The Mental Health Day

One thing I know for sure:  I work harder for myself than I ever did when I worked for someone else.

I believe that’s how it should be.  Working for myself means I’m working for something that I believe in 100%.  The statistics concerning women’s health in my state alone are sobering -- especially for Blacks and Hispanics. 

Health Conditions and Risk Factors

Female Population of VIRGINIA – 4,164,342,  Total State Population – 8,185,867

Condition or Risk Factor	White, non-Hispanic	Black, non-Hispanic	Asian/Pacific Islander	Hispanic
Currently smoke (age 18+)	16.6%	19.6%	2.7%	13.8%
Overweight (age 20+)	29%	30.5%	24.1%	39%
Obese (age 20+)	24.4%	43.7%	12%	17.1%
Hypertension	28.9%	40.7%	21.4%	22.1%
High cholesterol	30.8%	32.5%	NA	38.6%
Diabetes	10.9%	17%	20.5%	10.8%
Arthritis	26.5%	26.8%	19.8%	17.7%
Asthma, currently	10.6%	14.4%	4.5%	10.2%

Source:  2012 BRFSS (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System)

We can do better.  I refuse to believe that our women are lazy.  Most of us just don’t know what to do or where to start.  I want to help.

Back to the topic at hand.  I take pride in knowing that I’m not the type of person who normally gets stressed out.  Stress is a killer and I try hard to keep things in balance in order to avoid it.  However, stress is sneaky and can show up out of nowhere.  That’s what happened to me recently.  I have so much going on … my calendar has fewer and fewer blank spaces and since I work from home I was having difficulty establishing “office hours”.  The commitments to my clients, family, church and myself had me completely worn out.  So yesterday, in order to save my sanity I gave myself the pleasure of a mental health day.

In addition to everything that I have going on I found myself neglecting my diet which was contributing to the way that I felt physically.  I wasn’t eating  unhealthily … I just wasn’t preparing my food ahead of time which caused me to have to think about my next meal and sometimes that just added to the stress.  So I went back to what I knew:  food prep.  Honestly, I hadn’t done a full meal prep since my show more than a month ago and I could tell the difference in how I ate and how I felt.  I was due. 

Yesterday, after the gym I went to the grocery store and picked up some essentials and spent about an hour and a half preparing my food for the week.  Then I took a shower and got in the bed and watched Netflix movies and napped all day.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  When I woke up this morning I was more than ready for the day ahead.

I have a regularly scheduled “rest” day each week, which is Sunday.  But that is really just rest from working out.  I still sometimes work.  I needed a day to rest my mind as well as my body.  It has enabled me to look at my work with fresh eyes and ultimately be more productive.

Are you in need of a mental health day?