Rachel’s Room🛋️10 October Mental Health Ideas

Hello. Happy Wednesday. Hello, hello. I am coming to you live from my vehicle. Today's been a really, really busy day, so I apologize also for moving this an hour back. I was driving and did not want to be live while driving. So thank you for spending this time with me. Happy October. I wanted to share with you something that I wrote about earlier this week, which is a list of 10 things that I'm doing this month for my mental health. So I'm gonna share this list with you, and if any of them sound like hello, hello, sound like things that you wanna adopt, lovely.

If it inspires you to write your own list, lovely. As well as always, take what resonates and leave the rest. So the first thing that I'm gonna do in October for my mental health is eat consistent meals. So for me, when my mental health is struggling, which it has been something that I find that falls away are my regular meal times a lot. This has to do with the fact that I'm also probably not having a regular sleep schedule. I'm probably binge eating, more likely. So my appetite has changed. And as someone with a history of an eating disorder, it's really, really important that I return to a baseline with consistency when it comes to meals to regain that sense of trust with my body.

So committing to a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks every single day and reducing choice, so reducing the need to make anything special. This is not a time to make new recipes or try new things like really sticking to what I know I like and I know I can make and it's easy so that I can set myself up for success. So that's number one. Number two is I'm gonna do sober October. So I have done periods of like two to four weeks of not drinking alcohol in the past. And I've always found that when I commit to that timeframe, two things happen.

One is my mental health improves dramatically as a result of not having poison in my body, not having hangovers, not disrupting my sleep, and learned that I can keep promises to myself. By sticking to something for a certain amount of time, I show myself that I can follow through on things that I plan for myself. And that builds self trust, which builds confidence, self respect, which is in turn really good for my mental health. As someone, again with a history of an eating disorder, it's not good for me to place incredibly extreme restrictions on myself, which is why I don't make plans to be sober for longer than a month or try to just say like, I'm done drinking altogether, because that kind of Creates some all or nothing activity for me which kind of creates sort of another binge restrict cycle.

So having sort of more short term sets like that is much better for me and my well being. So, you know, always do what's best for you on your, on your track. And then the third thing I'm going to do is practice some breath work. I am a big fan of the open app. They do like meditations, breathwork and they're doing a focus program. They always have like series that they do like every season. So they just launched for October, like a 10 day focus program. So I'm gonna do that because I have noticed that like just with the constant use of cell phones and swiping and scrolling, my attention span has significantly reduced.

And as a writer that's not very helpful. So I'm gonna try and commit to that ten day program, you know, throughout the whole month. The fourth thing I'm gonna do is. What was the fourth thing? Oh, get outside. So I do this already. So some of these things that are on my list are things I already do that I'm gonna keep doing. It's also, you know, something that I was writing about earlier this week when I wrote this list is I want to set myself up for success. So that means having a lot of grace and compassion for myself if and when I don't do all 10 of these things, which I won't, which is fine.

The list is meant to be a structure, a framework, a way to set myself up with some kind of plan while giving myself a lot of flexibility and grace for, for when times I like when I don't do those things. So if I just do one of these things this month, that's success. If I do all 10 of them, only one time success. The fact that I made the list and that I'm trying success. So again like, you know, I wanna be really, really kind to myself. So there's also things on this list that I already do. So it's also a way for me to sort of like continue to do the things that are working.

And that sets me up, sets me up for success. Because it's not gonna be hard for me to add 10 things in if four or five of them are things I already do that I know are working. So anyways, going outside every day. So luckily I have Milo. So that makes me get outside because I have to walk him. And I know that when I get fresh air, even if it's cold, even if it's raining, if I'm outside, that helps me so much throughout my day, chances are I'm going to see another human being, which helps. I'm going to feel like I'm connected to something outside of my tiny little space, which helps me get out of my head.

So getting outside. Number five, I'm going to dedicate an hour, I said daily in my list, but probably more like three to five times a week to a creative project. So the same way I dedicate an hour to going to the gym, I'm going to dedicate an hour to a creative project. It doesn't have to be like the most amazing hour of creativity ever. And it's just a way for me to dedicate an hour to some long form project to try and see some progress. So for me that's working on my new book, but that can be starting a new knitting project, a painting, whatever that creative thing for you might be.

