I’ve been thinking about what to write for this day during Mental Health Awareness month.

And, it came to me.

Sometimes we need to take a break.

I wanted to write an article about finding music that you can relax to. I tried finding a couple links to where you can find relaxing music and the first couple pages of my search results were links to hours long videos on YouTube and I didn’t want to link you to music on a streaming service.

I tend to find myself listening to albums that I’ve had for years in order to relax or using an app called Focus@will. I’m still trying to figure it out.

This is the first Monday of Mental Health Awareness month! A lot of my coworkers HATE Monday. For them it’s the hardest part of the week. Some days, I feel the same way.

I try to be grateful as Mondays usually mean that I’m starting the work week and that will lead to a paycheck that will provide for my family and I. But sometimes, I need a little bit extra.

I thought I would do a search and put what I found on these sites that don’t blast you will Cookie popups as soon as you load the page.

10 Mindful Monday Ideas To Improve Your Life

I don’t do number 10 - Posting to Instagram. I tend to do that kind of posting to a chat thread I have with friends or on my blog.

8 Tiny Things I’ve Tried to Make Mondays More Pleasant

The last one is important. It’s ok to feel less than fantastic all the time. As humans, we have our highs and lows.

10 Ways to Make Your Monday Better

My favorite on this list is Prep on Friday. I’ve been attempting to start a new habit where I do an end of day wrap-up. Still working on that.

Hello! You might have missed the news about weblogpomo or missed the first couple of days. Who knows, you might be missing today or tomorrow. You might throw your hands up and say Shucks! I missed it!

But, and this is a secret, it’s ok.

I’m going to give you permission to join us.

Any day is a good day that you can write something on your blog. Because, ultimately, you are the first audience for your writing.

If you’re running out of steam or just having trouble getting those first couple of words down, I’m giving you permission to be imperfect and share that imperfection with the rest of us.

Thank you.

I was hoping to have a longer post about how to improve your sleep but I woke early this morning and all I can think about (other than this post) is when I can go back to sleep.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, I suggest you read this article on WikiHow about taking a Power Nap.

Have a great day and even better nap!

I’ve been trying a different approach to planning my day this month. Instead of looking at all the things that I feel I need to do, I’m just going to a couple of them and knocking it down.

I don’t get through all of them and sometimes I add more through the day but it’s a nice visual reminder of what I have set out to do.

Sometimes I feel like things are really a mess. I don't know what the next step is or - on the hardest days - what steps are possible. On those days, I try to clear my mind and gain a little bit of control by clearing my desk off.

Here are a couple of articles linking cleanliness to mental health and stress relief.

The Connection Between Cleanliness and Mental Health

I like this article because it talks about how cleaning sparks that feeling of control over your environment. It also gave a really good tip on setting a timer so that you don’t lose yourself into cleaning for hours and then feel stressed that you lost time. Cleaning is always time well spent in my opinion.

The Mental Health Benefits Of A Clean Home

This article is shorter than the last and breaks it down into two sets of bullet points that you can use.

Cleaning for Mental Health

This article from the Cleaning Institute is a pretty good one in that it also has links on how to clean. I know that I sometimes don’t know how to get started. Don’t let the idea that you can’t clean it perfectly stop you from doing any cleaning.

For me, I stopped at after cleaning up the desk area and was able to focus a little bit better that day.

Every month should be Mental Health Month.

Period.

But, just like Christmas, Halloween, and Valentines, it’s good to do a little bit more as we Get into the Spirit.

I drew the picture attached to this post because I find myself doing this when I’m stressed. It makes me happy. I also like to do large multiplication problems and then checking my answer with a calculator, but some people find that stressful to look at. :upside_down_face:

Here are some good resources that are promoting mental health awareness.

Mental Health America

They have a nice toolkit filled with ideas, posters, and resources.

SAMHSA

I like this site because it has a lot of things that you can share on different social media platforms and it’s broken down week to week. I feel this could be better in gives you more reasons to come back to the site.

NAMI

I like fact that they point you to the national HelpLine on the page.

San Francisco Warm Line

I really like the idea of a Warm Line. Sometimes we just need someone to talk to. Sometimes we wait until we’re almost at the breaking point. This might just the thing you need.

CalHOPE

Targeted towards people where I live. Hopefully there are other resources closer to you as well.

I’m planning on posting about Mental Health all this month and talking a little bit about how I’m going to be picking up new habits. I hope that you take a moment to review the resources and share it with others.

If you are looking for inspiration to write more on your personal blog, then I would like to point you to this upcoming event put together by Apple Annie.

What is it? Weblog Posting Month, 2024! If you use weblog.lol, or otherwise have a personal blog, you should absolutely participate in this month-long blog posting extravaganza!

I am hoping to have a theme of Making it Happen in May, where Ill write something about self-improvement or promoting Mental Health Month.

Discovered via Robb Knight on Mastodon.