Mental health tips for the road
Let’s face it, living in our generation is hard. If you’re not trying to keep appearances on social media, you’re advocating for a cause or trying to get a job. Maybe you’re in school. Yet somehow, we still constantly deal with illusions that life is easy as our personal lives crumble.
Our lives have become more reactive and less proactive; we react to the news, notifications, comments, deadlines but spend less time creating. Our brains become tired and drained from all the attention-giving, and we feel like slaves to everything. You constantly wonder what you achieved today. Yeah, we’ve been there too.
Therapy is fantastic, but until you can afford 50k or $100 per month, here are five cheap and easy ways to take care of yourself mentally:
1. Piece A Puzzle Or Lego Set
Most expensive ones first. If you’re looking to detox from social media, grab one of these and get lost in your imagination. Puzzles and Lego games exercise both sides of the brain improving cognition and visual-spatial reasoning (a significant advantage for engineering or architecture students) because they involve concentration, short term memory usage and problem-solving.
Price: The average puzzle set costs ₦10k (on Jumia) or less than $10 (on Amazon). Legos can range from ₦10 to ₦25k (on Jumia) and $25 to $60 (on Amazon). They’re not inexpensive, but you can see it as an investment.
2. Play Some Board Games
These are more pocket friendly. Whether you want to pretend you’re a real estate mogul in monopoly, show off your grandiose vocabulary in scrabble or improve your military strategies in Chess, for those who have a friend or sibling around, board games are an excellent excuse to put the phones away.
Plus, there is a good argument that these games also improve your cognitive skills.
Price: Monopoly is as low as ₦5k (on Jumia) or $17 (Amazon), Scrabble, ₦2.5k (on Jumia) and $12 (on Amazon) and Chess ₦4k (on Jumia) or $15 (on Amazon)
3. Read a Good Book
Whether you consider yourself a bookworm or not, investing in books, long or short, from genres you enjoy can help you disconnect from the adrenaline-filled world around you.
Price: You can get many good books for free or from ₦500, ₦1k upwards on OkadaBooks and $10 on Amazon.
4. Write Your Own Book
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it” – Toni Morrison. Writing, like reading, is an adventure on its own. If you think you’re not a reader, that’s because you haven’t found what you like yet.
So venture into the world of your characters or write about your world in short stories, articles and poems for your eyes only. Or just spend more time on SabiTribe since we already got that covered.
Price: Free
5. Learn A New Skill Or Hobby
Now that soft skills are taking the stage once more, practice or learn a skill like knitting, crochet, cooking, singing or drawing to set your mind at ease when you’re feeling burnt out. Let it be something you can see or put up to encourage yourself.
An artist is always proud of their drawings; chefs take pictures of their dishes and knitters, well, they can model their works for Africa. Find something you enjoy, preferably offline and be obsessed about it.
Price: Free
6. Volunteer
Interacting with actual human beings and not just avatars on your screen through volunteer work is an excellent way to boost your mental health. We often feel depressed because we’re constantly surrounded by or focusing on the problems around us.
Volunteering shifts your perspective from the negative to the many positives you can contribute to your world. Your mind is like a bank account. If you fill it with positive experiences, it can counter a negative experience leaving a net positive.
However, leaving it empty or filling it with toxic things and negative emotions will result in a more negative mental balance when tough times come. If you’re feeling buried with the stresses of your own life, volunteering with a local club, NGO or organization may be what you need.
Price: Free
7. Spend Time Outside / Do Nothing.
This one is for introverts.
Nature is calming because it reminds us of the state we’re made to live in. Even though tech and social media can be good, they can also be draining.
Peace and quiet can be so hard to find nowadays. So spend some time wandering around nature or in your room doing nothing. Watch the sunrise or set from your backyard, balcony or school lagoon front.
Price: Free
What other activities help you relax at the end or in the middle of a stressful week? Let’s know in the comments.
#MentalMatters is a mental health series exploring matters of the mind and promoting conscious living. This edition focuses on cheap and easy ways to take care of your mental health amidst all the demands of 21st-century life.
