Taking charge of wellness Self-Care is essential on the road to recovery
WWhenadults find themselves struggling with mental health issues, like depression and anxiety, recognizing their own roles in their wellness and self-care is an essential part of the treatment. Imperial County Behavioral Health Services (ICBHS) can help them understand what that entails.
Through services at ICBHS’s Adult Anxiety and Depression Clinics in El Centro, Brawley, Calexico, and San Pascual, and programs oered by Wellness Centers in El Centro and Brawley, ICBHS can help adults ages 26 and older on their journey toward mental health recovery.
Along the way, they’ll learn what it means to focus on wellness and self-care, two very connected ideas.
“When I think of wellness, I want to ensure my clients feel satisfaction in all areas of their life, whether in their relationships, in their physical health, or with their engagement in the community,” said Mariana Magaña, Behavioral Health Therapist II in Behavioral Health’s El Centro clinic. “I want to create an overall sense of wellness.”
Achieving wellness involves self-care, which often starts with focusing on one’s physical health. Magaña recognizes that taking that first step to seek medical care can be dicult, but it is a crucial one toward better physical and mental health.
Self-care and wellness also involve prioritizing relationships in one’s life and making the choice not to isolate from those around us.
“It’s so important to maintain those relationships and not isolate,” she said, adding sometimes for adults it can be a challenge to build on current relationships or start new ones, and yet those are key steps toward helping one’s mental health.
Focusing on spirituality is another self-care step. “When I think of spirituality, I think of how we perceive our lives,” Magaña said. “It’s very hard not to focus on the negative, but if we can focus on gratitude, it can change the perception of how we view ourselves, our lives and the things that are happening to us in our lives.”
Then, one can start to become more resilient and recognize they can tackle challenges in their lives. They can become more insightful in making changes in their life and more mindful in focusing on their lives today rather than thinking about the past or worrying about the future.
Self-care and wellness are also about celebrating the small steps one takes along their mental health journey. “You have to be proud of yourself for the steps you take,” Magaña said.
ICBHS has clinicians at the Adult Anxiety and Depression Clinics prepared to help clients along their journey. If someone is not ready for the kind of in-depth care oered through therapy, they can start by working with Mental Health Rehabilitation Technicians who focus on building coping mechanisms. Medication support services may also become part of the treatment.
For adults in an ICBHS program, services are also available through the Wellness Centers, which provides support in dierent areas of a client’s life, including providing links to other resources, like education and workforce through partnerships with Imperial Valley College and the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program.
The Wellness Centers also can provide free access to participating gyms as well as programs built around music and crafts. Additionally, there are self-help groups catered to men and women separately where they can focus on building self-esteem.