Antelope Valley Press

Prioritize mental health

- JESSE DAVIDSON

When left unchecked, life can feel like speeding along a crowded highway with an exact amount of time to arrive at the destinatio­n.

It’s nice when unintentio­nal Burma-Shave signs appear alongside the road — those little signposts that force us to acknowledg­e and slow down in order to read the message. On Nov. 6, one such sign arrived on my road. As a challenge proclamati­on to myself, I ran a 10K in Ventura, Calif.

Leaving the house at 4:30 a.m., barely awake and under-prepared, I began to make the long trek against the rising sun. Beginning at the Emma Wood Campground, my section of the course consisted of a 3.1-mile run up the Pacific Coast Highway with a U-turn back to the start.

I began at 7:30 a.m. and crossed the finish line at 8:59 a.m. A simple challenge to break the bonds of stagnation became something much greater. The following 24-36 hours were the most focused and mentally clear I’ve had in a long time. There were no distractio­ns, anxieties or concerns.

Needless to say, a career as a fitness influencer isn’t in my future. However, the

ad-real nugget of wisdom was gesfound in these side effects theand serves as a real example inof the importance of meningtal health, from my perspecmis-tive. nier This personal feeling juxtaposed against a time when A11so many peers are going through mental health struggles. The intent of sharing any events in my private life is never about boasting, it’s about searching for the Burma-Shave signs within. It’s my hope, in some small way, to help contribute to the conversati­on about taking care of our minds; something that’s slowly become un-taboo in the last few years. The cornerston­e of my grounding is meditation, a tried and true practice that has been passed down in a variety of cultures through multiple generation­s. The key word here is practice.

Just as a musician must maintain their chops, maintainin­g awareness takes consistent effort even for just a few minutes a day. A consistent five minutes upon waking up made vast improvemen­ts to my outlook. However, when incorporat­ing my musical and meditative practices together, it became a game-changer.

Two avenues emerged to fuse these two entities together. One came from my equal love and passion for nature. Lately, I’ve been taking my small acoustic bass outdoors, listening to the sounds of the world and letting my imaginatio­n do the rest. At times, I try to create a call-and-response with the birds chirping, the wind blowing through the trees and the occasional call from a wild animal. When I can’t make it out for a quick hike or backyard jam session, taking up rudimentar­y exercise and incorporat­ing meditative breathing has been dramatical­ly helpful.

For example, running scales or playing along to a drum machine while doing deep breathing is perfect for an overactive mind. My thoughts don’t wander while my hands are busy playing.

Another helpful exercise was discovered through Laura Hemenway, a retired music professor and Commercial Music Department chair at Antelope Valley College. During her songwritin­g course, keeping a journal became a requiremen­t for all of her students. Her twist was to write three pages a day on any subject matter. It could be thoughts, feelings, venting about a topic or a quick story. It was recommende­d these three pages should be completed in the morning in order to capture a fresh take on the day.

At times, I’ve failed to maintain a journal due to my own pretenses because I was trying to write what I felt was important, thinking I didn’t have enough to say at a particular time, etc. This exercise was a convenient way to break my own unnecessar­y rules.

Again, I’m no psychologi­st but I felt the importance of finding methods to care for myself. Outside of our personal practices, my dream is to help cultivate a community that has a positive attitude about care for mental health. A gateway to this awakening is through artistic expression. Music, poems and paintings are a way to access feelings we didn’t know how to articulate before. Beyond the basic necessitie­s we need to get through life, when art is thriving, we’re thriving. In a recent Ted Talk on creativity, actor Ethan Hawke summed it up beautifull­y:

“Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry. They have a life to live and they’re not really that concerned. Until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart. All of a sudden, you’re desperate for making sense out of this life. Has anyone ever felt this bad before? Or the inverse of that, you meet someone and your heart explodes. Did anyone feel like this before? That’s when art is not a luxury, it’s sustenance.”

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