Reset your Mind – The 30 Days Mental Health Exercise

apainfulidentity.com/30days

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apainfulidentity.com/30days

Are you tired, anxious and worried about the future, thanks to the current pandemic? Or are you just tired, anxious and worried in general because you, like me, suffer from a chronic illness or anxiety disorder? Here is a gentle exercise to guide your mind towards reframing your thoughts, behaviour and get your mental health in good order.

World Mental Health Day – Great! What is happening after that?

October 10^th was World Mental Health Day. There were a number of articles, awareness campaigns and resources shared around the world, including in this blog. It is encouraging to see mental health being discussed so openly on a world stage.

However, a week after that, as Covid lockdowns have reemerged and news in general being very hard or difficult to process, a number of people are experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety. Our mental health is beginning to suffer more than we know or care to acknowledge now, perhaps. In parts of the world where the weather has become cold, these feelings are bound to increase. If you are someone with a chronic illness or pain or mental health issues, these feelings may get exacerbated.

The 30 Days Mental Health Exercise

What we need now is a gentle nudge towards reframing our thoughts, guiding our mind to look at the good around us, even in the most desperate of times. This is so that we can use that strength to get us through our difficulties. So I have drawn up a simple 30 days mental health exercise to try and reset our minds. There are a number of 30 days mental health challenges on the internet. While they are all good in their own ways, and you will find a lot of overlap between them and this exercise, there are a few key differences.

How is this mental health exercise different from all the other ones?

First, it is a mental health exercise and not a challenge. Sometimes it is good to be challenged, but being challenged everyday is not something that our mind might like. So if good mental health his our goal here, it would be wiser to gently exercise our mind – slowly and steadily – rather than challenge it. d.

Second, it has very simple things and does not expect much of you. It does not ask you to do things that you may find very difficult. For example, a number of mental health challenges ask you to go off social media for a whole day. As horrible as it sounds, most of us may not be able to do it easily. We might actually be more triggered the next day. So this exercise asks you to consider blocking your social media for just a few hours on a chosen day. It even provides you with links that you can use to block these apps.

Third, it comes with in-built links for several of the activities suggested. It saves you the time and energy needed to come up with ideas. Some of these links are informational, giving you an idea of the concept behind the activity (such as practicing gratitude). Some are activity based – for example, art, yoga, meditation, cooking, etc.

How to go about it?

You can start this exercise on any day of the month – not necessarily on the first. You don’t have to do it in any particular order – pick any one activity for the day and keep going. If you skip a day or two in between, don’t beat yourself up.

This is not a challenge, but a mental health exercise. In fact, it may not be a bad idea to take a break in between. On the last day of  this exercise, the activity is to sit and reflect on the month, write your thoughts down. This would give you an overview of how you experienced the different activities on different days,. It will help you see how they may (or may not) have helped you in coping with your day(s). It will make you realise how you feel at the end of a month long exercise dedicated to rest and resetting your mind.

How to share?

You can share this mental health exercise as a link – apainfulidentity.com/30days – or download the pdf and share it with your friends and family on social media or Whatsapp. If you plan to do this challenge, do tag @A Painful Identity on facebook, with the hashtag #apainfulidentity and #30daysmentalhealthexercise. You can do the same on Twitter, @renudhinakaran or on Instagram @apainfulidentity. I hope to start the challenge on November 1^st and will be logging my journey. Do join me, won’t you?