Musicians: 6 ways to improve your mental health

Everyone can benefit from a bit of self-care now and then, particularly we creative types. Here are six tips to get your mind cleared and ready for whatever life throws at you next.

by Randi Zimmerman from the Symphonic Blog

No matter what stage you’re at in your career, how old you are, or how much you have on your plate, this industry can be overwhelming. With so much to do, it’s easy to overlook your mental health and find yourself unsure of how to get back on track. Before we dive in here, however, we understand that improving your mental health is not as easy as meditating for 5 minutes and 🌟BAM🌟 cured. These are just some simple tips to help you along your journey to a happier and healthier mindset to guide the way. Here’s the rundown…

Get Back To Basics

Sometimes the best thing you can do is get back to the basics. What basic things in your life have you been neglecting lately? Has your laundry been piling up? Are there errands you keep putting off? Are you taking care of your body’s basic needs? Drinking enough water? All these things contribute to the balance between your body and mind. If these basics aren’t being taken care of, a domino effect of disarray will follow.

I’m not saying that fixing these things is going to cure depression or fix everything in your life, but it sure won’t hurt.

Set Boundaries & Stick To Them

A lot of the time, we as creatives overextend ourselves to everyone else in our lives in order to create the best product or reach the highest goals. We stay up late, overbook ourselves, overcommit, and wonder why we feel burnt out at the end of the day. It’s important to have honest conversations with the people in your life about how much of your time you can really give them. In contrast, you need to be honest with yourself about whether or not you are giving yourself ample time for your own needs.

Do you actively schedule time for self care on a consistent basis? And aside from self care, are you giving yourself time to nourish your relationships, friendships, home-life, physical health, and everything in between that makes your life fulfilling? All of this plays a major part in not only your mental health, but your quality of life! Don’t take them for granted.

Meditate

We all suffer from various stressors in our lives. No matter how big or small, meditation is a healthy, effective, and often overlooked, way to balance your thoughts and work through them accordingly.

Meditation forces you to sit down, close your eyes, and take the moment to recognize that what you’re feeling is normal and okay. It gives you a chance to relax your mind and take note of exactly what it is that’s causing you to feel this way. Once you accept this feeling, you can grab a hold of it, assess what you can do about it, and move past it and forward with an actionable plan.

Try this: 

• Sit comfortably with the best posture you can manage. (Try sitting on a chair or on the floor with your legs crossed.)
• Breathe in through your nose for four counts. (You should count at approximately one beat per second. If you have a metronome handy, use it!)
• Hold that deep breath in your lungs for four counts.
• Exhale through your mouth for four counts.
• Hold with your lungs empty for four counts.
• Repeat.

Used by some of our staff here at Symphonic, Meditation Oak is a great meditation app for beginners and veterans alike. Yes, meditation can be challenging, but stick with it. As little as 10 minutes a day can work wonders.

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Set Small Goals

From learning new skills and getting more followers to earning more money and booking more gigs, setting clear goals is the key to seeing your dreams come to life. However, it’s easy to set goals that are so big that they end up just being overwhelming and disheartening.

We did a whole post on how to set better goals, and in it we break down the 5 qualities of great goal setting. Two of which are “Achievable” and “Realistic”, two steps that can make or break whether or not your goals actually come to life. They entail being honest with yourself about where you are in your career and how far your strategy can realistically take you, Being honest here and learning to set smaller goals that you can check off more easily over time will ensure you continue to grow without hitting as many discouraging roadblocks.

Download These Mental Wellness Apps

Whether you need a helping hand right now or want to learn more about what it is you struggle with, there are many mobile apps that offer various methods to help ease and heal your mind from the inside out.

• Calm is a sleep and meditation app that helps its millions of users learn to meditate, how to get better sleep, and learn to calm your mind and body. It gives you video lessons on mindful movement and gentle stretching, audio programs taught by world-renowned mindfulness experts, music to help you focus, relax, sleep, and so much more.
• Talkspace is an online therapy app that lets you talk to licensed professionals and start your therapy journey, all from the app. All you have to do is answer a few questions about your preferences, pick your provider from a list of recommendations, then you’re ready to start online therapy.
• iBreathe is a simple yet powerful app to help guide you through deep breathing exercises. Whether you are struggling with stress, anxiety, insomnia, or are trying to meditate and relax, this app can help you out.

Accept Yourself As You Are Now

At the end of the day, the only person you should be in competition with is yourself. Redirect negative thoughts about your journey with prideful thoughts about how far you’ve come. Where you are right now is right where you’re supposed to be. The hardships you face now will shape your future into the bright place it will undeniably be, it just takes time. Remember that your journey is not the same as anyone else’s, so stop comparing yourself. Be proud of where you are now.

You didn’t come this far just to come this far!