The COVID-19 pandemic has been a struggle for us all, keeping us isolated and cooped up in our homes for months on end. Part of the struggle is maintaining our mental health as we wait for the pandemic to end. If you’ve found yourself in a rough spot over the last year, allow us to suggest some activities that will improve your mental health and help you hold out until life returns to normal.
*This is a guest post and all opinions are those of the author. This post may also contain affiliate and/or paid links. Rest assured that we only work with companies and individuals that we trust. While some of those companies and individuals may work in the medical field, this post is not intended to be a substitution for medical advice. Always speak to your doctor if you have concerns about your mental or physical health.
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Get Your Body Moving
You don’t have to jump right into a hardcore routine, but exercise helps you improve your mental health by increasing your blood flow, which makes you feel more energized. This can be as simple as taking a walk around the neighborhood; as long as you’re breaking the sedentary habits you might have formed during quarantine, you’ll feel less sluggish and more motivated throughout the day. Other activities such as yoga give you the opportunity for meditation and self-reflection while making your body more flexible.
Deep Clean Your Home
This may not seem like much fun and could be difficult to get started, but we promise that it is one of the best activities that will improve your mental health. Your environment has a large influence on your mental health in that it directly impacts your physical comfort and your emotional state. So, a filthy, disorderly, and dark environment will negatively impact your mental health by making you feel uncomfortable and depressed by what a mess you’re in. Taking the time to keep your environment clean and adequately lit will make your home a welcoming place that you’ll want to spend time in.
Take Up a New Hobby
Maybe you’re just tired of doing the same thing day after day. Your routine has started making the days blend together and has altered your perception of time. If you’ve ever considered picking up a new hobby, even if it’s just a passing interest, now is the time to give it a try. Even if you decide you don’t like it, at least you’ve done something different and broken up your daily routine.
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Cook Yourself Something
Take the time to cook yourself a good meal, especially if you’ve found yourself eating a lot of takeout and fast food during the quarantine simply for the sake of convenience. How we fuel our bodies can impact our emotional state, and eating nothing but processed or fast food can leave us feeling ill and apathetic because these dishes are simply not nutritional don’t provide much energy. Cooking yourself a good meal will leave you satisfied and feeling a bit healthier afterward.
The light is finally at the end of the tunnel, and while waiting for the end can be even harder now that we can see the light, you should still take advantage of these activities to keep yourself preoccupied and improve your mental health. Normal life will begin again soon; we just need to weather the storm until then.
Author Bio
Christina Duron is a writer living in the Chicagoland area. Her passion for writing and mental health help create thought provoking and engaging pieces and hopes to use them to empower mothers and women to embrace the beauty of motherhood.
Ever wonder how I came to write about postpartum depression and act as an advocate for maternal mental health?
For the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with women suffering from all kinds of mental health issues after giving birth. It’s for those women that I write about postpartum depression. I spend my days creating resources, infographics and researching, all the while wishing I had access to this same information when I was heavily battling postpartum depression.
Recently, someone asked me how and why I decided to write about postpartum depression. It got me thinking about my journey to becoming a maternal mental health blogger and advocate.
And so, in keeping with the Running in Triangles tradition, here is my story.
*This post contains affiliate and/or paid links which means that if you click on one of these links and buy a product, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Rest assured that I only recommend products that I love from companies that I trust. Furthermore, I am not a medical professional and nothing in this post should be taken as medical advice. I am simply a mother who has been there and lived to tell the tale.
I always wanted to be a writer.
From a young age, I knew that writing was one of my strengths. Not only did it come naturally to me, but I loved doing it. Having the ability to tell an entire story just from words felt like a superpower. The English language gets a lot of criticism for it’s wide array of spellings, meanings, synonyms and slang words. But I think having so many different words to express a single emotion is one thing that makes it great.
Throughout my life, I struggled to find the right path for my writing. Books, journals, diaries, poems, short stories… all started and forgotten about. I knew I wanted to write, I just didn’t know what I wanted to say.
My first mom blog.
In my late teens and early 20’s I took to the internet to showcase my writing on sites such as My Space (and other infamous ones that no longer exist). I enjoyed having a space to write knowing that someone else other than myself might actually read it.
I started my first, real, mom blog in 2013. At the time, I was in the thick of postpartum depression and needed an outlet for my emotions. But I didn’t write about postpartum depression. I wrote about recipes and crafts and funny things my kids did because that’s what all the other mom bloggers were doing.
The story that changed my life.
A few months after starting my fluffy mom blog, a news story from my hometown hit headlines – two young children found drowned in a bathtub and the mother had gone missing. They suspected postpartum depression (or psychosis). I became obsessed with the story and constantly checked for updates to see if she had been found. The online comments were filled with things like “I hope she’s dead” or “what kind of monster does that” and “she doesn’t deserve to be a mother.”
I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t think about anything else other than poor Lisa Gibson and her two babies. I still cry at the mere thought of it. Yes, it’s tragic and heartbreaking, but that’s not the only reason I cry. I cry because it could have been me. At 4 months postpartum, I was fighting suicidal thoughts on a regular basis and imagining drowning my colicky baby in the bathtub. But I was not a terrible mother, I was just sick.
Two days later, Lisa Gibson’s body was found floating in the river. It was a tragic ending but I felt relieved for her. She was finally free of the mental anguish she was likely consumed by. Would she have even wanted to live after finding out what happened? The story tormented me for weeks, and the public reaction was even worse. No matter what I did, I could not silence the voice in my head that kept saying, “do something about this.”
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The first time I spoke up.
I couldn’t just sit by and spectate anymore. I knew why people said the things they did… they didn’t understand it. I couldn’t be mad at the online commentators because postpartum depression and other maternal mental health disorders are NEVER talked about. And unfortunately, Lisa Gibson would never get the chance to tell her side of the story.
But I could tell mine.
And that’s what I did. I sat down at my computer and just wrote. Tears streamed down my face as I choked on the giant lump in my throat. I would write something truthful and then immediately delete it. What would people think of me? What would others say? Would they take my kids away if they read this? I would imagine Lisa Gibson floating in the river and I would write it all over again.
Nearly every single sentence had me second guessing the decision to share my story. And every time, I would picture Lisa Gibson or repeat the hateful online comments and push onward. Finally, it was finished but I was struggling to publish it. Once I hit that button – everyone will know. Will people treat me differently? Will I get hateful comments too? I felt sick to my stomach as I hit the “publish” button, but it was done. There was no going back now.
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The reaction to my story.
Once my story went live, I thought I would feel better. But it was the opposite. I was consumed by anxiety. I couldn’t sleep. Was this a mistake? Is it too late to take it down? I waited for the mean comments, for the misunderstandings and the judgement.
I got nothing but love.
Those who knew me reached out with complete empathy and the sincerest praise. Friends that I saw in person told me how moved they were by my story. I started to get comments and emails from women who experienced something similar. They all said one in thing in common… “me too.”
Fast forward 5 years later.
After sharing my story, I finally felt fulfilled and stopped writing for a while. I couldn’t go back to blogging about nothing when I had just said so much. I decided to take control of my postpartum depression and began treatment. I even had another baby without experiencing a postpartum depression relapse.
Five years after hitting the publish button on my postpartum depression story, I found myself as a stay at home mom looking for a side hustle. Mom blogs had not disappeared, in fact they seemed to be taking over the internet. Moms were replacing their full time jobs running their own blogs from home. Could a blog be a way for me to turn my writing into a full time career? I had to give it a try.
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The Early Days of Running in Triangles
Running in Triangles was initially targeted towards moms of three kids (hence the name). I had learned that, in order to be a successful mom blog, I should write posts that were helpful. So I started by sharing my best advice for sleep training and breastfeeding. They quickly became popular and are still some of my top articles.
I desperately wanted to write more about postpartum depression, but I was still afraid to say exactly what I wanted to. Out of that fear came the post, 9 Reasons Why Moms Don’t Speak Up About Postpartum Depression. It was the blog post that changed the entire direction of Running in Triangles.
Since the blog was now seeing a steady amount of traffic worldwide, I was able to reach a lot more moms with postpartum depression. They started emailing me and commenting about how they related 100% to what I wrote in that post. They said they wanted to speak up about postpartum depression but were too afraid and didn’t know how to begin. So I launched The Postpartum Depression Guest Post Series, making it possible for moms from any background to share their stories in a safe place. The following year, I featured 10 Questions About Postpartum Depression in order to allow even more women to open up about their experience.
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The Reason Why I Write About Postpartum Depression
Throughout this journey, I have finally discovered the true path for my writing. I write about postpartum depression to help educate others on what it’s like living with this mental illness. I write for all those mothers who are unable to find the words to say it themselves. I write for those who can’t tell their stories anymore, like Lisa Gibson and countless other women who lost the battle to postpartum depression.
I write about postpartum depression because not enough people do. It needs to be talked about more, to be included in regular conversation. It’s not a bad word or something to be ashamed of. I write for future generations, in the hopes that they will take the time to learn about it and put an end to the stigma of it.
I write about postpartum depression in order to empower women. New mothers should be able to access facts and information, find resources and support groups and know their treatment options. But too often, the medical system fails them. There’s not much I can do to change that, but I can give mothers the tools they need to take their mental health into their own hands.
And at the end of the day, if I’ve saved even one mother from drowning in the river, then it’s completely worth it.
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