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Mental Health.

10 October was World Mental Health Day and I wanted to take a moment to write about both mental health and nudism as I think both can go hand in hand.

Most people I have talked to in my life that are struggling with some form of mental health disorders/ concern (depression, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress, panic, hypervigilance, etc.) do a poor job at really taking care of themselves. Not everyone, just a good number of them.

What people fail to fully understand, or realize, is just how powerful their mental health is on the other parts of the body.

Your Life and Negative Content

I mean think about this in your own life.

Do you fill your mind with negative content, or thoughts? If so, what is the result?

You end up in a shitty mood. You mood effects your output and drive to get anything done.

The less you get done that you want, or need to, the more the stress builds up.

The more the stress builds, the more negative hormones that are dropped.

This results in higher heart rate, blood pressure, headaches, upset stomach, prolonged tightness of muscles and the list goes on.

How can you control this? Well, it takes a focused effort day-in and day-out. Check out these 10 steps that I came up with that can help you and your mental health, and when you are done, check out this previous blog I wrote on Living with Mental Health Concerns.

10 Steps to Controlling Your Mental Health

1. Pay attention to the content you are consuming. Whether it is the news, YouTube, Social Media platforms, or even the group of people you hang out. Once you identify the negative source, work to eliminate it.

                – Start to consume things you like. Start watching YouTube videos to learn a new skill, or improve on one you are doing. Scan and unfollow people on your Social Media platforms. Don’t watch the news first thing in the morning, or prior to bed. You will start to see an impact when everything isn’t negative.

2. Read before you go to sleep. This will help to relax the body and you don’t go to sleep thinking about the negative of the day, or the worries of tomorrow.

3. Know your brain will resort to what it knows and is comfortable with: negativity. It is truly a conscious effort to try to remain positive. Understanding your default will allow you to catch it early and start to control the narrative before you are to deep in.

4. Mediation. Meditation is powerful stress reliever. Some say “well I can’t slow down my thoughts enough to mediate” and this is true to start; however, over time, and with practice you will and will get the benefits of it. To see how meditation will help you, check out this article from the Mayo Clinic!

5. Journal. Journaling is a great way to get things out of your head. One trick a therapist had me do was brain vomiting. Just get it out, but then don’t re-read it and put it back in your head. No grammar, no corrections just write. When I do this, I have to close my eyes and just write then shred after. Another way I do it, is well you are reading it. Part of the driver of this blog was to get things out of my head. I could have just put them in a bunch of word docs, or start a blog and share them, to which I am truly grateful for you and your investment of time and money for some, to read them.

6. Find things to be grateful for. This can be hard, especially when times are rough. But each day, a few times a day, stop and look around. Just say to yourself (inside or out loud) what you are grateful to have. You will find you have way more things than you think. Plus, your brain will send feel good hormones into your system as a reward. These can change a mood in an instance.

7. Take mental heal breaks. In a world of go-go-go we often find ourselves on the brink of burn out, or mental and physical fatigue. It is completely okay to simply take a day off to just do nothing and not feel guilty about it. During my working days, I was notorious for taking “mental health days”, even when times were busy. I took those days to simply give myself a break and when I didn’t and worked myself into burnout, then I was not as effective for the next month or two or four. Take days off!

8. Give yourself grace. If you are like me, you are way to hard on yourself. Give yourself grace!

9. Embrace your flaws. I will do a whole separate blog on this, but take time to really just embrace who you are, both inside and out. Stop trying to be, or look, “perfect”. Just be you. Exactly as you are. Those that care don’t mind, those that mind don’t matter.

10. Get nude. Nudism has done wonders for my mental health and stress relief. While I don’t do it everyday, or sometimes even not even monthly, when I need it, it is there and works every time. However, I prefer social nudism as it is the connection with like minded people that adds to my stress relief. We are social animals, and when in times of struggle, being alone can make it more difficult. Therefore, you often see me encourage you to try social nudism, however, there are a lot of benefits you can get from doing it at home!  

So there are my 10 steps to help control your mental health. While there is are a ton more, those are ones that you can try that will cost you nothing.

Just know, you may need to try them out, and modify them as needed to find what works for you.

Lastly, don’t just try them once and say “well it didn’t work”. Change takes time, and the older you are, the more programed your brain is. So give yourself time, grace, and effort.

You are worth it!

In your corner,

Ryan