It’s not easy to take care of your mental health during the holiday season. Whether it’s handling family dynamics, dealing with unpleasant memories or grieving during an especially sentimental time of year, the holidays can bring challenges for our mental health. Here are some reminders and ways you can check in on your mental health and wellness during this time of year.
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The Holidays Aren’t Easy for Everyone
As I’ve written before, I tend to get sad during the wintertime. At this point, it’s become something to expect and prepare for more than anything else, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating when it happens. But it’s not just the wintertime – it’s the holidays, too. Last year, I wrote that it’s okay not to be okay during this festive period, and while the sentiment remains true for this year, I also wanted to issue a gentle reminder that many people struggle with their mental health during the holiday season, and what we can do about it.
Continue readingTaking a Look at Youth Mental Health: A Statistical Breakdown
Mental health matters for people of every age, race and demographic, but an area that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves is in young people. It might not be news to some, but the numbers are rising year after year when it comes to young people dealing with mental health disorders and mental illness. After an insightful Q&A earlier this week with Tilly’s Life Center, I decided I wanted to spotlight some of the important statistics about young people and mental health that are important to know.
Continue readingTeenagers and Mental Health: A Q&A with Tilly’s Life Center
Mental health is important for everyone, but it’s especially important to spotlight teenagers and mental health. For today’s post, I was able to talk with Monica Utley, the Executive Director of Tilly’s Life Center. Located in Irvine, California, Tilly’s Life Center teaches life skills to teenagers that build confidence, inspire compassion, and encourages adolescents to pursue their dreams. Thank you to Monica for taking the time to answer my questions!
Continue readingFive Ways to Manage Perfectionism
This week on My Brain’s Not Broken, we’re talking about perfectionism. While it’s something that comes up in everyday life, perfectionism can be hard to spot, and even harder to deal with. When I was looking up how to manage and deal with perfectionism, I saw the same results as when I looked up how to manage self-doubt, which was that every article I found used terms like overcoming and get rid of when talking about perfectionism (which seems like an example of perfectionism itself). So, rather than provide tips on how to get over perfectionism, I wanted to share five ways that I try to manage my perfectionist tendencies, with the long-term goal of changing my attitude toward perfectionism.
Continue readingHow Perfectionism Impacts Mental Health
When I wrote last week’s post about why I feel like I’m always playing catch up, I thought a lot about perfectionism. It’s not something that crosses my mind often, but when I have time to reflect on how I treat myself, that word comes up. When I was growing up, no one ever made a connection between perfectionism and mental health. Perfectionism was a personality trait, and some people had it and others didn’t. But the more I learn about mental health, the more I’ve learned that it’s not so black and white. It’s always existed, but perfectionism effects our mental health in very unique ways in 2021 – and that’s what I want to talk about today.
Continue readingThe Trouble With Playing Catch Up
It has been a surprisingly productive week for me but for some reason, I still feel like I’m behind. It doesn’t matter why, but this is about the time every single year where I feel like I’m behind on everything (it happens other times during the year, but this is when it hits the most). It’s discouraging to feel like you’re constantly catching up on things, but I’ve learned to manage these feelings in a way that helps me, not hurts me. And that starts by admitting that in my game of catch up, I’m never going to win.
Continue readingIt’s Okay If the Weather Impacts Your Mental Health
One thing that I’ve always known is that my writing can be…lengthy. That’s the case everywhere for me when it comes to my work, but it’s especially true for this blog. Oftentimes, I’ve written entire posts where I’ve realized that it took me 500 words to get to the point, or worse – that I never actually made the point I was trying to make! Well, not today. I want to be as clear and as blunt as I can be when I say that the weather is straight-up rude to our mental health. Sometimes it impacts it in a negative way, and it’s alright to admit that. Here’s how I know.
Continue readingWhat It Means to Be Thankful When You Have Depression
After writing about gratitude earlier this week (including my tips on how to have a better relationship with gratitude), I thought more about Thanksgiving. Specifically, I reflected on the word thankful and what it means to me. Thankfulness and gratitude don’t come easy to me, and I know there are plenty of people who it doesn’t come to either. Over the years, I’ve learned some things about thankfulness and living with depression that I’d like to share this Thanksgiving day.
Continue readingFive Ways to Improve Your Relationship With Gratitude
Since this week is Thanksgiving in the US, I’m thinking a lot about the word gratitude. Being in the mental health space, I heard this word quite often. One of the most common tips for people dealing with depression centers around finding gratitude in our lives. There are many ways that people can find gratitude (and I hope to make a post about that in the near future!), but what isn’t talked about as much is that people’s relationships with gratitude can be tricky. There’s a fine line to balance if we feel like we’re being forced to look on the ‘bright side’ if we’re struggling to cope with mental illness. That’s why, before I reflect more on this word and what it means for me, I want to share some of the ways that you can improve the way you view gratitude and your relationship with this tricky concept.
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My Brain's Not Broken 