Mental Health Matters

Understanding the Importance of Mental Health Awareness Month

Mental Health Awareness Month plays a vital role in eradicating the stigma surrounding mental health and encouraging open discussions about these topics. It provides an opportunity to educate and inform us about the prevalence of mental health issues and the available resources for seeking support.

Although Mental Health Awareness Month leans toward promoting more understanding about the many diagnosed mental health issues, it can also focus on upleveling our “everyday” mental well being.

Stress and anxiety, ever so prevalent in our current culture, play a huge role in our mental health or we could say “unhealth.”

This is my specialty, as I find it underlies so many other issues going on in people’s lives.

In order to be mentally healthy, we need to be aware of the stresses and anxieties happening within us.

With so much that has occurred over the last 3 and more years, upending our stability and trust in the world as we knew it, stress and anxiety can seem to be “the norm.”

You may not even be aware that you are stressed and anxious. Or maybe you are, but think “that’s life” and you are powerless to do anything about it.

I encourage you to use this Mental Health Awareness Month of May to assess your stress and anxiety levels and commit to upgrading your mental well being.

Harnessing the Power of the Mind

It’s essential to highlight the power of the mind in being able to uplevel your mental well being, heal past traumas, limiting beliefs and transform your life.

Exploring your inner world is a worthy journey and can unleash enormous potential for personal growth, which naturally leads to mental (and emotional) well-being.

Hypnotherapy mind coaching is a wonderful venue for accessing your mental well being.

Hypnosis/hypnotherapy works with the conscious and subconscious mind to promote positive changes in thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Deeply rooted beliefs, traumas, and patterns that may be hindering mental (and emotional) well-being can be addressed, understood and changed at a level that allows for expansion in one’s overall mental and emotional health.

FYI: I am including emotional health along with mental health, as the 2 really go hand in hand. When you are feeling mentally healthy, your emotional state is generally stable and healthy as well.

And, it goes in the other direction, too.

If you are feeling emotionally strained or off balance, it will naturally impact your mental health.

Self-Care and Stress & Anxiety Management

If you’ve been in my community for a while, you know, self-care is a subject that comes up a lot in my articles.

Self-care is a fundamental aspect of maintaining good mental and emotional health. It involves prioritizing activities that nourish the mind, body, and spirit.

No matter what my clients come to see me about, self care practices are an essential part of their change work.

It builds a foundation for overall well-being.

With Mental Health Awareness Month already moving along, I want to encourage you today to prioritize self-care practices, with an emphasis on stress and anxiety relief.

You don’t need to spend hours meditating, journaling or even exercising in order to make a huge difference.

Oftentimes, it’s the small practices done consistently that really change how you feel from the inside out.

Here are some easy self care practices you can do to support your mental and emotional well being.

Focus on your breathing! One of the easiest to do and my go to self care practice.

• Take 2-3 minutes, perhaps several times per day, and simply focus on your breathing.
• Closing your eyes, if appropriate, can keep you better focused.
• When you take some breathing breaks throughout the day, you are stopping the stress responses, bringing in much needed oxygen into your muscles and taking a break from the relentless thoughts of worry and overwhelm.
• You slow down for a few minutes-which is beneficial to your body, your mind and your emotional state.
• You can bring in an additional tool, if you choose, by touching your forefinger and thumb together on the inhale and letting them part on the exhale. If you choose to use this “extra” kinesthetic tool while taking your breathing breaks, you’ll find after a while, the fingers touching and releasing along with your breathing will serve as an “anchor,” an association to giving yourself a relief break.
• All you’ll need to do is touch the fingers together and it will trigger you to take some deep breaths and feel any stress and anxiety dissipate.

Take a walk!

• If you can get outside and walk around, even for 5-10 minutes, it will literally and figuratively, be a breath of fresh air for your mental well being.
• It gives you a break from whatever might have been causing you to feel stressed and/or anxious and it moves the body, which moves the blood, the lymph and allows more oxygen to flow through the muscles.
• It also can be an opportunity to observe your world you are walking around in.
• Noticing the feel of the air, the colors you see around you, as well as any vegetation you may come upon, is all so good for the senses and promotes those feel good hormones to get activated.

Gratitude Journal

• Write down 3-5 things you are grateful for on a daily basis.
• Use the “I am grateful for _____” form, as whenever you state something with “I am” you are making a powerful statement for yourself.
• The energy of gratitude opens you up to all that is well, right and enough in your world.
• It uncovers the happiness that is within, so stress and anxiety can no longer prevail.
• Doesn’t have to be any fancy journal, although having a special one can make it feel extra special to do-the intention is write those things you are grateful for and feel how good it feels to do so.

Listen to a guided self hypnosis or meditation audio!

• Listening to any audio that promotes positive suggestions for your well being helps to program your mind to more positive thinking, more inner calm and gives your mind and body an opportunity to relax.
• Check out Healing Hypnotherapy’s audios on my website or find any audio that works for you.
• You can listen to short ones or longer ones, depending on your time. You can listen as you are going to sleep, as well, which helps you sleep better. Unless it’s an audio designed for listening and walking, you’ll want to listen while you are in a place with no distractions and you are not using any equipment or driving.
• Audios are inexpensive, easy to listen to, and will support your mental and emotional well being.

Those are just a few of the self care practices/tools you can easily do and use to stop any stress and anxiety from taking over and promote more mental well being!

Seeking Professional Support

While self-care practices, open dialogue and self reflection are all extremely beneficial, it is important to acknowledge that some individuals may require professional support for their mental health.

Whether it’s with a hypnotherapist mind coach or another mental health professional, getting support is a sign of courage and strength, not a weakness, as it is sometimes stigmatized as being.

As a hypnotherapist, I have witnessed the profound impact of therapeutic care on my clients’ lives.

In conclusion, let’s all use this time to assess our mental health, keep the dialogues open, practice self care, and manage our stress and anxiety levels.

Let’s inspire one another for positive changes for our mental and emotional health, cultivate a world that values mental health and provides the necessary support for all of us to thrive and lead fulfilling lives.

I’m in, how about you?

Warmly,

Jackie