Mental Health

You may be looking at the title and telling yourself, "I thought you're a fitness expert, why talk about mental health?" Because physical health and mental health are connected. I have seen numerous individuals improve one and it helps with the other, throughout my career. While I always want to get someone to exercise first, it may be a better option for them to work on decreasing stress through other means first. I say this because I've dealt with individuals that typically have lower tolerances for stress. This means even light exercise could be overwhelming. So, what are some ways to reduce stress outside of exercise? I'm going to talk about a few techniques that I use to help increase my tolerance for stress during my day, thus improving my mental health. I'll go into more detail in different blogs for each.

1. Meditate- Taking time out of your day just to be present with your body allows you to understand how you feel any certain day. 
2. Journaling- Writing down what occurred during a day is a great way to visualize it and then release it so it no longer weighs you down thinking about it.
3. Limit caffeine- Caffeine reduces the brains ability to feel sleepy and can put the body in fight or flight which can make it harder to be present in your day.
4. Drink water- Our bodies are made of water. Does it always taste as good as soda? No. But it helps keep the body doing all the things it needs to do to keep us alive and healthy.
5. Personal Boundaries- Creating personal boundaries between yourself and everything else in your world. If you're off work, then you're off work. 

Do not implement all 5 at once as that can overwhelm the brain that craves consistency and changing that can make the brain upset.