Prioritize Your Well-being and Support of One Another

Improve your mental health one step at a time, it can be a process and doesn’t just happen overnight. For many of us, maintaining good mental health requires making small, consistent efforts every day.  Thinking about a lifetime's worth of small steps may seem overwhelming, but in the words of Lao Tzu, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Take that first step. The ones that follow will become easier and you'll move closer to your goals.

Imagine what an ideal day would look like for you. Did you connect with a friend? Did you make time to laugh with a loved one? Or maybe you carved out some time to read a book or walked at a park. Often times the things that make us feel better are available, we just have to make time for them.

Challenge yourself to do one thing each day that brings you happiness. Daily habits like this can help transform your mental health for the better. 

Mental wellness is a team sport. Feeling lonely or isolated can take a toll on your emotional wellbeing. Working on your mental well-being with others you care about can help you overcome barriers and feel better.

Support Team: A support team is a huge part of improving your mental health. Knowing others can help more than you might expect. That help may come from family, a friend, a spouse or partner or a health professional. Your doctor and a mental health therapist can be part of the team that helps you access the right care, maintain your health and reach your well-being goals. 

Essential Tools: Practicing self-care every day and exercising your brain to build resilience can help prevent or reverse the effects of burnout. You probably know of great tools to support your physical health, but do you know what’s needed to be mentally healthy? Your emotions, thoughts and attitudes affect your energy, productivity and overall well-being. Good mental health strengthens your ability to cope with everyday challenges, stressors and crises. 

Emotions: Learning about your emotions and behaviors and how to manage them. We all know what worry feels like. Sometimes our worries take control of us, and we feel like we can’t interrupt our negative thoughts. This can feel overwhelming and limits our ability to engage with our everyday tasks. View the Taming Worrying Thoughts, Talkspace On-Demand Session. In this class, the host will guide you through re-framing your worries and taking back control of your thought life.

Building resilience and coping strategies: De-stressing at the end of the day activity. It is normal to accumulate stress throughout the day. Pausing to release stress and mindfully reset at the end of each day is a simple way to mitigate some of the negative effects of stress. You can do this by building healthy habits into your daily routine. It’s also an important part of creating a clear boundary between your work life and personal life. View quick tips to de-stress at the end of the day.

Making self-care a priority: Self-care is about taking care of your basic needs, changing habits, and setting personal goals. It’s all about creating rituals and routines that promote rest, relaxation, and connection to self.  Access this self-care and stress management therapy worksheet.

Quick links: 

Research suggests just five minutes of mindfulness a day is enough to help boost brain function, improve mood, reduce stress and support a healthy metabolism. Explore Five Minute Tools.

Access tips for improving your emotional well-being:

• English
• Spanish

Mini-Mindful Moments: Check out these 1-5 minute useful techniques to build your toolkit:

• Finding your path
• Making connections
• Strengthening your willpower
• Mindful meditation
• Grounding technique
• Breathing for balance
• Check in with yourself
• Showing up for yourself

If we see someone who has a broken arm, we don’t shy away from asking what happened or offer support. When we see someone struggling emotionally, sometimes we don’t always know what to say or how to help. Just like with physical health, it’s important to take care of our mental well-being and be comfortable talking about mental health.  It starts with having empathy, a simple action and being a good listener can make a big difference.

How can you make a difference in suicide prevention? Become familiar with five possible signs of mental health distress in those around you include:
 

1. Showing sudden or gradual personality changes
2. Acting angry, agitated or moody more often than usual
3. Becoming withdrawn from other people
4. Making bad choices like abusing drugs or alcohol, poor self-care and other self-destructive behaviors
5. Expressing hopelessness

Learn about what to do if you think someone might be at risk for self-harm. View 5 action steps for helping someone in emotional pain.

MaineHealth care team members have access to the Talk Saves Lives Online Training, developed by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. This is a 45-minute introductory training on mental health, suicide prevention, and what you can do in your community to save lives. Get started.

Access the Resources for Living Suicide Prevention page. This page features: articles to help understand / prevent suicide and a robust suicide resource center.

Additional Tools: Talking with someone who's depressed or having thoughts of suicide.

There is help available, if you or someone you know is in crisis:

• Reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline call/text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
• Call 911
• Text TALK to 741741 – text with a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text line for free, 24/7