Mental Health: Put Down The Extra Weight

The hardest part of picking yourself up when you’re in a rough patch of mental health is knowing what to face head-on and knowing what to attack later. It’s easy to think we can solve anything if we put our minds to it, but sometimes specific problems or hangups take time. This is especially true if you’ve been through a rut and don’t know where to start. Instances of bad luck can make recovery feel like an insurmountable task, but just because a problem isn’t resolved right away doesn’t mean it needs to stay with you throughout your day-to-day circumstances.

Put it down … figuratively and literally.

One of the best ways to help you move on from the small things that are weighing you down, believe it or not, is a journal. SOmething as simple as writing your thoughts, feelings, and ideas down will help you shed that extra emotional weight until you’re ready to deal with it appropriately. As with anything in life, the longer you hang on to something and the more you carry, the heavier it gets. Put it down, you’ve carried it long enough. You can pick it back up when you’re ready.

More Mental Health: Heal By Deleting Social Media

Despite what movies and television has taught us, keeping notes of your thoughts and feelings can be tremendously beneficial. The tv and movie tropes of someone finding a diary or “feelings journal” has scared many people off from actually keeping track of their mental health wins and losses. If you’re having a great day, write it down. Not only should you write it down, you should keep track of what made that day so great. Having a bad day? What made it so horrible, how did others help/hurt recovering from the struggle? Where did it all start to go wrong? Not every part of your day has to be documented in the length of a college term paper. However, getting things off your chest will help you focus on the bigger picture and move on from the little things.

Now I’m not saying starting a journal will completely free you from your struggles with your mental health, but its a start. Think of it as a playbook to an easier solution in the future. Not only will it help you track your goals, fears, and feelings but a notebook filled with pages of hangups that you don’t have to carry with you all day everyday is a gamechanger. No, you shouldn’t put major issues off just because you wrote them down, but having an itemized list will help you prioritize the major things from the minor ones. Sometimes fixing our mental health is as simple as writing down what’s been in our head for far too long.