MENTAL HEALTH SELF CARE TIPS FOR 2021

The year 2020 has come to an end as we venture into a new year. It’s been a brutal 2020 on the backdrop of COVID-19.

Many have lost loved ones and didn’t find closure as they have not had even a chance to bury them, many lost jobs and businesses closed shop. By all accounts, these had a negative bearing on our mental health. The new year may itself potentiate the already volatile situation with fresh challenges and thus will highlight some tips to consider in promoting your mental health.

We find ourselves in a place and time in which we are mandated to set up resolutions. The impact of failed resolutions is detrimental to mental health as many put themselves under intense pressure to achieve them at the end of the year; and lets set up “SMART” goals to ease this. We should be mindful of obsessions that are overly concerned with physical wellbeing whilst neglecting our own mental health.

Poor nutrition has a profound impact on mental health. A 2010 systematic review by Luppino and others did highlight a relationship between depression and obesity; indicating that people who were obese had a 55% increased risk of developing depression whereas the risk of becoming obese was 58% on people experiencing depression. Watch out for your diet this year!

The travel restrictions will indeed have a bearing on family gatherings. I will encourage those who are distressed to reach out to fellow family members and significant others by means of social media and phone calls to catharsise feelings. Time to spend time with each other may not be there, but let’s communicate!

Lack of sleep and rest has been documented to adversely affect mood. It is important that we have adequate rest and time to unwind. There are local tourism activities in our areas and lets utilise them to bond with family members; of course being mindful of the COVID-19 protocols. A visit to a game park, a bush walk or a road trip have immense benefits.

Go out there and donate to those who are less privileged. Helping others has immensurable mental health benefits with several studies indicating that performing acts of kindness are linked to increased feelings of wellbeing.

Since we are in a cusp of an era manifested by lockdowns, curfews, social distancing; let’s work around them in realising our paths towards optimal mental health. An anon rancounter once posited that the “cost of procrastination is the life you could have attained.”