Major Update/Origin Poem/Mental Health Language

Here's the latest article I published on The Mental Health Update website.

Unsolicited advice is the worst. I'm guilty of it, and you're guilty of it.

Let's not be guilty of it anymore.

The above link is a really good infographic that a local mental health professional shared with me. 

It contains updated guidelines for the ways we should be talking about mental health. Because let’s face it, the words we use matter. 

I'll admit, I still have been using the word "stigma," and this made me reconsider it. There's also a good reminder on the importance of person-first language as opposed to identifying people as their illness.

And this article is a good option for anyone who is not a visual / infographic person (I’m not). NAMI is a trusted mental health resource for relatable information, and this is a short read for how labels impacted one particular person—and how they overcame them

Positive psychology is the scientific study of human well-being, and positivepsychology.com is one of the best resources for the field of study I’ve found. 

With a name like that, I’d hope so! 

If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about mindfulness, but didn’t know where to begin, this is for you. They neatly break down mindfulness programs, so there’s something for everyone here, as long as that “everyone” has an interest in mindfulness, of course.

Have you ever felt lost in life? Not sure who you are? 

Maybe, you should write an origin poem. 

This post from The Executive Happiness Coach covers why you should consider doing this—and what it looks like when you get the words down. 

Poetry has been a lifeline for me. Writing In Search of Happiness helped me figure out who I am at my core. Give this origin-poem exercise a shot, and I bet it’ll transform the ideas you have about yourself.

This video came at the right time for me. Leon Hendrix (The YouTube creator, not the 74-year-old musician) is one heck of a video editor. He's also ridiculously ambitious, so keep that in mind. Dig into the emotion behind this video, not his exact personal routine.

Still, his videos draw me in every single time. This one, like the title suggests, is about not wasting your life. But it’s more than that. Leon’s vulnerability is palpable. And as a fellow creator with high standards for myself, I could feel his pain when he was told to take two days off in a row. This will change how you think about the way you’re living your life. And the book he mentions at the end, No Bad Parts, is now at the top of my reading list.

Sleeping well is at the core of good mental health. Without sleep, we are nothing. 

If my mental health starts slipping, lack of sleep is usually one of the main culprits. This article by a sleep doctor reviews everything you need to know to get your sleep schedule back on track.

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