Wednesday. In today’s blogpost I want to talk about refreshing your joys and the ways in which depression plays a huge part in making you feel overwhelmed. If you have never felt depressed count your blessings. The feelings can be debilitating where it attempts to take your joy even on things that you love. So how do I personally do a renew of my joy?

Recognize the Moods You are in

There are so many times when we ignore the feelings that we are feeling. You are sad. Overwhelmed. Angry. These are real feelings. Why hide them? You feel what you feel. Acknowledge where you are. For instance, in this mental health journey, when I act like I am fine when I am not it makes things so much worse. Fighting to keep things looking great is a lot of work. Always masking things around you and others is draining. You know that what you are experiencing comes in waves. The more you tell yourself that this will pass but ignore the feelings that are taking place makes you feel like you are running out of breath.

Also, I have said this before but track your moods. Keep a journal or use the notes app on your phone. When something is happening or makes you feel a way, write it down. Over time you may be able to find your triggers. The reasons are some triggers have waves. If you can recognize the waves, you may be able to better deal with them.

Mental Health Waves

With the waves that I hope that you are checking into on the regular basis what does the wave say? For instance, I would get triggered around certain holidays. These triggers are tied to how I feel about certain people in my life. I have a general disdain that I find happens often as the holidays come along. I get irritable and loud. The screaming and hollering that I have found myself in the past is noticeable in years before. I have controlled the yelling, but the anger still resides. These are things that I am working on. These are the waves that happen when you recognize the waves of mental health.

Healthy Moment with Mental Health

I spoke to my doctor a few weeks ago about the fact that I was dealing with grief. With the grief it has triggered my depressive moods. So, in them I have been allowing myself to not feel the need to fix it. I still taking my medication on time. It has been helping me not lose it altogether. Some of the things that I have done in the last month is that I am falling and sleeping on the couch. This means as soon as I sit, I find myself sleep. Not eating on a regular basis unless I am at an event. This is extremely unhealthy. Also not journaling or doing any mediation. These are things that I notice when the depressive moods take over.

Things that I do to ignite joy outside of therapy

• Go to a happy place
• Clean and organize my space
• Hang with a friend
• Watch a favorite movie
• Read or listen to to an audio book: newest one is Tabitha Brown; I did a new thing
• Go for a run or walk
• Bake
• Do an arts project or adult coloring book
• Play with the Kids
• Snuggles with my husband
• Sleep/rest
• Take a day off to myself

Whatever you have going on be honest with yourself. Do not cover up how you feel. Let it out. Write it out. Step outside of your box. Get help. Do the work that it takes for you to get better. Make your environment a little lighter. Things like decorations, new flowers, opening of blinds, and more do help. Take care of you.