Months ago, we established that supportive relationships have big impacts on our mental health because they get us through tough times. We're here today to talk more about relationships, specifically what makes them healthy!  And we're talking relationships of all kinds: romantic partners, friends, family members, and the most important, your coscto sample lady.Because while healthy, wonderful relationships do magical things for our physical and mental health, unhealthy relationships cause us stress and mental health problems! But how do you know whether your relationships are meeting your needs?? And are you meeting the needs of the people in your life??

Episode 14 Healthy Relationships

We think that talking about mental health should be as easy as talking about the weather. So we've created a series of podcasts dedicated to helping you become the most mental health savvy human you can be. What kinds of things do we talk about? That's a great question... we knew you were smart. Some of the topics we cover are how to better relate to mental health problems, how to have a conversation about mental health, and how to best support a friend who is having a hard time.

Also - news flash!! - you don't have to have a mental illness diagnosis to struggle with your mental health. We want you to be the most mentally healthy person you can be! So to help you get there we're going to cover topics like how to have an assertive communication style, how to have the healthiest relationships, warning signs and helpful tricks for dealing with anxiety and depression, and what to do if you feel like you're being bullied. 

Do you have some ideas about a topic you wish we would cover? We knew you would! Send us an email at thementalhealthstruggleisreal@gmail.com.

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I wish we could go back to communicating through cute drawings of dogs and horses on cave walls, but unfortunately, we’re stuck with these damn words. And it turns out that being able to communicate yourself clearly and assertively is super important for your mental health!! It’s the only healthy way to communicate in a relationship (and relationships are super important for mental health!!), it’s essential for communicating your mental health needs to friends, family, and partners, and it’s the only effective way to call people on their sh*t when they’re using stigmatizing language. But what the heck is assertive communication?? And how the heck do you do it?? Lucky for you we’ve dedicated a whole episode of TSIR to different communication styles, and how to communicate yourself clearly, calmly, and assertively!

Episode 16 Assertive Communication

Remember how we told you that healthy relationships are wonderful and act as a shield?  Well the flip side of that is a destructive relationship. This past week people wore pink to stand up to bullying and today we want to talk about bullying in adulthood. It is a real thing and has serious mental health consequences for both the people who experience it and witness it. We are joined by Dr. Wendy Craig, an expert on relationships and bullying across the life span. She discusses with us what bullying in adulthood looks like, what are the effects, and how we can take action.

Episode 15 Bullying

It’s 11pm, bedtime….the perfect moment for your brain to present you with your top 10 most embarrassing memories. Fast forward to 3am... We have a complicated relationship with sleep. We want so desperately to be in a long-term relationship with it but then do things to push it away. Today we talk about how sleep (or not sleeping) impacts our mental health! Having one bad sleep might leave you feeling groggy but weeks and months of bad sleep can seriously affect our mood. Jackie Huberman, a PhD student in Clinical Psychology, is here with us to discuss the connection between sleep in mental health, debunk some sleep myths, and share with us the small steps we can take to have better sleep!

Episode 13 Sleep And Mental Health

We all have that one aunt that just keeps telling us that "if only we went out and tried the yoga, we'd feel so much better!" They're the worst. But, unfortunately, there's a bit of truth to what she's saying (don't worry, we won't tell her). It turns out that our brains and bodies are NOT completely separate, just YOLOing off on their own. They're very connected! When we move our bodies, our brain finds out. AND because of pesky evolution, it seems that our brains are happiest when we're movin' & shakin', and busting out the Macarena. Because we evolved to move (and quite well, I must say), our brains perform best when our pedometers are hitting those high numbers. Most importantly for us, this means that movement is actually one of the best ways to fend off mental health problems and prevent them from occurring in the first place!!

Episode 14 Healthy Relationships

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