I’m doing fine, now. I got my stuff I do to keep from going nanners or whatever, but seems like a lot of dudes here don’t have access to good mental health resources and could use a few lifehacks, so I thought it might be good if we had a thread where people talk about what mental health crises they had and how they beat them, with a focus on things everyone can do.
Anyone got a technique they’d like to share?
2 comments
I like to take care of mind, body, and soul. And we all know how hard it gets just to get out of the bed, so these are better practiced before shit starts going South. However, if you ever find yourself in the depths of darkness, then you gotta start feeding each one little by little.
* Eat well and sleep an appropriate amount. I know my ideal amount of sleep per night is 9 hours, and anything above a 1 hour nap is useless. So I make sure I don’t sleep too much or too little, by force.
* Eat as clean as possible, and within a structure. Three meals, two snacks per day.
* Work out. Best for my mental health is doing cardio, so I start to walk, then run, and add a bit of body weight exercises I can do to my routine (checkout r/bodyweightfitness). If you have a bicycle, cycling is amazing for mental health, at least for me.
* Meditation. Just 10 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week. Practicing stoicism. Little breaks for mindfulness exercises.
* Hobbies: Easiest ones to do are listening to music, and playing the guitar for me. Then I try to play some single player video games, which then I turn into multiplayer games. Great if you have some friends to play with, where you can talk some shit, talk to people you like, and socialize a bit.
* Journal each night: breaking down my negative and positive thoughts into points and going as deep as possible makes everything easier to deal with, and puts them in perspective.
These are the main things I did when I was in the depths of addiction and suicidal depression, no job, dropped out of college, broke as fuck, and living with my sister. Of course you can’t do everything at once, but starting somewhere will help you a bit, which will allow you to add another thing in, and that will make you feel a bit more etc etc, in an upward cycle.
Be ready for failure as progress is not even a little bit straight forward or linear, and remember it’s okay to fail but that it’s important to be consistent. We put in the work every day that we can, and we take it easy on ourselves and allow ourselves to be human.
Revisit songs that you haven’t listened to for a while.
Stretch. I never enjoyed stretching or yoga, but the simple counting, moving, and holding provides a space where small structure *does something for a purpose* and sometimes our only purposes can seem like: work, eat, pay bills, sleep, repeat.