Self-Care and Your Mental Health

HealthyPlace Mental Health Newsletter

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Importance of Self-Care to Your Mental Health
• Steps to Improve Your Self-Care
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Stand Up for Mental Health
• Latest Mental Health News

Importance of Self-Care to Your Mental Health

When living with a mental illness like bipolar disorder, depression, or schizophrenia, self-care can easily slip by the wayside. When you're sick, simple things, such as:

• not taking a shower for days or weeks
• not eating
• not paying your telephone bill
• skipping your psychiatric medications and doctor/therapy appointments

comes easy because it's just "too much" to deal with. While in the case of bipolar mania, maybe you just have "more important things to do." Either way, self-care can be challenging. So what can you do?

Steps to Improve Your Self-Care

Start out small. Don't think about ALL the things you have to do. Just pick one thing. "Today, at 9 a.m., I'll take a shower." Each day, do just one thing that you know needs to be done. If you have the energy, write your plan down on a piece of paper.

As you progress, I have two other steps that will make a world of difference to your self-care efforts. Eat healthy foods, go outside for a short walk. The sun, fresh air and moving around will help your mood as well as your physical health.

Related Mental Illness and Self-Care Articles

• Mental Illness and the Importance of Proactive Self-Care
• Bipolar Disorder, Mental Health and Self-Care - Video
• Self Care in Recovery and Life
• Your Mental Health Toolbox: Journaling As Self-Care
• Parenting A Child With Mental Illness: Guilt and Self-Care

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: When it comes to self-care, are there extended periods where you find it difficult to do simple things or they seem unimportant? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.

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Share our Stories

At the top and bottom of all our stories, you'll find social share buttons for Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites. If you find a particular story, video, psychological test or other HealthyPlace feature helpful, there's a good chance others in need will too. Please share.

We also get many inquiries about our linking policy. If you have a website or blog, you can link to any page on the HealthyPlace website without asking us beforehand.

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Psychosis and the New Bipolar Mom
2. What Causes Anxiety Disorders to Develop?
3. Reduce Social Anxiety, Focus on Your Strengths

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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Mental Health Experiences

Share your thoughts/experiences with any mental health subject, or respond to other people's audio posts, by calling our toll-free number (1-888-883-8045).

You can listen to what other people are saying by clicking on the gray title bars inside the widgets located on the "Sharing Your Mental Health Experiences" homepage, the HealthyPlace homepage, and the HealthyPlace Support Network homepage.

If you have any questions, write us at: info AT healthyplace.com

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• How Depression Impacts Family and My Depression Diagnosis (Coping with Depression Blog)
• Sorting Out Anxiety Treatment Options (part 1): Medication (Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog)
• Interacting with Animals Fights Depression (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• How Can Alcohol Abuse and Addiction Affect Your Life? (Mental Health Treatment Circle Blog)
• About Mike Ehrmantrout, Author of Recovering From Mental Illness Blog (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• How Trauma Affects Your Brain (Trauma! A PTSD Blog)
• 10 Ways to Feel Positive and Confident (Building Self-Esteem Blog)
• The Military and Mental Health Stigma (Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog)
• Can Combat PTSD Get Transmitted to Children From Their Parents? (Understanding Combat PTSD)
• Abusive Relationships: Devil You Know vs. The Devil You Don’t (Verbal Abuse and Relationships Blog)
• Five Ways to Move Towards Happiness and Away From Self-Harm (Speaking Out About Self-Injury Blog)
• Helping Me Understand My Son with Schizophrenia¡ (Mental Illness in the Family Blog)
• Medication Changes Without a Doctor’s Input Can Be Disastrous (Your Mental Health Blog)
• Keep Your Special Needs Child Motivated in One Step (Life with Bob Blog)
• People Can Change: My Reconciliation with My Family (More Than Borderline Blog)
• Writing and Talking about Eating Disorder Recovery and Your Eating Disorder Is A Real Illness (Surviving ED Blog)
• Drinking On St. Patrick’s Day, Green Around the Gills (Funny in the Head: A Mental Health Humor Blog)
• Adult ADHD and How It Can’t Be Fixed (Living with Adult ADHD Blog)
• Silence the Inner Critic and Love Your Body (Living A Blissful Life Blog)
• The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye (Bipolar Vida Blog)
• Schizophrenia Poetry About Aliens (Creative Schizophrenia Blog)
• Finding LGBT Friendly Mental Health Care for the Uninsured (The Life: LGBT Mental Health and Relationships Blog)

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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Stand Up for Mental Health

Thousands Have Joined the Stand Up for Mental Health Campaign

But we still need you. Let others know there's no shame in having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trichotillomania, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

Join the Stand Up for Mental Health campaign. Put a button on your website or blog (buttons for family members, parents, mental health professionals and organizations too). We also have covers for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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Latest Mental Health News

These stories and more are featured on our mental health news page:

• The Downside of Inciting Envy
• Some Stress Is Good For You.
• Only One Quarter Of Primary Care Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment Have Progression To Dementia Within Three Years
• Researchers Discover Two New Genetic Regions For Bipolar Disorder
• Youth Suicide-Related Behaviors Have Stopped Declining After Years Of Improvement
• Cyberbullying 'Causes Suicidal Thoughts In Kids More Than Traditional Bullying'
• Seizure Risk Increased Before And After Psychiatric Hospitalization
• Estrogen Influences Bone Metabolism In Men
• Deficit Schizophrenia Patients Show Reduced FA In The Left Uncinate Fasciculus
• Improvement In Mental Health Literacy Among General Public
• Reasons For Substance Use Vary Among Mental Health Patients

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• circle HealthyPlace on Google+,
• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• follow HealthyPlace on Pinterest
• or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook.

back to: HealthyPlace.com Mental-Health Newsletter Index