I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I feel that over the last couple of days I’ve started to get back into a bit of a routine. I’m finding some days better than others and I’m trying not to watch the news, as every time I do watch the news I find that my stress levels go up. So I’ve stopped watching the news and cherry pick what I do want to watch.
For me watching the news has always been something that has always stressed or upset me, it goes back to when I was a child and a couple of specific events that happened in the late 70’s early 80’s in the UK. Some of the things still haunt me to this day, as I didn’t know that humans could be so cruel to one another. So I’ve always restricted the news. I’ve found that the quick bulletin news on the radio is more than enough for me and it keeps me up today with what I want to know.
So I though that today I would share with you a couple of things that help me with my mental health. I have to admit that I don’t always use these tools all the time but I find that when I need them they do help me.
Mental Health Tip One
Meditation
Yes I know your probably thinking that we’ve heard this all before, but meditation really can help you to quieten your mind down. For me though I can’t just sit down and go in to a meditative state my brain is far to busy to quieten down that way. The only way that I can meditate is by listening and following Guided Meditation.
I’ve been using a really good website for a good few months now and I did pay to use their guided meditation, but because of the global crisis they are letting people use their guided meditation for free. They are also incouraging people to spread the word that they are doing this.
I originally payed for this as I was having problems with my sleep and I didn’t want to have to go back to my Doctor and ask for sleeping tablets again. I find that usually once a year I need 4-5 days of sleeping tablets to get me back into my sleeping routine. This is usually down to my ME/CFS I quite often in the winter find that I can go for a couple of weeks only having about 4-5 hours of sleep in a week. So this is the reason I have the sleeping tablets.
So this time I saw the signs that this was going to happen again and I though I needed to do something before I had no other option but go to my Doctor. The website that I have found is called Meditainment.
You can also follow them on Twitter & Pinterest:
I’ve used their guided sleep meditation many times now and I have never managed to get to the end of the meditation before I fall asleep and have a really good nights sleep. So why not give it ago yourself.
Mental Health Tip Two
Mindfulness Colouring
You may think that colouring in books are just for children, but they aren’t. Over the last few years there are more and more Adult Colouring books out there probably more than children’s these days.
If you already follow my blog you will already know that I love to craft and spend time making greeting cards of all types, but I also spend a lot of time just sitting down with the TV or the Radio on colouring away for hours at a time. I think you will be very surprised how relaxing colouring really is, it’s almost like meditation in it’s own way and you get something to show for it at the end.
You really don’t need to spend much money on this, there are plenty of websites out there that offer you free printable pages that you can download and print out as many times as you want. You don’t need expensive paper, pens, pencils. Borrow your kids felt-tips or pencils. Luckily for me I don’t have to share my craft supplies.
Here are some websites that are offering either free printable pages, or free colouring classes. There also many many YouTube channels as well.
- Teaching Ideas
- Misscally (offers lots of other crafting ideas and other downloads)
- Crafts on Sea
- Kit & Clowder
My favourite crafting go to company is Crafters Companion, they do all kinds of crafting and they offer some free resources. Each month they make a new card making download that you just print cutout and design yourself. The downloads for these go back all the way to 2008 so there are lots to have ago at.
Download of the Month 2020
April 2020 – Spring
A selection of Spring papers for more Spring makes! Four A4 backing papers, sentiments, toppers, ribbons and more!
This is an Adobe PDF file. It requires Adobe Reader to view it. You can download Adobe Reader free of charge here. Download
Click on this link to find the full Download of the Month Back Catalogue: CraftersCompanionDownloads
If you go on to the home page of Crafters Companion you will find as per the picture below that I have circled around the link for free colouring in pages. These will be available until next Thursday as the next day they will probably put up some different pages, as they are doing a colouring special live every Friday that you can colour along with. On their Facebook & YouTube Channel.
I hope the things I’ve talked about today will help during these unprecedented times. Let me know if you know of any other websites for Meditation or Crafting that you think will interest me and others.
Take Care & Keep Safe Alex (Gadgetgirl71)
Gadget Girl 71 