Mental and Emotional Health

*This was supposed to be a part of my summer challenge post from last week but I had lost the paragraph.  Fortunately, I found it again.  I should also note that this post is for people who want to try different things to help build their emotional and mental health.  If you have an actual mental illness, this isn't the post for you.   

Mental/Emotional health

One of the most crucial things I need to work on is my mental and emotional health.  This is the core of building a better "me" and without a healthy mental and emotional system, it's going to be disastrous trying to "fix" myself.  This year, my mental and emotional health deteriorated and left me in an inescapable void of trying and trying but getting nowhere.  Now, I should mention mental health and emotional health isn't the same thing.  A person with stable emotional health knows what they are feeling.  They know when they are feeling stressed or anxious and know how to deal with it better.  A person with good mental health all around is well-being.  Having good emotional health also goes with having good mental health.  Achieving good mental and emotional health can take time and effort.  One big factor in accomplishing this is you yourself.  You yourself need to be willing to change and improve your mental health.  There are a few ways you can help improve your health and this summer I am going to be trying many of those ways.  Journaling your thoughts and emotions can help you come to terms with them and help express yourself instead of bottling it all up.  Meditation can help calm you down and relieve stress and anxiety. I have always been interested in meditation and really want to try it.  Another factor for bad mental health is not getting enough sleep.  How would you fix this tho?  An hour before you go to bed, turn off your electronics.  This can help you go to sleep better as you won't have a screen light in your face.  Turn off your notifications as well.  I read a few articles on sleep cycles as well.  You know how sometimes you'll wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep for a while.  If that happens, I've learned that the best way to overcome that is to read a book.  As you read your book, you will get more tired, making you want to go to sleep again.  I also found a variety of apps that help with waking up in the morning.   You ever have that moment when you're in the middle of a nice dream and all of a sudden your alarm rings, ruining your sleep cycle and that nice dream you were having?  Well, there are multiple apps that help with that problem.  When you go to sleep, put your phone under your pillow turning on this app.  This app measures your movements and determines whether you are in light sleep, or deep sleep.  You set a time you want to wake up, and when the app measures that you are in light sleep, it wakes you up.  There are multiple of these apps out there and you can find them by searching "sleep cycle apps".  Another activity to do is have alone time for yourself.  You can do whatever, colouring, walking, anything.  Just you and your thoughts.  Many of the goals I've set for this summer are based on alone time.  Contrary to alone time, it is also important to socialise and talk to friends and family.  Loneliness is something I experienced a lot this year and I want to work on that.  Having an hour-long conversation on the phone with your friends, planning hangouts, whatever.  Just finding time to talk to people is very important.