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For more than 60 years, Americans have celebrated the observance of Mental Health Month in May as an opportunity to reach millions with a unified message about mental health awareness. This year’s theme is Pathways to Wellness, which is a call to action for Americans to identify strategies that work for themselves individually to attain better overall whole-person health and wellness.

Wellness is defined as “an active process of becoming aware of and making choices towards a more successful existence.” Wellness can be many things, but it generally includes the pursuit of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and working towards achieving one’s full potential.

Taking good care of your body and mind can make a difference in how well you do in your day-to-day life and how well you manage change. Exercising, eating right, getting enough rest, finding ways to reduce stress and relaxing will not only set you on the right path to wellness, but also help you achieve and enjoy daily activities more and improve how you deal with life’s challenges. Caring for yourself may take a little extra time, but you will feel better and more successful.

Your pathway to wellness can be:

• Obtaining good health
• Getting routine health screenings
• Saving more money
• Laughing more
• Enjoying healthy relationships
• Being good to yourself
• Showing gratitude
• Sleeping 7-9 hours a night
• Cutting back on alcohol consumption
• Keeping good friends close
• Taking care of your community
• Eating one less cookie
• Looking for a new job
• Learning how to let go
• Walking instead of driving
• Playing with your pet
• Spending the day at the spa
• Eating fresh fruit from your own garden
• Mastering a difficult yoga pose
• Staying positive
• Connecting more with others
• Quitting smoking
• Drinking less coffee
• Writing down your problems

Mental health conditions are real and prevalent in our nation. With global awareness of mental health issues, a concentrated focus on prevention and wellness appropriate access to treatment, people with mental health conditions can recover and lead full, produc¬tive, happy, healthy lives.

Source: Mental Health America