It’s Mental Health Awareness Month! We are sharing photos in social media of #everydaymentalhealth activities we can do to enhance our mental health.
Read a book. Reading has amazing benefits. Research has found that reading can significantly reduce your stress. A study by University of Sussex, UK found that people who had high stress levels and heart rate reduced their stress levels by 68% after reading silently for six minutes. Their muscle tension and heart rate also reduced. This is attributed to several factors. An important one is that when the mind is giving a task to concentrate on, it provides a distraction and reading may allow people with the opportunity to submerge into another other world other than theirs or to connect with people (characters) with similar experiences.
How do in build in reading time if reading isn’t my thing?
1. Take an inventory of topics or genres you are into
2. Start off with a small book and build in 15 minutes of reading time per day
3. Join a book club or read a book with a friend
4. Replace 15 minutes of tech time with reading
5. If you read from a smart phone app, put your phone on do not disturb or out your phone airplane mode
6. Still don’t like reading? Try an audio book but do not multitask as your listening to your book
Join us in social media this May as we share #everydaymentalhealth photos of activities that enhance our mental health. Share your own photo of an every day activity that promotes wellness and we will enter you on an online raffle to receive a self-care kit with products curated by us.