Wellness | the space | Keyona Porshaa`
Here are 5 things you can do to boost your mental health to get you through the second quarter of the year. I asked a few of my comrades what are some of the things they do for mental health check-ins and Espinel, Smith and Villalobos answered that a good shopping spree, a movie, and a good workout gets them back on track.
Unplug! So much of our lives are attached to our cell phones, morning, noon and night. Filled with notifications from social media, news alerts, work emails, text messages and phone calls from all over, tasks lists and notes with plans for the future, and the whole run-of-the-mill just keeps rolling with your mind on autopilot, non-stop. This month, prioritize giving your brain a break, getting out to enjoy some fresh air and unplugging from it all.
Depending on your responsibilities, you can set your phone away from your bed at night or delete more time-consuming applications for a while. According to Black Women’s Health Imperative, using your cell phone in the hour before going to bed makes it more difficult to fall asleep and also affects the quality of sleep. BWHI reiterates that we all need precious beauty sleep time to allow our bodies the appropriate amount of time to rest in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep to give us energy to win the following day.
Meditate. Take a minimum of five minutes to tap inside of a mental focus that allows you to escape from the demands of everyday life. Yoga has been a personal saving grace, allowing those who practice the opportunity to pair breathing exercises with slow stretching movements that help you release daily stressors and take hold of yourself through physical touch and patience.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the history of meditation reaches back thousands of years and refers to a variety of practices that focus on mind and body integration and are used to calm the mind and enhance overall well-being. Some types involve maintaining mental focus on a particular sensation, such as breathing, a sound, a visual image, or a mantra.
Retail Therapy. It’s something about walking into your favorite retail store to see the shelves fully stocked with clothes that aren’t in your closet yet, the lights bright and the music bumping that just makes all the problems disappear momentarily. That presentation at work could have flopped, the relationship may have tanked but the perfect new jean finding you when least expected it, or the shoes you’ve been eyeing for a month finally being on sale just takes the cake. Shopping just gets people going.
According to Cleveland Clinic, it stimulates the senses and sometimes just scrolling or window shopping can positively impact the mood. “Shopping and its sensory stimulation gets us to visualize positive outcomes,” Dr. Scott Bea, clinical psychologist reports. “It’s about the whole journey.”
Netflix and Chill. I’m not embarrassed at all at how many personal days I’ve taken to be a couch potato and binge my life back together. A good romantic comedy you can get lost in laughter in like Love Birds, or a dramatic series that you can’t tear away from like Peaky Blinders paired with a cozy throw blanket, a lit candle and snack nearby is a sound remedy for life’s blues. Honorable mentions: light rain, gloomy overcast outside, Life, and Love Jones.
Workout. Get that blood pumping and raise that blood pressure lifting some iron or getting some aerobic exercise on the treadmill or stair master. The Twitter girlies have been pushing the “un-big” the back agenda and a minimum of 30 minutes in the gym or doing some physical activity could get the ball rolling.
Exercise has a positive impact on the brain for a number of reasons. Healthline says that as your heart start pump faster during exercise, it increases the oxygen supply to the brain which promotes flexible thinking and self-control. It can improve sleep, it releases some common neurotransmitters including endorphins, endocannabinoids and dopamine.
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