Mental Health Awareness month

In honor of mental health awareness month Artbrain has created some great new shirt designs.
This month lets advocate by:

• Providing emotional support and advice to those with a mental illness.
• Speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves.
• Help others understand mental illness, and those suffering with it.
• Chat with others about the importance of mental health.
• Reach out for mental health resources.
• Find out if the person is getting the help they need, help direct them.
• ​Remind them that help is available and mental health can be treated.
• Express your concern and support.
• Start a conversation.

People show emotional support for others by offering genuine encouragement, reassurance, and compassion. This might include things like verbal expressions of sympathy or physical gestures of affection.
Empowering someone is not enabling the person. Empowering lends helpful assistance and support without the responsibility for their recovery. Empowering builds someone up and helps them regain a balance over their life. Empowering is motivating, and it leads to self-confidence and autonomy.
The best mental health support is empowerment. The support you can provide from behind (rather than pulling from the front) in order to help the person take charge of their own mental health is a great way to empower someone. Though keeping in mind our own mental health in the process.
Social support can have a major impact on our overall health. On the other hand, a negative environment can cause harm.  People in our lives also can be toxic influences. Research shows negative interactions— whether it’s with a family member, significant other, friend, co-worker, boss, or someone else — also can cause problems. And if it’s a constantly negative relationship, it can have long-lasting, long-reaching effects. Symptoms of Toxic influences come in the form of:

• Anger
• Behaviors that affect your self-esteem (insults, downplaying your achievements, etc.)
• Controlling behavior
• Judgmental
• Manipulation
• Negativity
• Passive-aggressiveness
• Self-centeredness
• Drugs and Alcohol

If a friend, relative, or someone at work is causing a mental burden, try to spend less time around those people.  Empowering others is helpful when keeping in mind your own mental health as well.
​Empower someone today!