My Journey With Health And Fitness – A Much Needed Mental Health Break

Ok, I know I said the other day that I might take a break today from exercise. But really, if I did nothing I would be beating myself up. However, recognizing that I have been working hard lately and that a recovery day was probably in order, I opted to just do a 1 hour walk first thing this morning. My goal overall for the day was at least 10k steps and I have done that. Really, I think all things considered that is pretty good given I have been walking at least 3.5 hours the past several days.

Being at our trailer has given me an awesome opportunity to take a bit of a mental health break. Now don’t get me wrong, while here I have been dealing with all sorts of things. For example, my brother’s estate needs to be moved forward so that when I am granted the Letter of Administration I can quickly finalize everything. As well, one of my volunteer organizations, which is a feast or famine type of volunteering, is in feast mode and I am being pulled in many directions. Having said that, I have forced myself to turn my back on all of my other types of work. Hard to do when you are in the midst of things like gearing up for a Provincial election but it was well needed.

So what does this look like? Well, to start with sitting outside in the beautiful weather and just breathing. Listening to awesome music which sometimes is challenging because my husband and I have very different tastes in music but we managed to find some common ground. Driving the golf car around the complex and finding parks to sit in and watch the tranquil water. Watching eagles catch thermals. Counting the number of doves that live in the park. All of these things are quite frankly just calming and help my brain from constantly running at 100 kph.

I’m going home tomorrow feeling better. Just taking that step back has given my mental health time to recover a bit. Don’t get me wrong I still can cry at just seeing something than invokes emotions but I’ve had time to reflect on that and realize it is ok to get emotional. Best of all is one of my good friends called today and we are going to do a girl’s weekend at the trailer in the next few weeks. While this will likely involve some bad behaviour, the two of us have been through so much that it will be good to be able to have a no holds barred conversation and emotional cleansing.

Yes, this mental health break has meant a lot to me. I’m now ready to face whatever the next week brings on.