Mental Health Resources

10 Tips for Staying Mentally Healthy

1. Build Confidence: Identify your abilities and weaknesses together, accept them build on them and do the best with what you have.
2. Eat right, Keep fit: A balanced diet, exercise and rest can help you to reduce stress and enjoy life.
3. Make Time for Family and Friends: These relationships need to be nurtured; if taken for granted they will not be there to share life’s joys and sorrows.
4. Give and Accept Support: Friends and family relationships thrive when they are “put to the test”.
5. Create a Meaningful Budget: Financial problems cause stress. Over-spending on our “wants” instead of our “needs” is often the culprit.
6. Volunteer: Being involved in community gives a sense of purpose and satisfaction that paid work cannot.
7. Manage Stress: We all have stressors in our lives but learning how to deal with them when they threaten to overwhelm us will maintain our mental health.
8. Find Strength in Numbers: Sharing a problem with others who have had similar experiences may help you find a solution and will make you feel less isolated.
9. Identify and Deal with Moods: We all need to find safe and constructive ways to express our feelings of anger, sadness, joy and fear.
10. Learn to Be at Peace with Yourself: Get to know who you are, what makes you really happy, and learn to balance what you can and cannot change about yourself.

See the Canadian Mental Health Association for more information

Resources in Peel Region:

• Central Brampton Family Health Team, mental health counsellor
• CMHA Resources and Services

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

• Feeling sad or down
• Confused thinking or reduced ability to concentrate
• Excessive fears or worries, or extreme feelings of guilt
• Extreme mood changes of highs and lows
• Withdrawal from friends and activities
• Significant tiredness, low energy or problems sleeping
• Detachment from reality (delusions), paranoia or hallucinations
• Inability to cope with daily problems or stress
• Trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people
• Problems with alcohol or drug use
• Major changes in eating habits
• Sex drive changes
• Excessive anger, hostility or violence
• Suicidal thinking

Contact your health care provider if you are experiencing any of these symptoms

Warning symptoms of serious mental illness:

• Hallucinations
• False perceptions
• False beliefs
• Bizarre behaviour
• Disordered speech
• Delusions
• Suicidality
• Homocidality
• Inability to care for oneself

If you or someone you know is experiencing these symptoms, call 911 or go to your nearest Emergency Department