Dear Soft Hearted Loves,
What’s your mood plan? What will you do to care for your mood today? Do you do so much for your mental health only to notice the change in seasons and increase in darkness impact your moods? Well you’re not alone. It’s more common than we’re aware of or talk about. For some, it’s a natural hibernation, for others it’s seasonal affective disorder. For folx who struggle with their moods, in addition to talking about this with your providers you can also develop a gentle, compassionate, and consistent mood plan.
Some things people incorporate into their mood plan are below and there’s so many more ideas too! People might:
-Get their labs checks to ensure their vitamin D, vitamin B, and iron are sufficient if they have access to healthcare.
-Spend time in light daily (either outdoors or supplemented with a light box if that’s financially feasible for them).
-Movement if that works for you.
-Breathing or breathwork if that’s available to you.
We could list a few other mood suggestions, but I want you to think of what’s accessible and helpful for you. Decolonializing mental health care to me means a lot of things, including turning to you to see what works for you rather than paternalistically repeating advice from Eurocentric psychological research.
We’d love to hear one of your favorite things for your mood plan. Feel free to add something you intend to incorporate into your mood plan without perfectionism. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week with more about you and your healing.
With kindess,
Dr. Joharchi
Soft Heart Psychology 