Real Talk with ZTS

#28 - The Rona Series Episode 19: Habits and Mental Health

November 15, 2020 OSYL Episode 28
Real Talk with ZTS
#28 - The Rona Series Episode 19: Habits and Mental Health
Show Notes

The month of November can be the start of feeling many emotions and experiencing various causes of stress.  Maybe it’s the cold weather coming that is signaling the start of fall and winter time.  Or it’s the bittersweet and cultural stress of the upcoming holidays.  You know the type of stress that it carries:  what gifts I should get, who to get it for, when to start shopping, who to visit, and even who to avoid, for instance.  Though we all may experience some form of negative emotion during these times, this discussion on today’s episode is about how we work to manage it by acknowledging it and creating or establishing habits to defuse it.  Of course this is all easier said and done, and like anything that comes to each individual’s mental health, there is no one solution that helps all.  To find common ground and acknowledging it together, we work on bettering our state of mind and empathy for each other.

In this episode, it features the originals:  Steven, Tyler, and Zvon, and Andrew.  Some of the guiding questions are below, but overall, it became a good open discussion on working on bettering our mental health.


    1. Let’s talk about our habits and hobbies as it relates to mental health.  What things do you do that bring you joy, help you decompress, but also helps you work towards your goals?

    2. How are you keeping up with those habits and hobbies during the pandemic?


Some of the ways that we utilize our habits to de-stress or defuse negative emotions or tensions, is to look at the small wins or achievements.  For instance, some may look to setting a goal to read and/or write daily.  The habit of reading can be a sense of achievement in several ways.  After the stress from the everyday grind, you can temporarily put yourself in a meditative state of exercising your mind by reading a book on a new skill, or to immerse in your creativity and imagination by reading a fictional story.  Either way, it appears reading can be a habit to give your mind, body, and spirit to refocus and recharge yourself by taking a moment to slow the pace down.  On the other instance, writing daily can help some acknowledge the emotions they are feeling and to visualize it into words on paper.  It can be seen as a mental exercise to control and express what we are feeling instead of bottling it in.  Taking a negative emotion (or positive!) and turning it into a creative piece, or to explain it in words can be liberating mentally—but maybe even physically, because it will seem we are not holding on to its burden any longer.


Overall, we find the same notion that this 2020 year’s pandemic has brought us:  burnout, anxiety, or some form of the mundane, for instance.  Because of this, habits that we may have formed and excelled at (or allowed us to reach goals) become dreary and make us feel uninspired.  The pandemic has allowed us to reflect and reconnect with our inner selves, or with others.  With it comes newly formed hobbies and habits, and in turn, new found inspiration.  For some, maybe they didn’t have good habits before, and with the pandemic and it’s way of getting us to reexamine ourselves, taught us new habits.  Our only hope as we continue the uphill battle to an uncertain future, is that what we learn from this moment will lead us to greater heights.

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