Tools to Promote Mental Health and Wellness

It is important to ensure our loved ones, friends, networks, and communities are comfortable talking about the topic of mental health on any day of the year, especially this year.

What is Mental Health? Mental Health is more than having a disorder or not having a disorder. It is a continuum of wellness that changes depending on stressors and the condition of our overall health. While some factors that create mental health problems cannot easily be changed or eliminated, we can maintain mental health and wellness by building our “toolbox” of wellness strategies using some Stress Less Techniques.

Below are additional strategies to promote mental health and some creative tools to support your wellness. We hope you find some of these ideas helpful!

Grounding is a practice that helps us be present and experience what we are doing, seeing, and hearing in the moment. It can be used to divert our attention from unpleasant thoughts, memories, and feelings, and support a sense of safety and calm.

Humans are social beings and feeling connected to people who support and listen to us, who laugh and play with us, and accept us for who we are promotes a sense of wellness and confidence. Just being with others can boost our mood and make us feel connected.

Self-awareness is important to mental health. Recognizing our emotions and the effect that people, places, and experiences have on those emotions can help us better manage them.

Self-expression is another important piece of mental health. Embracing and expressing one’s authentic self, by way of art, music, writing, dance or spoken work, for example, allows for a release of thoughts, emotions in a way that promotes creativity and stimulates conversation about mental health and wellness.

Sometimes, we experience mental health challenges and the things that made us feel better in the past are no longer working. At those times, we must reach out for support.

• Identify a trusted support person. If you are a youth, it’s important that at least one of your supports be an adult.
• Know the resources available in your community. Call the MHANYS Mental Health Information Center at 1-800-766-6177 or visit mentalhealthednys.org/nys-county-resources/
• In a crisis, text “GOT5” to 741741. For more information, visit https://mhanys.org/getting-help