May Is Mental Health Awareness Month

3 Empowering Ways to Care for Your Mind and Relationships

Mental health awareness month is observed every May as a reminder that mental health is just as important as physical health. The ability to care for our individual minds strengthens not just our well-being, but our families and communities. Lotus Counseling Group is made up of licensed marriage and family therapists, who have specified credentials and training in viewing problems and solutions within the context of our relationships with one another. Read on to discover more about how relationship wellness impacts your mental health, how to de-stigmatize mental health care, and specific strategies for stress management. 

Normalize Mental Health Care Like Any Other Health Care

Just like we go to the doctor for our physical health, we can attend therapy or psychiatry sessions to nourish our mental health. Despite the number of people attending therapy growing, there is still stigma attached to attending therapy, receiving mental health diagnoses, or taking psychiatric medications. 

Sometimes it can be helpful to view therapy as a tool for stress management, emotional skill-building, and relationship health, not just mental health crisis care. The most common reasons people seek therapy are due to anxiety, depression, stress, and relationship struggles. This is promising as it means that people are using therapy more as preventative care or seeking help before problems worsen into crises. 

Here are some questions to prompt self-reflection around any bias you still might hold around mental health:

1. What messages did I hear growing up about mental health, emotions, or seeking help?
2. When I think about therapy or mental health care, what feelings or judgments come up for me?
3. Have I ever minimized my own mental health struggles because I believed they weren’t “serious enough”?
4. How might stigma — from society, family, or myself — be holding me back from getting the support I deserve?
5. What would it feel like to give myself full permission to care for my mental health, just like I would my physical health?

Small Daily Practices That Support Your Mental Health

When we think of caring for our mental health, sometimes we can feel pressure to do the big things: a spa day, asking for a week off work, or taking a huge vacation. Although these things can absolutely support your mental health, they take a good amount of energy to plan and execute. Likely, you can only do these things once in a while, not all the time. Enter: small daily practices for mental health. The bite-size pieces of support which help keep us calm, stable, and energized. 

If you’re navigating a busy career, family needs, or general on-going stress, know that mental health support doesn’t have to feel like another overwhelming task. Here are some approachable, effective ways to tend to your well-being a little each day:

1. The physiological sigh – This somatic approach to calming the nervous system can take you just 30 seconds to complete. It consists of a double inhale followed by a long, slow exhale. To try: take a long inhale through your nose, a short, quick inhale through your nose to top it off, and then end with a slow, long exhale through your mouth. Repeat 1-3 times to give your nervous system some soothing. 
2. Nourishing social interactions – We are relational creatures and biologically wired for connection. Although you may not be able to always take grand scheduled trips with friends, it’s always possible to send a text, interact on social media, or have a quick phone call or FaceTime. Remember that social interactions don’t have to be hours on end; just getting yourself to recognize the value of connecting in short, easy ways with others throughout the day. This is especially important if you have children, or are the primary parent, as adult-to-adult relationships nourish us in different ways than time with kiddos. 
3. Having phone and media boundaries – In modern times, it’s become next to impossible to not have our smart phones with us at all times. Oftentimes not just our personal lives, but our professional lives are intertwined into these tiny, complex little things. However, it is always possible to have boundaries with our phones and consumption of media. 

Here are some curious questions to help you build a routine which works for you:

• When I reach for my phone outside of work-related tasks, what am I usually seeking — information, connection, distraction, maybe comfort?
• How does my current phone and media use leave me feeling over-all (mentally, emotionally, physically) at the end of the day? Energized? Drained? Numb? Anxious? Maybe there are patterns depending on usage?
• What realistic boundaries could help me separate my professional phone use from the extra, optional scrolling or checking that tends to add stress? Are there certain sites, apps, or types of consumption that leave me more anxious than others?
• Are there specific times of day when I could create “protected” phone-free moments — even 10-15 minutes — to give my mind space to reset? Can I use the “focus mode” on my smart phone if this is an option to limit notifications?
• What small change could I try this week to make my phone feel more like a helpful tool, and less like an automatic habit?

Strengthen Your Relationships to Boost Mental Wellness

As marriage and family therapists at Lotus Counseling Group, we recognize just how powerful relationship wellness is. We understand healthy relationships are deeply intertwined with individual mental health experiences. Nourishing your relationships with others may positively impact your mental health in innumerable ways; when we feel connected with others, we feel grounded, capable, and supported to flourish in life. 

Here are some relationship nourishment ideas:

• Practice having emotionally open conversations to strengthen emotional connection. Use “I feel…” phrases to communicate your perspective and recognize the other person’s perspective with reflections like “What I’m hearing you say is…” Be open to checking in with what you heard and how the other person heard you.
• Schedule quality time if life feels hectic. There is no shame in not being able to casually spend impromptu time with others. In our modern world, we have many things vying for our attention and scheduling time together may actually show you care enough to make this relationship a priority. 
• If you find yourself getting “stuck” in negative interactions with family or partners, schedule family therapy or couples therapy. Relational therapy can help us learn new ways of interacting and hearing one another’s concerns, while also feeling we can confidently communicate our own needs. 

Investing in relationships supports both personal well-being and collective mental health in families and communities. Taking the daily time to nourish relationships is not just a powerful individual tool, but a way to strengthen the world around us as a whole. Imagine if we all took the time to do this!

Conclusion: Honoring Your Mental Health, One Step at a Time

As we move through May and Mental Health Awareness Month, remember: your mental well-being deserves your compassion and care all year long. Whether you’re exploring the small, bite-size daily practices, challenging the stigma that’s long surrounded mental health, or practicing nourishing your relationships, these are all valid steps to take. Caring for your mind isn’t selfish or indulgent; it’s essential. Attending to your individual mental health actually has powerful effects on our world as a whole; when you feel better, your relationships in family and communities thrive. 

Mental health as a concept can feel overwhelming, but know that small changes build lasting foundations. And if you need extra support, we’re here to help. May this month be an invitation to turn toward yourself with kindness and take the next right step, one mindful choice at a time.