Did you know it's World Mental Health Month? Or that you can earn a badge from @hivebuzz for posting about #mentalhealthawareness? Read more details here! Thanks so much to @hivebuzz and @arcange for facilitating the badge allocation on HIVE BUZZ.

DON'T FORGET TO JOIN IN THE CHALLENGE FOR THE REST OF OCTOBER - YOU'L FIND IT UNDER OUR PINNED MESSAGES IN THE NATURAL MEDICINE COMMUNITY.

It's been a super busy few days so far. We've already highlighted some posts in the Mindful Life curation earlier in the week (thanks @drrune), so if we highlight them again here, it's for good reason - it's an important topic! This post is to say congrats to the recipients so far and encourage you all to write. We've also awarded three posts here with a small beneficiary in appreciation - we do this for every @naturalmedicine post so we can show a little love to our delegators too.

Oh, and don't forget we're supported by OCD - so any #mentalhealthawareness #naturalmedicine posts have a chance for some BIG UPVOTES!*

The Posts So Far:

@micefy talks about the differences between mental health and mental well being in this post, questioning how mental 'health' is presented and how our brains are programmed or influenced by society.

One cannot buy happiness in a jar, it comes by following the flow. As a kid one has few choices on where to live or who to learn from. So no wonder the amount of melancholy, living in an upside-down world. The commercials say it is your fault for feeling bad, you have not bought the right thing yet. Even many spiritual teachers tell to ignore the dark and focus on light, one needs contrast to even start to understand something. Feelings are there for a reason, the inner compass is there even it is usually muted in the childhood. Speaking of kids, messing up with developing brain with chemicals can result in horrible effects, but in many places the pills have replaced candies.

New user @rawbe wrote a great post that described his own experience with anxiety. He remembers reading an article about anxiety:

It was about how anxiety only occurs when you're thinking about doing something or just about to do something. Like when you're on the plane getting ready to skydive. Once you are actually going through the motion it gets easier and easier. One good analogy for this is a bicycle. When you first get on a bicycle and start peddling you are at the most risk of falling over but once you are in motion, the bicycle gets less wobbly and it gets easier and easier to continue without falling over.

He's committed to writing every day as part of his therapy and we are looking forward to seeing more of him in the community! He continues in another, later post:

It wasn't just about not feeling anxious... It was about not letting it stop me. I think this is where a misconception about mental health comes from. Sometimes people oversimplify mental health as if it's just feeling good on a scale of 1-10. It's perfectly normal to feel off sometimes and I think we need to give ourselves room to have some ebb and flow in our lives. To me mental health is a culmination of things. Tools that help us get ourselves back on track. Support systems so that we have people to talk to when things aren't at their best. Taking time to meditate on things so we get perspective. Finding gratitude where you can. You can't always choose what happens to you but you can choose how you react to it.

I really relate to that - 'part of the ebb and flow of our lives'. It's not permanent, it's not 100 percent of our lives, it doesn't define us - but it's there. And there ARE tools to help - and we get used to choosing the right one that suits the moment.

In this post @lessliebano writes that 'Developing an attitude of gratitude is one of the easiest ways to feel satisfied with life.' - I personally know that a gratitude practice is really helpful and it's great to see many Hive users adopt the #attitudeofgratitude tag as they practice it themselves.

@josehanny wrote in this post about depression and sadness and a few tools she used to feel better. One I really liked was about negative self talk:

** What you say or think about yourself is what people will perceive about you. If you say you are horrible, people will start to see you as a horrible person ... And thanks to these little things I started to build positive and pleasant thoughts about myself. And the phrase is totally true, people perceive you for what you say about yourself.**

She also found talking to her Mum and friends and going hiking in nature really helpful.

@thisismylife has a lot of experience with depression and like many, can now recognise the warning signs earlier. They talk about seasonal depression, and has worked to combat this with lots of good food, in particular fish, which is known to be good for the brain. Vit C has also played a big role - pretty much overdosing on it! Really glad to see a post about FOOD and it's link to mental health. More please! Read their post here.

