Tag Archives: mental health

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 7

Posted on by

Technically today is Day 9, but I took a couple days off to spend time with family and attend to a bad day of my gastric condition. What I did, and aim to do every day, will stand as the last two thoughts I give to you for my Mental Health Week.

Day 7: It’s okay to put yourself first. It’s okay to be yourself.

We’re well into one of the busiest and most stressful times of year for students: grad school and scholarship applications, final exams and final papers, thesis submissions, and the holidays: travel, shopping, dinners, parties, and on it goes. It’s so easy to forget you and not put yourself first. It’s so easy to slide into performing for others and obsessing over meeting unfair standards and expectations at this time of year. Please know you are not alone.

Last week, I found an incredible cartoon on Bright Side by Yao Xiao illustrating situations in which we apologize for simply being who we are and what you can say instead that’s more positive, constructive, and kind to you and your mental health. It moved me to tears. I highly recommend checking it out (and Yao Xiao‘s work) and hope it resonates with you and gives you a new way of understanding and communicating how important and beautiful you are.

I hope you have enjoyed my Mental Health Week and found some helpful reminders, thoughts, and resources. Let’s keep the #mentalhealth conversation going and create a better, healthier student experience for all of us.

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 4

Posted on by

Welcome to Day 4 of my Mental Health Week. With each post, I’m talking about a different lesson, tip, or experience linked to my mental health, struggles with depression and anxiety, and life as a UBC student.

Day 4: Hug something

Hug something

I would hug every single person I walk past on the street, sit next to in class, or stand next to on the bus if I could. Physical contact helps me cope with my depression, loneliness, and anxiety. I find that hugging a pillow close to my chest while I watch a movie or my stuffed gorilla while I fall asleep helps. Physical contact with another person can be a complicated thing for a lot of people, but the need for physical contact or “pressure” may still remain.

With the holidays around the corner and exams all around at UBC, stress and fear is high and it can be a scary time. I recommend hugging someone or something as a way of coping and being good to yourself, and celebrating all your hard academic work. It can be a tree, your best friend, the family dog, or a blanket. Whatever or whoever it is, hug something and repeat as often as needed. Especially yourself after you’ve finished every paper, exam, application, and project and kicked all their collective behinds!

#MentalHealth

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 3

Posted on by

Welcome to Day 3 of my week of mental health. If you’re new to my mental health week, I started it on Sunday after discovering BuzzFeed’s launch of their own mental health week across multiple languages, mediums, and topics. As a grad student at UBC, I’m trying to connect each of my posts on mental health with my UBC student experience in the hopes of helping to spread some love, joy, fresh insights, thoughts, and inspiration of my own with one of the most important communities in my life: UBC students.

Without further ado, here is a famous quote that I am constantly re-reminded of and repeat to myself in times of mental and physical distress.

 

Inspiring Quote

 

Take, leave, or replace the “God” part. The sentiment is the same any way and I think of it as a life-long journey. So as you study hard for your final exams, submit your applications for grad school, write your final papers, and design your art projects and business plans, repeat this gem of wisdom to yourself. My tip? Once the paper is submitted and the exam is done, you have done your work and you cannot change it. So, breathe deeply, pat yourself on your back, and allow yourself the courage to take care of yourself and put you first. You deserve it.

Find me on Twitter & Instagram and let’s follow each other!

#MentalHealth

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 2

Posted on by

It’s the second day of my mental health week with reflections,  tips, and lessons of my own on mental health. Here’s today’s reflection that I subscribe to very strongly.

It's okay to make mistakes

Day 2: It’s okay to make mistakes. I choose to look at mistakes as lessons, opportunities to learn, and a necessary part of my life’s journey. We exist and therefore we aren’t perfect. We aren’t perfect and therefore we make mistakes. It’s exam and final paper time at UBC and so fear of making mistakes – forgetting what you’ve studied, missing steps in an equation, incorrectly citing a source in a research paper – is pretty high. If you find your stress soaring or your anxiety increasing as you fixate on these thoughts, write my mantra down and repeat it to yourself as often as you need (or another positive, self-affirming thought of your own). Stuff it in your pocket, write it on your arm, put it into your phone. Just think, in about two weeks, it’ll all be over and you can exhale deeply and fully.

Connect with me on Twitter or Instagram and let’s keep talking about student life and mental health.

