Do you remember when I turned serious about mental health? I’ve since been contacted by these people - https://www.drugwatch.com/mental-health/ asking if I’d feature their resource on my blog, and I’m more than happy to do so. Reading through the page, this quote really resonated with me
“Managing our mental health requires a commitment to engage in self-care, which includes regular exercise, proper nutrition and paying attention to our spiritual lives. Spending time in nature is a powerful antidote to stress. Keeping connected to others is the single most robust factor in helping us weather life’s inevitable storms,”
At a time of year when a lot of us are making resolutions, it strikes me that we could do worse than make a point of doing these things. Obviously, in the UK at the moment it’s a wet cold winter where hot chocolate and the biscuit tin seems more appealing than spending time in nature, but I still feel better when I make the effort to go out for a walk each day.
But most of all is that bit about keeping connected to others. It can be in real life, or on line but I know how important it is to find a place where you belong. When I studied autism (both my children are autistic) they talked about the importance of them knowing how to find what they call their happy place and going to it before they reached the stage of uncontrollable meltdown and it struck me then that that advice would work pretty well for all of us.
So why not identify your happy place and commit in 2023 to doing more things that make YOU happy? And learn to read the warning signs for yourself, because mental health is precious and you can’t keep pouring from an empty jug.
So, today's picture is of one of my favourite places and the wonderful thing about being a writer is that I can go there in my imagination any time I choose and the sun always shines and I never get sand in my sandwiches!
Take care, and look after yourselves, because that way you'll be able to look after everyone else who needs it as well.
