{"id":679,"date":"2018-04-07T20:50:58","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T06:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/?p=679"},"modified":"2018-04-07T20:50:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T06:50:58","slug":"world-health-day-tasks-im-using-to-address-my-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/07\/world-health-day-tasks-im-using-to-address-my-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"World Health Day — Tasks I’m Using To Address My Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the bloggers I follow (Sonyo Estavillo, https:\/\/lilpickmeup.com\/<\/a>)happened to note that today is World Health Day<\/a>. While most of the news about it centers around physical health and access to health services, I thought I’d throw out some aspects of mental health and in particular the activities I use to help manage my dysthymia.<\/p>\n

A throwback to some of the earliest posts from my own blog, I continue to use both digital and traditional adult coloring books as a mental reset. In particular Pigment by Pixite (http:\/\/pixiteapps.com\/pigment\/<\/a>).[All Pigment images copyright to their respective artists]<\/p>\n

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Be it a watercolor styled sketch or something cartooney like a grumpy bear.<\/p>\n

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Pigment provides me an outlet that goes way outside of my normal activities. I’m an IT person by trade so I’m around blunt, fairly bland data all day. A bit of artistic expression is very much the opposite of my day and it certainly helps to slow myself down when things get hectic.<\/p>\n

Despite having terrible handwriting, I still find that I enjoy the practice of writing in a journal. Sometimes it’s just ranting about the things that frustrate me, or reminding myself of my goals and the things I need to focus on, there’s something to be said for putting pen to paper and just getting the thoughts out of your head and onto print.<\/p>\n

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The last of my activities is not something I recommend for everybody, particularly if your depression or anxiety is severe.\u00a0 I am a target shooter and hunter. For me getting to a gun range and being able to focus on nothing but myself and the target is one of the few things I can do today where I can sink my teeth into. For a few brief hours everything else that bothers me is put aside and I am not floating about in my own thoughts but I am there in the moment. The focus on safety, awareness and precision for me is a calming thing. Obviously this particularly coping tool suites me but it would not apply to everyone.<\/p>\n

The important thing I want folks to take away or think about today is what are the things you can do to help your current state, even if it’s just releasing a bit of the stress. If you haven’t tried something artistic, or journaling, seek out something that can hold your interest in a productive way and find a way to balance it in your total health picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the bloggers I follow (Sonyo Estavillo, https:\/\/lilpickmeup.com\/)happened to note that today is World Health Day. While most of the news about it centers around physical health and access to health services, I thought I’d throw out some aspects of mental health and in particular the activities I use to help manage my dysthymia. … Continue reading “World Health Day — Tasks I’m Using To Address My Mental Health”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[100,4,94],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-slice","tag-worldhealthday","tag-depression","tag-mental-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/medical-e1490926048876.jpg?fit=1273%2C556","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PG4O-aX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}