Mental Health

Mental health on www.marianamcdougall.com; Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Mental health is finally making it into public discourse, but we still have a long way to go to break the stigma.

The very fact we distinguish between mental health and physical health is part of the problem: mental health conditions initiate in the brain—a physical body part like any other. But because we’re intimated (or even afraid) of what we don’t know, we put a label to it, and in the process, make it hard for people with these conditions to get help when needed and to take care of themselves on their own when possible.

For many of us, self-care is intertwined with how healthy our minds are. We can’t really have one without the other. To have a healthy mind, we have to make ourselves a priority, and to make ourselves a priority, we need to learn to care for ourselves, sometimes in the face of much judgment and misunderstanding. 

In this section of the blog, I write both about self-care and the “mind” aspect of health. I hope you find something in here to start breaking down the barriers and to encourage you in your journey of self-development, healing, and health.

Posts about Mental Health

Heavy Metal Bands Advocating for Suicide Prevention

Mariana

This article originally appeared on a now defunct website named Komorebi Post.

While suicide is a difficult topic, we need to talk about it now more than ever. 

 

Worldwide, almost 800,000 people die by suicide each year. That’s one person every 40 seconds. Mental illness, especially depression, is often cited as one of the major factors leading to suicide. But over the years, other things have been blamed for our rising suicide rates. Some believe video games play a part. Others point fingers at absent parents. Yet others suggest some TV shows aren’t helping. But perhaps the cultural phenomenon that receives the most blame for suicide deaths is heavy metal music.

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Emotional Eating Is a Form of Self-Harm

Mariana

Emotional eating. Behavioural Eating. Disordered Eating. Food Addiction. There are so many names for it, but no one ever calls it what it is.

Self-harm.

Emotional eating is a form of self-harm. And most people who engage in this behaviour, myself included, don’t see it. We see it as comforting ourselves. Even when it just makes us feel worse. It’s time we call our own selves out on it.

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My Mess Threshold: When Chaos Makes You Anxious

Mariana

Chaos can make you anxious – even if you’re someone who’s used to chaos.

Creative people tend to have a reputation for being messy and disorganized. Until very recently, I didn’t fit the mold for that stereotype. I used to be a hyper-organized person. I even spent 7 years as a military clerk. You can’t get much more organized than a military administrative professional. But having children changed everything. It’s much harder to be organized when there’s several people in a household and where there are a million things that all have to get done at once. I went from hyper-organized to hyper-messy. And, because I’m brave (or stupid), I’ve decided to let you in on my dirty little secret: I’m a messy person. And I’m even going to let you in on how messy I’ve really become. Despite my attempts to have my most organized year ever, my house currently looks like this:

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Put the fork down – you’ve had enough.

Mariana

This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post.

You’re sitting at the table, looking at the wonderfully delicious piece of chocolate cake you’re about to devour for dessert. It smells and looks just as wonderful as it’ll probably taste. But as you look down, you see the muffin top coming out of your jeans, and you start having second thoughts.

Put the fork down. You’ve had enough.

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