@alphaccino.art takes comfort in knowing that 'beauty can always be found, even on the darkest days' - for them, this understanding is brought into focus by observing nature whilst having a cuppa in the garden. I definitely understand that one!

In this post @macchiata writes about starting research about mental health and what she found. She also gives tips about what NOT to say to a depressed person - having suffered depression myself, some comments from people who don't understand can be quite crushing. She ends with an invitation to reach out:

I saw how far I've grown and lost these past three years. These days, I choose to talk less and less about this. Because the more I focus on it, the more I rob myself from living my life. But if you want to talk to me about it, you can reach out to my discord or my twitter. I'll try my best to be a good listener.

@macchiata has a proven record about sharing her experiences, writing #naturalmedicine content and spreading awareness about Mental Health on HIVE that we're awarding her her first star for the badge! Thankyou beautiful girl for all you do. We appreciate you!

@iyanpol gave us a very important reminder to reach out to anyone who might express sadness or suicidal thoughts on social media before it is too late:

Even in social media, you can notice if a person is suffering from depression or anxiety through their post. I remember this friend from a distant province. He posted in his messenger stories pictures (actually cartoons) implying suicide. I immediately messaged him that if he needs someone to talk to about his problems, I am just a message away. He thanked me, though he didn't respond after that. I just messaged anyone who's also his friend to reach out to him..

@zydane raised a brilliant point about the validity of the term mental illness and how accepting labels can really limit us:

One of the obstacles that is shared by all those suffering from "mental illnesses", a term that frankly I don't believe in, is they are given the label usually by some mental health expert, psychiatrist, etc. Not that I'm saying people aren't having problems. But when we accept labels its a slippery slope. There are over 450 "mental disorders" in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual which is the bible of psychiatry. Just a mere 60 years ago there were approximately 50. Are we really supposed to believe that 400 new disorders have simply popped into being or have been "discovered"?

One of the ways to reprogram our brains is through meditation:

If you're stressed or anxious, you can change the language you use mentally. This causes pretty much instant emotional state changes...and those states coincide with many mental health issues, especially depression. You really can't have two polarized emotional states at one time. So if you're in a very depressed state, the first thing to do is to recognize and acknowledge that emotion. They are not there to hurt you, your emotions are there to give you signs that something needs to change. And once you accept the emotion and feel it fully, you can change your thinking instantly to thoughts of gratitude and love. Think about someone that you truly care about that you are grateful for. Or simply just be grateful to be alive at all. Say the words mentally and your mental state will shift. Its not a one-time fix by any means, you have to work at it, but you can start to develop the skill of changing your internal self talk and over time it will change the way you think about yourself.

Practice, they say, makes 'perfect' - or at least helps us be in charge of our emotional states. Understanding our thought processes and how we think and talk about our state of mind can influence our mental well being.

Some other responses...

It's really hard to summarise everyone's work in one post as there were so many good ones this week already!

@antonette talked about the health benefits of moringa, and suggested her mental health was better because of it! Has anyone else had this experience with moringa? @josebenavente suggested a few tips for dealing with mental health and raised an interesting idea about happiness as a lifestyle. @omarrojas extolled the benefits of exercise. @pavanjr is writing an excellent series on mental well being and @drrune speaks of energy flows.

We have already been busy awarding some badges - congratulations to the following writers so far for your first star. You have been awarded for one or more of the following reasons:

• Outstanding content in a well presented, thoughtful, well written and original post
• A proven record of shining a light on mental well being issues on HIVE
• Excellent engagement with this topic with HIVE communities
• A willingness to continue to shine light on mental health issues on HIVE.

Congraluations @olivia08, @pavanjr, @drrune, @zydane, @sirenahippie, @macchiata, @garybilbao and @danielapavs for recieving your first mental health badge star! You will continue to gain stars the more you add to this important conversations on HIVE.

We're also giving a 5 percent beneficiary of this post to @garybilbao, @nainaztengra and @danielapevs - three delegators who often write about mental well being. Thanks for your support! We love you!

Excuse me if I've missed anyone in this wrap up post for the week - just drop your post under the challenge post from Monday and I'll be sure to include it next time.

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