May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to recognize the importance of mental wellbeing since it affects how we think, feel, and behave. One of the most powerful ways to honor this month is to lead by example and prioritize your mental health. As parents, we tend to put others first and that’s not always healthy or sustainable.
If figuring out how and where to start prioritizing yourself can feel detrimental your mental health, I’m here to help! You owe it to yourself and those you love to take care of yourself to be the best parent you can be. There’s no better time to start than now!
3 Ways to Prioritize Your Mental Health
Below are 3 straightforward tools designed to help you set simple and attainable goals to prioritize your mental health. While these resources are helpful, they might not be great for right now and that’s ok. Find what works best for you because making lasting changes that prioritize your mental health is most important.
Focus on Your Emotional Wellness
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), emotional wellness is the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change and difficult times. How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships, and your overall mental health. Your reactions to experiences and feelings can change over time.
Since emotional wellness is part of your mental health, NIH’s Emotional Wellness Toolkit can be helpful in improving your emotional health. It features 6 checklists: building resilience, reducing stress, getting quality sleep, strengthening social connections, coping with loss, and being mindful. Each is a strategy that can be helpful in improving your emotional health.
Each of the 6 strategies has its own flip card featuring a checklist on how to improve your health in that area and an article. Checklists can also be printed separately or as a single document to share with others or as a reminder to yourself.
Also check out their Wellness Toolkits that feature 5 areas that can impact your overall health to improve your wellbeing in any or all areas.
Keep Track of Daily Actions That Improve Your Mood
Daily check-ins can support long-term mental wellbeing and National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s free Mindful Moments checklist does exactly that.
This interactive self-care checklist is designed to help you make wellbeing part of your daily routine by reminding you to do one, some, or all of the following things:
- Pause and breathe
- Move your body for 5 minutes at a time
- Reach out to someone you care about
- Be kind to yourself today
- List something you want to accomplish today
- Plan for a restful night’s sleep
The idea behind the Mindful Moments Checklist is small, mindful actions matter. In fact, these small mindful moments have a huge impact on your overall mental health.
Keep the checklist open in your browser for daily check ins to keep yourself accountable to support long-term mental wellbeing.
Set Wellness Goals
If you prefer to hold yourself accountable by writing down your goals, momAgenda’s Self-Care Planner for Wellness Tracking ($16) is a great way to ensure self-care becomes a permanent part of your lifestyle.
This spiral bound journal features space to create healthy routines, focus on what really matters each day, and put your needs back on the to-do list. Made of heavy-stock paper, the layouts for each side differ.
On the left side of each daily spread, track key elements of self-care, from basics like sleep, food intake, and exercise, to deeper elements like gratitude, priorities, and desires. On the right, plan your day with momAgenda’s unique layout with separate spaces for mom and up to four kids.
Affiliate links are included in this post. All opinions are my own.
