SEEDS: An Easy Way to Check off your Health

Some of us will have triggers that set us off on a range of thoughts and some of those thoughts can spiral us out of control to behaviours that we would rather not have. Behaviours that are not in our best interests, be they physical, emotional or psychological.

Today I want to discuss a simple strategy for your mental health. This strategy is easy to follow, doesn’t take long and is simple for those who like a check list. It will fit right in to your daily routine.

There are 5 checks and doing just these can help you to deal with any amount of challenges that come your way, be they abusive personalities, high stress work or negative self-talk.

Our mental health is something that we often take for granted until it is too late and an all pervasive anxiety or overwhelming depression has taken over. So I have used a simple word that I came across, that is not only easy to use as a check list but even easier to follow as a guideline.

The word is SEEDS. This is an acronym that anyone can remember and follow.

The S stands for sleep.

Are you getting your 7-8 hours of sleep? Studies show that sleep is important to regulate our hormones, and stress levels. Fatigue makes it difficult to deal with overwhelm, and even sudden agitators that pop up in the day.

Have you ever noticed how things can just feel too much when you are tired, and how those same tasks can be as easy as pie when you are feeling energetic? The research has been done, and true some people can cope with less of the zeds, but most of us need to have this time to reboot physically and emotionally too.

Poor sleep can affect your social interactions preventing you from noticing certain social cues. It can lead to depression as we feel low on energy, our exercise will suffer, and our productivity can be compromised.

Our metabolism can be altered. Risk of heart disease and stroke increase as well. So this is why we see sleep as all important. Can you check off your 7-9 hours today?

The next letter is E.

This E is for exercise, it is widely recognized that exercise helps us feel good. It activates all the feel good hormones. Facilitates in balancing the negative ones that cause stress. It also helps motivate us to eat better, move more, drink water and the overall increase in energy is a benefit in areas of work and relationships. It doesn’t have to be a marathon but it does have to be consistent.

The health benefits of exercising include controlling blood glucose, helping prevent heart disease, strokes, muscle deterioration, weight, and blood pressure. Just being healthier can make us feel better. Can you squeeze in 30 minutes a day?

The next E is for education.

What did you learn today? Learning one thing each day improves our mind, our self-esteem, our knowledge and capabilities which helps us feel good about us! Don’t underestimate the power of learning, it changes our neurology expands our brains, give us something new to focus on.

It has been shown that we have 60-70 thousand thoughts a day and 90% or more of these are the same as yesterday. This is not great for our emotions if those thoughts are not uplifting.

By learning something new we have a new focus, something to ponder and possibly motivate us. So pull out the laptop, check into google of go for coffee with a friend and learn something you didn’t know.

The 4th letter is D and this stands for diet.

What are you putting into your mouth? How healthy is it? Does it generate energy or does it deplete you?

We all know that eating too much, increases weight. Eating unhealthy fats leads to chronic disease. So today watch your diet, notice how much water you drink. What are you consuming and when. These checks affect your mental health as well. You need to be able to move, feel good in your clothes and not sooth with food.

A diet with the right nutrients stimulates us emotionally, and supports our immune system and provides us with energy.

The last letter is S for social.

For good mental health we need to be social. As people most of us need some sort of social interaction each day. For those introverts it may not need to be much, but we do need to have conversations somewhere in the day to help us calibrate our emotions. I don’t mean have a big D & M but just a banter, a giggle or a chat can be enough to help keep our mental health running smoothly.

Healthy relationships can make us feel more useful, wanted, or it may help us simply learn something new even about ourselves. I know this can feel like a lot of energy out some days. Sure there are times we need to reboot. However social interaction keeps us involved in the human race and using those skills that only people have.

How do you check out on SEEDS. Do you do each of these each day?

If not, why not? And what can you do today to tick off all 5 things.