In this the day and age, especially in a country like Nigeria and defending on the things going on in one's life, it is very easy to have a mental breakdown than a physical breakdown, it’s so bad that majority of our physical breakdowns are as a result of our poor mental health of which stress is one of the major contributing factor. For example I’m so used to multitasking that my brain feels doing just one thing is being lazy. Although there are those who might see this as really great, but then again when it’s done in excess and is continually the cause of my everyday stress that has led to my body breaking down a lot of times because I do not know when to stop, then you can see there is a problem with how I manage my mental health. One of my goals this year was to ensure that I take care of my mental health by doing exercises and making sure I take a lot of rest, I started really well at the beginning of the year, but right now I no longer do the things I said I would do to help my mental health and it’s telling on me so much. I for a start I have had to take a sick leave twice in the last three months and it wasn’t funny at all.
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Not withstanding, I am one of those who still support mental health care even though I have not been practicing it for some time. Over the weekend I decided I was not going to think about anything, and just play, eat and sleep. To be honest, I never regretted that decision because I have a thousand and one things to be worried about at the monet and usually my coping mechanism has been burning myself in a lot of work, but over the weekend I realized that worrying would only make me want to work more, exhaust myself with the feeling of doing a lot while being not as productive as I wished. It reduced my thinking ability as the majority of what I was subconsciously thinking was how to find a solution to my predicament, but then the solution came when I stopped thinking. But does this mean I was wrong for trying to think about a way out all these while. The truth is I wasn’t wrong, I was only trying to be responsible, but then again, there is a time to run at a high speed, and there is a time to slow down. For me, it was already past due the time I needed to slow down.
Life is all about balance, and to be honest, there is no book or school that teaches us when exactly we need to slow down. The sleepless nights are as essential as the rest if you want something out of life, else you will sleep and wake up so hungry that you need to ask those who had sleepless nights for food. And to be honest, even those who have sleepless nights barely manage to get a handful talkless of those who decide to sleep all night. Some might say it’s not about working hard, it’s about working smart. But the truth is those who learned to work smart are those who have worked so hard that they have now discovered a way to work smart. I think the balance there is to give your mind, body and soul time to rest so that you do not end up losing any in the process of looking for your daily bread. When I begin to feel intoxicated by everything around me, it’s my body telling me to slow down, and obeying it has always done me good.
THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 182 EPISODE 1
