I used to wonder, are exercise and mental health related? Can it improve your overall mental health and be as helpful as antidepressants? In my recent experience, I’ve found the answer is yes. I have been through anxiety, depression and depersonalization (feeling a sense of watching yourself and feeling disconnected to others and oneself) and exercise helped to lift my mood during the dark days. The problem is, like many others might find, it’s a constant struggle to stay motivated and develop a love for exercise for your mental health.

Once you’ve experienced the horror of anxiety and depression you are thankful every day that you have your life back, and you start to make plans for the future but what you need to know is that mental health wellness is a lifetime commitment. The gratitude one feels after a breakdown is like no other feeling in this world. Naturally, as we regain our health, we crave change and work on improving our own lives. However, we need to make sure we don’t become complacent and fall back into similar traps of negative thought patterns that are dangerous for our mental health. We need to make sure we make a lifetime commitment to mental health wellness. 

Hello, my name is Kristen Virag, and I am very pleased to be the co-author of the Mental Health for the Digital Generation blog. I have had two major episodes of anxiety, depression and depersonalization (where your thoughts and feelings feel like you're not your own and you lose your own identity) which left me in a very crippled state for several months. I now consider myself recovered, but I pay special attention to myself and care for myself daily to make sure I never relapse.

I've been attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for about five months and the meetings have been a blessing in my recovery. For us young people, staying sober can be very difficult because drinking seems to be the "cool" thing to do. We can often feel like our lives are "over" in early recovery, and that we are going to be missing out or boring. When I thought about attending AA, I asked myself, "how can I possibly relate to someone who is over the age of 40?" However, in the past five months my attitude has drastically changed.

I am a planner and a worry-wort. Due to my anxiety, I always need to have everything planned out in a specific way and I have an extremely hard time when plans change. When I was in high-school, I had my academic career planned out and I had anticipated exactly what was going to happen in the future. I was going to graduate high-school, go to Ryerson University to study Business Management and eventually get a masters degree. Little did I know that I was suffering from mental illness and that my carefully planned future was going to take me in a different direction.

When I walked into my first substance abuse recovery meeting, "one day at a time" had no meaning to me. Because of my anxiety, I always thought days and even years in advance, future tripping and wanting alcohol to cope. I thought of never being able to have a drink ever again, and it terrified me. It wasn't until someone with multiple years of sobriety told me that all I had to do was live one day at a time that immediately, miraculously, I found a sense of relief.

Hello, my name is Samantha U’Ren and I am a 22-year-old college student who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. I enjoy going to the gym, thrift shopping, and trying to live as much of a “normal” life as possible. I am also pleased to announce that I am the new blogger for the Mental Health for the Digital Generation blog. Being in college is challenging; I think everyone can agree to that. However, my journey through college is a little different because I am a recovering alcoholic who also suffers from major depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

How do you make a relationship work when you have mental health issues? It's a big question and I've learned some important things via my own experiences throughout the years since being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The first tip I'd like to share is: make sure your partner is well educated about your mental health condition. Do not expect them to understand your symptoms or what you're going through. Keep in mind, most people do not have a good working understanding of mental illness.

I realized the importance of a psychiatric crisis plan when I needed one and I did not have one in place. A few years ago, I was hospitalized and I don't feel that I was given the proper care by the hospital and I was certainly not in any state to take care of myself. If I had a crisis plan in place, my family could have worked with my doctor to make sure that I received the proper treatment and care at the hospital and that I had a plan in place for after I was discharged.

If you are already a member of the HealthyPlace community, then you know how beneficial online support groups can be. If not, I invite you to check out the mental health forums and chat on HealthyPlace.com and get involved. I have been a member of the online mental health community for the past two years making video blogs and participating in forums. It has been an amazing and therapeutic experience to talk to so many people that really understand what I am going through.