Self-Help Toolkit for Mental Health

It’s always important to ask for help from others when you know your mental health is at its worst. But what’s also important, is to help yourself work through the tough days/times.

Why You Should Have Self-Help Tools/Methods To Aid Your Mental Health

Helping yourself is a key technique I’ve learned from therapy and from talking to people in general. While we can reach out to others for their support and help, you have to be willing to help yourself feel a little better. It sounds like a case of tough love, but think about it this way—you can have all the advice and help in the world, but if you do nothing with it, you’re not helping yourself move forward.

But on days that you feel really low and can barely move out of bed, it can be hard to remember the tools and methods you have in your arsenal to help yourself get out of your head. I’ve complied a little Self-Help Toolkit for Mental Health that you can use when you want to help yourself if you feel like your mental health is suffering.

Self-Help Toolkit Tip #1: Take a Step Back and Gain Perspective

When you’re wrapped up in your head, it’s really easy to focus on the negative and dwell in your feelings. Staying in this place often leads to worse mental health days and can make you lose perspective.

While it’s not always good to look on the past, it’s a good self-help activity to take a step back and take a look at how you’ve grown over the past year or two. By reviewing what you’ve done, what your accomplishments are, and any of the positives that have happened, you focus your attention back on what’s going right.

Self-Help Toolkit Tip #2: Go On A Walk Or Change Your Environment

You may not feel like getting out of bed or moving at all, but one of the best things you can do for yourself, is to get up and change your environment. Taking a walk outside is one of the easiest (and free) ways to do this. When you take a walk outside, just try and observe what’s around. Count how many trees you can see. Count how many times you hear birds.

It sounds silly, but taking a walk outside does a few things—it gives you exercise which is proven to help boost your happiness, it helps you burn off any extra energy that’s making you feel down, and it physically moves you from the negative space you’re in.

If you have a larger budget and time to do so, you may want to try a small weekend getaway to somewhere.

Self-Help Toolkit Tip #3: Enjoy Healthy Escapism Through Reading

While it’s not healthy to live in an escapist mindset all the time, it is a healthy thing to do in small doses. By giving your brain a break from worrying about your own woes, you can enjoy a world that has ZERO to do with you by reading.

Try to stay away from magazines and online news articles, and delve into a fiction book or a comic book. By reading, you’re allowing your mind to take a break from overthinking your life and you immerse your brain in the creation of images to go with the story.

Self-Help Toolkit Tip #4: Try A New Hobby

I know you likely don’t feel like trying this, but trying a new hobby can be one of the best ways to help yourself. By getting a new hobby, you’re taking your negative energy and putting it into gaining new skills, participating in an activity, and possibly even creating something you can be proud of. If you’re stuck thinking of a new hobby to try, I’ve got you covered:

• Take a painting class or paint on your own—making art is highly therapeutic even if you don’t consider yourself an “artist”
• Go pottery painting—you’ll create things you can use around the house, or you can give things to family/friends
• Join an exercise class—burning off energy and challenging yourself is always good
• Learn some new recipes—learning to cook can be really fulfilling and you’ll have delicious food to eat
• Try volunteering at a place you’re passionate about. This may not seem like a traditional hobby, but helping others tends to make humans feel better about themselves. Plus, you may learn something new or make new connections to other people similar to you!

It’s important to pick a hobby that can get you out of your usual zone because it healthily expands your comfort levels and again, changes your environment. But if you really don’t feel comfortable going out and would prefer to stay home, just make sure you do these activities in a new space than you usually are. Like if you’re a sofa person, try to do these activities in your kitchen.

Self-Help Toolkit Tip #5: Advocate For Yourself

If you’ve tried to help yourself with some of the above tips but you’re still not feeling great, it’s important to use your voice and available resources available to you. It’s not always easy, but if you can recognize that you’re going through a crappy mental health time and can use external help or resources, then you’re well on your way to advocating for your mental health and general wellbeing.

One of the major things that you can elect to do for yourself, is therapy. If you think you can benefit from therapy, take a look at local therapists in your area and go in with an open mind. If therapy isn’t in your budget or going to a therapist in person isn’t something you can do at the moment, there are other great ways you can get help too, including online services.

You can browse through The Lifeline Canada website for links to online counselling services and general therapy resources, not only for Canadians, but for those in the UK, Australia, US, etc. A common one a lot of people are using right now is BetterHelp, and from what I’ve heard, it’s a great online therapy service to use.

Of course, if you are in a crisis, it’s important to take the critical steps to help yourself. Tell someone or call for emergency services. Knowing when you need to take these steps is just a part of being self aware and advocating for your own wellbeing.

What tips can you add for a Self-Help Mental Health Toolkit?

Leave them in a comment below!