It’s World Mental Health Day today! Every year, the World Health Organization comes up with a theme for the day. Normally, I would encourage you to reach out to your loved ones and see how they are doing today. However, this year’s theme is very apt for our trying times. After the year that all of us have had, the theme is appropriately “mental health for all”. So, today, I think it’s imperative that we all spend a bit of time doing something that helps improve our own mental health. If it’s something that helps others too then even better!
Now I know that we cannot go around holding hands at this time. However, we can virtually hold each other’s hand and support each other!
But today, I think we should spend some time doing some self-care! Whatever that means for you. For me, self-care changes. There’s a lot of different activities that help me to relax and what I enjoy the most changes on a regular basis. Right now, for me that means creating a whole bunch of art and hanging out with my friends – virtually, of course.
What self-care means to me:
As such, I have plans for the day to play games with a few of my friends online throughout my evening, after spending all afternoon drawing away. Drawing and creating art has really helped me in the past couple of weeks. I am in the middle of doing a fun little Harry Potter themed art challenge, which has really helped to improve my health. I have discovered how much I love creating little illustrations. Apparently to the point where I am willing to spend multiple hours just drawing away. One such illustration is the one above.
I am very new to digital illustrations and am not confident in my drawing skills so have been some time trying to improve! Honestly, it’s so satisfying when I finally complete something and actually do not hate it. Seeing myself improve is really wonderful. In addition, online voice chats, streaming services and multiplayer games have really helped to boost my mood in the past months, as well as do wonders for my social life (i.e. I actually have one, despite the multiple lockdowns).
Self-care is about the self, obviously:
Sometimes, figuring out what helps you to relax is a little hard. What works for me right now might not work for you. Everyone is, after all, different. If you are interested in a whole bunch of self-care ideas with stationery, check out this blog post. I swap between a lot of these ideas, as well as taking some other things (such as online gaming or retail therapy) but time and time again, I come back to the stationery self-cares ideas. I find that they are really effective for me and a lot of them also allow me to spread a bit of joy to others – such as cardmaking or writing letters.
Figure out what works for you and spend some time focusing on yourself. It’s important! We spend so much time helping others that actually, we end up neglecting ourselves and honestly, I have learned – the hard way – how neglecting yourself does not benefit anyone.
For now, Happy World Mental Health Day!
I hope you have a fantastic day and dedicate much deserved and much needed time to improve your mental health today. Self-care, after all, is something you should do regularly and often!
The post World Mental Health Day 2020 – Mental Health for all appeared first on aumsome.