The. Oh, numbers. The sixth one is move my body daily again. This is another one I already do, but it can be a walk, it can be yoga, Pilates, gym, whatever it is moving my body once daily in some capacity I know helps my mental health. So I'm gonna keep doing that. Number seven is get a. I've talked about this in my lives before is practice good sleep hygiene. So I'm still struggling with my sleep. I'm having, I don't know what it is. I'm having absolutely insane dreams, like crazy nightmares dreams that just like wake me up in the middle of the night.

Super realistic. I don't know what if it's like the stars or the moon or if it's my subconscious. But it's been, it's been a while of having it. So anyways, I'm trying to create a better having, have some better sleep hygiene. So I have a whole live on that if you want more information about that and what you know, I plan to do. But essentially that means trying to limit screen time like an hour before bed, trying to journal before I go to bed to get, get some of those like racing thoughts out of my head before I go to sleep and then trying to have just a consistent sleep schedule.

So going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time every day, trying, keyword trying. Number eight is put my phone on do not disturb. This is a big one. So I try to keep my phone on do not disturb like during work hours. Sometimes I find that that's really helpful because it keeps me focused which means I can like attend to things that I want to get done during my day and that productivity Sometimes can help me feel better, you know, my capabilities to do things, my follow through again, building self trust.

Or I'll put my phone on do not disturb in the evenings and afternoons, times when I'm maybe socializing so that I can be really focused and present with the people I'm around, which creates more connection, more presence, better conversation, which really is fulfilling and makes us feel connected and seen and like we can actually be with the people that we love. So that's number eight. Number nine is limiting social media usage. I just learned that there is a setting on your phone. If you have an iPhone, there's a setting on the phone called screen time and you can have it set up so that certain apps, you can manually override this, but you can have certain apps where you only have a certain number of time during the day that you use it.

So I have like Instagram now set for three hours. So at three hours, when I try and open the app, it says, you've met your app limit again. I can manually override and say, no, I want to ignore that limit for five minutes. But it shows me like, oh, you've already spent this much time on this app, so your time is up again. I think that this will be helpful for me because A, I'm going to start to learn how much time I'm actually spending on these apps and B, it'll encourage me to actually go, oh, okay, I guess I've used a lot of that time on this app.

I'm gonna try and go do something else. So it's just a small way to stay accountable with that number nine. Am I on number nine or was that number nine? I don't have this written down. It's in my head and on my phone. But I'm looking at my phone. I think that was number nine. What have we got so far? We've got Eat Meals Sober October Mindfulness meditation with Open app Focus Program, Move my body, get outside, Create a project. Oh, I remember what it is. Well, let's run through them again. Create a project funnel.

Do not disturb limit scrolling of apps. Maybe we are on nine. Nine is dedicate an hour to mental fitness. So the same way that I might go to the gym for my physical fitness, I'm going to take an hour for mental fitness. So this could be therapy. This could be journaling, this could be meditation, this could be mindfulness. This could be working through like a skills workbook, like a DBT skills workbook. Anything that feels mentally therapeutic. I'm going to try and dedicate an hour to about three to five times a week.

Again, the same way that like I might dedicate movement three to five times a week as a way for me to start to exercise those muscles again. The muscles that allow me to be self aware. The muscles that allow me to pause when I'm actually struggling in life and check in and ask myself what's going on, what do I need? com I have several free ones as well. So if you want to try journaling, I highly recommend it. It's a really lovely place to start when you're learning how to connect with yourself. Get to know yourself and maybe start to understand some thought patterns and re reframe some of those self self thoughts.

I really really like journaling for that. So now I can't remember number 10 clearly. I need that focus program, huh? When I think of it, I'll put it in the comments. It's going to come to me the minute I get off this live. I know it. Anyways, I would love to know in the comments what you plan to do for yourself this month for your mental health. And as always, I appreciate your feedback. So if you have questions or suggestions or things that you would like me to talk about, let me know. I'm very happy you're here.

Thank you for showing up for yourself and I will see you next week. Take care. Cadre Crew.