Mental wellness inside and outside of mental illness

Stacie Weich

October 10, 2017

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Exploring mental wellness

During Mental Illness Awareness Week, we want to explore the message of hope, resiliency, and understanding that there is wellness inside and outside of illness. Whether you live with a physical illness, a developmental illness, an injury, a mental illness or no labelled illness or disorder at all, your mental health can be appreciated and supported to flourish by recognizing the pieces that you can influence.

Living with a diagnosed mental illness or not, the reality is that every person on the planet will have moments, periods, or situations in which their mental health is or was, less than they would like it to be. Here are some examples of things to look out for – and things you can build skills to make changes to:

Trouble focusing attention.
Finding your thoughts stuck on one track – that just won’t stop running.
Struggling to tell what is real or not.
Feeling sad or vacant when good things are happening in your life.
Finding yourself isolating from friends or avoiding activities that usually bring you joy.
Sleep trouble – too much energy to get to sleep, or sleeping all night and not feeling rested.
Impulsively making decisions about money or activities that put you at risk.
Change in appetite or exercise patterns.
Feeling like you can’t make decisions when you usually make them with ease.

Learn how to enhance our mental and emotional health

All of these things contribute to the overall experience of mental health, as do many other factors (jobs, finances, social networks, family breakdowns, life events, spirituality, etc.). The great thing about this list is that we can all learn to interrupt thinking patterns, practice better sleep hygiene, or adjust our schedules to promote balance in our days. We can invite new activities and people into our lives, we can change our environments and engage in our community, and we can seek help if we are struggling to make changes that can support growth. In doing these things, we can all see improvements to our mental wellness and in turn, satisfaction with our lives – dealing with challenges productively as they arise. Pieces of the puzzle, things to try:

Have a look at your thinking patterns.
Practice sleep hygiene.
Recognize your strengths – try starting your day with writing out 3 things you are good at.
Spend time with loved ones – build a social network.
Volunteer.
Exercise 30 minutes most days.
Learn to manage and reduce stress.

Fast Facts:

Mental health, like physical health, has a range whether we live with a diagnosis or not.
We all have mental health and have days/periods where our thinking patterns, emotions, and behaviours are not at their best. We can learn skills to enhance our mental and emotional health.
Recovery is a journey, and there are many paths to get you there. Choose a route that makes sense for you.
Similar to physical health, mental health has elements we can influence to reach our wellness goals.