#MentalHealth

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 1

Posted on by

Today, BuzzFeed launched their own Mental Health Week starting on December 6, 2015. They acknowledged the huge role that media plays in how we see ourselves and mental health. So, they’re taking the lead and will be publishing more than 100 posts across five languages on mental health, as well as 30 videos from the Motion Pictures team, and coverage on SnapChat and the social channels on BuzzFeed Health. This is important and I expect many of us UBC students already follow BuzzFeed (I know I do) and if you don’t, you will. BF’s work especially their videos have helped me feel less alone, less scared, and less harsh on myself.

I am inspired by their big week to come, so I’ll be honouring it by having my own 7-day Mental Health Week here on my blog. Each day will contain a reflection of some kind about mental health connected to my life as a UBC grad student in the hopes that it will spark discussion, strength, love, joy, and whatever you need to understand and cope with your mental health.

Wreck Beach

Wreck Beach, where the sea is always there for you when you need it

Day 1: Take photos

This fall has been difficult for both my mental and physical health. All the high grades and positive academic feedback in the world hasn’t really helped. What has is my re-discovery of my love for photography and thanks to smartphones, you no longer need hundreds if not thousands of dollars to release your inner photographer and even pursue it has a career. Nature photography is my specialty and the UBC campus has been the perfect setting for it. My job at the UBC Botanical Garden hasn’t hurt either!

When I take photos, the search for the right light, the right colour, the unique angle, the emotion I want to capture takes me out of my own head, my own pain and sadness, even if just for the few minutes it takes to search, find, capture, and share. And that matters for my mental health. Sharing what I think is beautiful and keeping that moment and piece of work with me forever helps me express in ways that I can’t otherwise. The UBC Botanical Garden, the Nitobe Garden, the Rose Garden, and the sweeping architecture of the Nest are always there for me as subjects of profound beauty and photographic inspiration when I need them, unconditionally, in the rain, in the sun, on a good day and on my worst.

Maybe your creation will be cooking, writing, singing, painting, gardening, urban farming, or something else wonderful and personal. It’s a stressful time of year, so I encourage you to create and want you to know that our campus is an amazing place for inspiration. And it doesn’t matter what other people think of your creation because it’s yours and therefore it matters.

Connect with me on Instagram to see what I’m creating to help me with my mental health. I look forward to yours as well.

#MentalHealth

 

Why Mental Health Matters to Me

Posted on by
Feeling good today.

Feeling good today.

It’s World Mental Health Day today and I’d like to reflect on why mental health matters to me.

Through my 6+ plus years at UBC, my mental health has dipped, peaked, crashed, and soared, and dipped, peaked, crashed, and soared. Many times over. I’m one of the many who’s only just started deeply considering mental health. How complex it is. I mean, what else would it be, I guess? We ARE complex.

Even today, as the wind and rain whipped the leaves through my hair as I walked across campus, I thought about how strange it is that we separate physical and mental health. That we treat complications of physical health as if they have no mental or emotional or spiritual effects. And vice versa. That we treat the complications of mental health as if they have no physical effects.

I live with a few chronic “physical” conditions and believe me, they affect my mental health. I spend many a morning staring at the wall for an hour, cocooned in my duvet, wrapped tight around me, not wanting to get up. Because if I get up, I have to do stuff. Wash my face, do the dishes, go to work, write a short story for class, do all them life things. I spend the hour thinking, Maybe I won’t go to work today. No I have to go to work. No I don’t. Yes you do. No you don’t. Just say you’re sick. But you like your job. I have four. And you need the money. Well, maybe I won’t go to class then.

I feel safe in my bed. Because I feel physically good in my bed. The second I get up is the second the possibility of not feeling physically good becomes, well, a possibility. But I know that staying in bed too long actually makes me feel worse. So, I get up.

It’s a battle. But one I’m willing to wage. And one I am lucky that I can wage. I have loving friends and family. I have my social media family, a real, very special thing. I have a roof over my head. I have easy access to food, water, medical care.

Today, as I crossed UBC’s Main Mall and I looked at the wild mountains and soft metallic of the stormy sea, I saw a guy standing up on one of the ledges there, like I do, to get the best, unadulterated, huge view. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered if he went there like I did to gain perspective, to breathe in the spiritual enormity and ancientness of this place, to remind myself I could be okay, that healing and triumph was possible.

So, today on World Mental Health Day, I invite you to start to think about what makes you feel healthy and to share it with me. What does health mean to you as a student? Where do you go on campus to feel well? What challenges have you faced and what do you need to face them? I’d love to know!

Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram and let’s talk mental health.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet