Admitting that you need help isn’t a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a sign that you know something is wrong and with help, you can overcome the problem - or at least manage it.

Sadly, men are often lumped into a category of not being able to admit when they need any type of medical help, let alone help for mental health. What makes this so unfortunate is that it leaves men to fend for themselves when it’s very possible that there’s help available.

This ABC news article, Grace Under Pressure: Changing What Male Depression Means, talks about this reluctance and what some men go through before they seek help. It’s an interesting read and will, hopefully, break down some barriers.

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Image: MorgueFile.com

The news of David Carradine’s death (David Carradine Dead From Apparent Suicide ) might have not registered with me had I not read of his cause of death, reportedly by hanging. That’s how my brother took his life four years ago.

Did you know that suicide is the number 8 cause in the United States for death among men? They make up 80% of total suicide deaths. For women, it’s the 17th most common reason for death. Women do make more attempts (60%), but men use more violent and “sure” ways of dying, which makes them more likely to die from their attempt. Read more

In response to my post,  Crafts Good for Mental Health, one of my readers shared her  experiences with mixed media art in her struggle with multiple sclerosis. 

“Crafting and art has kept me sane,” she said, in spite of her left hand sometimes experiencing pain. 

I’d imagine her crafting also keeps her hands more agile, even though she does have some pain.  I know this was true of my grandmother.

Nanny’s hands were curled and crippled with arthritis in her later years.  However, she insisted on keeping them busy with snapping beans, shucking peas, mending clothes, stitching quilts, making doll clothes, and crocheting rag rugs.  I recall sitting beside her learning these tasks and recall her misshapen hands busy as she told me stories.

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My daughter, who found quilting a stress reliever during her husband’s illness, experienced a serious illness herself last year.  As she recovered, but still was weak, she found inspiration through her quilt art and her quilting friends.

How have crafts inspired and aided you?

 Many crafters, quilters and fabric artists find their activities good for their mental health and alleviating depression.  Perhaps you’re going through a stressful time in your life.  Why not concentrate on your creative activities?

Image:sxc.hu

 In addition to giving you something to concentrate on when your thoughts could delve into darkness, crafts and related arts may bring you together with others in your field.  This helps you find new directions and boost your spirits. 

 I’ve found working with my hands a great diversion over the years.  The actual task of quilting, scrapbooking, crocheting and other crafts is relaxing.  Often you can take your work with you.

 My daughter began her serious venture into quiltmaking when her husband was seriously ill.  The small hand projects were easy to tote along to hospitals and waiting rooms.

 If you can begin to earn income through your crafts to help with the family budget during times of budget crunches, this also helps alleviate the stress of life.

How have arts and crafts helped you through tough times?

Yesterday solidified the notion, or the fact rather, that war takes it’s toll on the mental health of the human mind. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that. Since the beginning of time war has been effecting the mental health of the military members. Our service members are just as prone to snapping under stress as anyone is. That’s right, ANYONE.

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The problem is that some people will call the Soldiers “Heroes” but when they hear about 1 out of half a million soldiers snapping, suddenly they are “Psychotic” service members and all of them should be approached with caution. We Americans never blame and criticize an entire group of people for a few of their members actions, do we? Never. We’ve never, ever, ever done that, now have we? (Sarcasm, in case you can’t figure it out).

When a civilian goes and shoots a bunch of people, what does the press do? They tie any background they can in to it. “A former Marine shot and killed his employer today. “. Why do they have to tie that in? Did the Marine Corps make him do it? Does the military turn people in to mentally ill human beings? No. Military life is not easy and war is even harder on the human mind. I’ve never served in combat during my military career, but I’ve known plenty of people and friends that did serve and they do leave a little piece of themselves in the war zones. Read more

Whoever coined the term “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff.” had a great point. However, it’s sometimes easier said than done. Sure sometimes those small things can be brushed off, but other times they build and the smallest things can be the source of a lot of undue stress.

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When you have stress you can do one of two things; you can either learn to deal with it or you can disconnect from the source. Disconnecting from the source could technically be considered a “way to deal with it”, but disconnecting from the source is probably the best thing you can do. The obvious things that you can not disconnect yourself from, such as your children or your parents, you’ll have to learn to find a way to deal with it in some way. The other little things that you can disconnect from should be done so and with haste.

Sometimes your so-called “friends” can become a source of stress. If they cause you  more trouble than they are worth, then you need to disconnect and disassociate yourself from them. I don’t like stupid people with double standards, so I do my best to disassociate myself with them. Stupid people gather and attract other stupid people in droves. When I say stupid people, I mean the people that are ignorant and always will be ignorant. The people that are not open minded and don’t consider and respect other people or their beliefs and feelings. I’m not saying everyone has to be over-sensitive to other peoples feelings, but you don’t have to deliberately be hurtful to fulfill your own egotistic needs and self-righteousness. If people make me angry, I avoid them. It’s easier than opening my mouth and unloading on them and putting them in their place. Sometimes that is a great thing to do and some times it has to be done. Other times it can be more trouble and cause more stress. Read more

I was truly inspired by the story of this Baltimore-area surgeon, Dr. Carnell Cooper, who didn’t just save lives physically, but worked to turn a patient’s live around mentally.

How many times do we hear about shootings and violent lifestyles that seem to go on until someone pays the ultimate price?  Well this doctor decided to change that. He started a program that connects people to support services that help change the way they live. Things like ” GED classes, conflict resolution, mentoring and parenting skills. A peer support group also meets at the hospital once a week.”

Dr. Cooper published a study a few years ago in the Journal of Trauma that shows the program works. It says that people in the program were not as likely to be involved in violent crimes going forward. Dr. Cooper said that surgery in repairing their injury is only the first step in their treatment. “The next step is to try to keep them from coming back.”

Image: sxc.hu.

I’ve kept this shirt for 4 years because I am waiting . . .

for my torso to shrink

or the shirt to lengthen 2 inches.

I’ve got this crazy entitlement issue with my shirts. I feel I should be allowed to move my arms without showing my stomach.

The one with the pink scarf too. My mother bought them for me and it feels ungrateful to admit they don’t fit. What’s the statute of limitations on this?

My torso not only has to shrink for the striped one to fit, but my boobs do too. I’m holding out because shrinking boobs is a possibility.

I invested an entire quarter, that’s 25 cents at a garage sale, in the brown shirt.

That’s worth losing a few inches of torso isn’t it? Have you ever seen a shirt that has the ability to grow?

This is when frugality becomes a mental health issue.

Since having my last baby a year ago I’ve taken up yoga. The gym I joined offers classes 3 times a week and watches my kids while I take them. My original motivation was the scale. Post-baby I wasn’t dropping the weight as I had expected, but was watching the scale creep dangerously close to 200 lbs. That was a boundary I didn’t want to cross for fear of never returning to a normal body weight. Here are 10 unexpected benefits I have personally enjoyed as a result of practicing yoga.

1. Lose weight. Yoga is exercise, pure and simple. You will be mystified by how much you sweat considering there is absolutely no jumping around. There is nothing aerobic about yoga. Yet, you will be dripping in sweat. You build muscle in yoga and muscle eats fat.

2. Mental Rest. Perhaps you can relate to me and my mental habits. If I allow it, my mind will run round and round things that should have happened or things that I don’t think should have happened. Sometimes I’ll rehearse things I should say or do in my relationships. I’ll resolved to do or say something different in the future and will rehearse it over and over in my head. Frankly, this is exhausting. But, pre-yoga I felt like I just couldn’t turn my brain off. I would lay awake for hours at night with this mental tally running around in my head. I could never get any real rest.

3. Mental Focus. Even if I’m not focusing on past or future fictions in my brain, I’m usually trying hard to remember appointments and check things off my responsibility list. If you’re a woman, especially a mom, you know that I have a lot on my mind every second of the day. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. But, it’s hard to focus on what I am actually doing and stay in the moment with the responsibility circus performing tricks in my head all day long. I’ll be working with my daughter on her numbers and be thinking about balancing the household budget. Thisnasty mental habit is not allowing me to enjoy working with my daughter and it’s not getting the budget done any faster. Yoga has really taught me how to tame the circus freaks running around and helped me learn to focus on my present experience.

4. Positive Attitude. One of the things I try to do during my hour-and-a-half yoga classes is speak kindly to myself. You’re supposed to think of nothing. But, I have yet to master this skill. So, instead I have a rule that I am only allowing empowering things about myself to go on in my head during yoga. No self-flagellation or doubt or loathing allowed. Pure forgiveness of me, pure acceptance of me. Pure compliments to my body. It’s really quite nice and this practice has helped improve my self image and self esteem tremendously. I also do a lot of praying and forgiving of others during this quiet time.

5. Insomnia. Do to the fact that my mind is at a gallop most of the time it is difficult for me to turn it off. Especially if I am mad about something or ticked off at someone. So I used to lay awake for hours until I took sleeping pills. Or I would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Which made me frustrated and irritable the next day. Since starting yoga I go to sleep easily and sleep all the way through the night. In turn, I feel better in the mornings and throughout the day.

6. Challenging. I used to want to avoid challenging myself physically. Frankly, I have never, ever exercised in my life. I was simply too lazy and wanted to relax. With yoga classes though I can see improvement and it makes me feel accomplished and empowered about my physical body. Moves that I could barely do for a second - like plank, basically a push-up - left me pathetically exhausted. But, I feel so proud of myself now that I can hang out in plank for a few minutes and can see the improvement I’ve made in my core strength.

7. Strength. Can I just say I have a 25 pound baby? It takes a lot of physical labor to haul that kid around 24 hours a day. Yoga has built my muscles more than I thought possible. My whole body - muscles I never would have worked on in a weight room - is stronger. Turns out I really love being strong. I love feeling capable. I love being able to see definition in my arms and calves. I feel sexier when I look at my muscles than I thought I would.

8. Flexibility and Limberness. I’m only in my 30s and already I’m noticing that I have aches and pains that weren’t there when I was younger. Like my akelis heals are tight and hurt a little unless Istretch them out in the mornings. Downward Facing Dog has really helped this problem. 

9. Back health. For many years I have had chronic back pain. MDs just wanted to prescribe medication that makes me drowsy and loopy all the time. Finally, I found a chiropractor and started spending some money on ergonomic work chairs and mattresses and that helped a lot. Still, I would have a bit of pain and be afraid to do anything to hurt my back. Since yoga I can not tell you how nice it is to have ZERO back pain. Really, I don’t ever think about my back anymore. Because it is strong and I have great support in my core to hold my back up properly.

10. Rest. When I grew up Sunday was the Day of Rest. Rather than take a nap on Sunday afternoons I take an extremely challenging yoga class. No kidding, it is more restful than sleep. It is so peaceful and calm with the lights low and slow flowing movements that I feel like rested jello when I am finished.

Yoga is the single kindest thing I do for myself. I encourage you to try it, you deserve to be kind to yourself.

Taking a mental health day is probably not officially listed in your employee manual, but it should be. Stress-related illnesses probably lead to about as many sick days as the flu (or a hang-over).How can you tell if what you are feeling lately is more than not having taken a vacation in two years or that you are just in a bad mood?

Here are some of the physical symptoms and signs that you need to recognize and get control of:
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