Stay Hydrated!
Staying hydrated is not just important for your physical health, but can have substantial benefits for your mental health and your mood too.
Tagged: apps
An App to Consider: Oak
There are a lot of benefits to deep breathing. Although the steps are incredibly simple (deep breath in, hold, breathe out, repeat), you can try different patterns and lengths of time, and may need some assistance with it. You may also want a source of some background noise instead of searching “calming sounds” online and hoping for the best.
Improving Sleep
While it’s incredibly important to get a good night’s sleep, sleeping patterns and the amount of sleep adolescents get can get jumbled because of mental illness (for example, we’ve talked about “depression naps” and the effects that they can have). Overall, it’s difficult for adolescents to get the recommended amount of sleep they should be getting, and with higher rates of mental illness within this age group today, it can be even more difficult because of the ways that it can affect your sleep, such as depression napping and insomnia.
Finding a Therapist Who Relates to You
The mental health profession, unfortunately, lacks diversity. The American Psychological Association found that 86% of practitioners are white, with other races making up less than 5% each. In a nation that continues to not just get more diverse, but is also becoming more open in talking about mental health, it’s important for people of color to not just find, but have access to therapists who look like them.
An App to Consider: Mango Health
Although we mentioned it in our list of medication reminders recently, we wanted to use this week to specifically focus on the free app, Mango Health. You can check out more about why apps can be useful for taking medication and developing other habits for your help here, but we specifically wanted to focus on Mango Health because of its simplicity and how easy it is to use and understand.
Medication Reminders
Let’s be honest: we’ve all missed taking a daily medication. It might be because you were too busy, in a rush, or simply forgot. You may have also missed taking a medication because you didn’t have the energy to do so due to your depression, or your brain might have been too foggy to remember because of other mental health issues getting in the way.
Tracking Your Sleep with Tech
Okay, we know, using technology to help your sleep doesn’t make much sense. It’s almost a widely accepted known fact that using technology as much as we do can actually damage our sleep habits and patterns, especially when using it in bed and during nighttime. If you haven’t been sleeping that well though, you may need some extra support getting the recommended 8-ish hours of sleep a night.
Stay Hydrated!
As we discussed earlier this week, staying hydrated is not just important for your physical health, but can have substantial benefits for your mental health and your mood too. This is especially important now during the summer, where the heat and humidity can make it even easier to get dehydrated.
An App to Consider: Headspace
Headspace is one of the most popular and well-known apps in the search for mindfulness apps and apps that provide support for mental health (we’ve even covered it before too!). The animations and voices are soft, relaxing, and have varied lengths and topics so you can choose what’s best for you out of convenience and need.
Finding an Escape
When things in real life feel overwhelming, one of the first things that we likely want to do is find an escape. It could be as idealistic as taking a vacation or as simple as going for a walk. However, activities to help us get out of our heads can be easier said than done, especially if depressive episodes or anxiety attacks make even the seemingly easiest of tasks feel impossible.
