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Focus­ing on your men­tal health is impor­tant for all ages. Your needs may vary depend­ing on the stage of life you’re in. As we come to the end of Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, our QMG Behav­ioral Health team shares some tips for old­er adults.

Among the media cov­er­age about the Uvalde tragedy are arti­cles about how the Uvalde com­mu­ni­ty will start to recov­er. Men­tal health experts across the nation are being called on for their exper­tise to help peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly chil­dren, process and under­stand how to cope with such a safe­ty-shat­ter­ing experience.

Through­out Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, our Behav­ioral Health team is shar­ing tips to help sup­port your men­tal health. Men­tal health is the result of the steps you take and the choic­es you make every day. Here are some tips to help you take the steps and make the choic­es that are best for your emo­tion­al wellbeing.

If you’ve tried to sched­ule an appoint­ment with a ther­a­pist late­ly, you may have been dis­ap­point­ed to learn that instead of set­ting up an appoint­ment, you were added to a wait­list. Or maybe you were added to a wait­list sev­er­al weeks ago and still haven’t heard back about sched­ul­ing an appoint­ment. What’s the deal!?!

Ever since March 2020 (what huge, life-chang­ing thing hap­pened that month?!), health­care work­ers have made the switch to offer­ing more tele­health options for patients. There are all kinds of video call ser­vices (Zoom, Skype, Face­time, etc.) and tra­di­tion­al phone call options to choose from.

In a recent doc­u­men­tary series titled, The Me You Can’t See, Oprah Win­frey shared the sto­ries of peo­ple who strug­gle with their men­tal health. One of the sto­ries she shares is that of Prince Har­ry who speaks about a form of ther­a­py called EMDR (Eye Move­ment Desen­si­ti­za­tion and Reprocessing).

Going to a ther­a­pist for med­ica­tion is like going to a urol­o­gist with a bro­ken arm – you’ll prob­a­bly leave with a refer­ral to anoth­er provider but no med­ica­tion and this won’t be the fastest route for address­ing your prob­lem. Read on for a break­down of dif­fer­ent types of men­tal health providers and what ser­vices they do and do not provide.

If you want bet­ter men­tal health, there’s no need to com­plete­ly over­haul your life. Well­ness results from tak­ing small steps and main­tain­ing them over time. Since the change has to start some­where, I’d like to chal­lenge you to try sev­en new things, one each day next week, toward improv­ing your men­tal health.

Every­one reacts to trau­ma dif­fer­ent­ly. There’s no right or wrong way to feel after a trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence, but it is impor­tant to know when to seek help.

The teenage years are a whirl­wind of emo­tions and expe­ri­ences. It’s a time of incred­i­ble growth, but also a peri­od when teens may strug­gle men­tal health chal­lenges. Dr. Todd Porter, a pedi­a­tri­cian, and Kathy Nel­son, a behav­ioral health ther­a­pist, both at Quin­cy Med­ical Group, help par­ents and teens nav­i­gate this cru­cial stage. For Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, they share some guid­ance for families.