Take the Quiz
Take the Quiz
Think about how you’re viewing mental health. Taking care of your mind is more than addressing an illness or taking on a particular challenge.
Your mental health is an everyday part of who you are as a human being. And there are things you can do, every day, to enhance it. Be proactive. Be intentional.
Whether you have a minute or an hour, you have time to do something for your mental health.
Take a deep breath. Everything else can wait.
While you’re here, try out an exercise called Box Breathing.
Do each of the steps below for a count of four:
Repeat that three times, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Here’s a secret: You don’t have to focus specifically on your mental health to take care of your mental health. Have fun with it!
Create a shared experience with someone:
Your relationships can have a powerful effect on your mind health.
Case in point: In 1938, in the midst of the Great Depression, scientists began tracking 268 sophomores at Harvard University. They would actually follow some of them for almost 80 years — trying to learn more about what goes into living a healthy and happy life.
"The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health," Dr. Robert Waldinger, the director of the study, told the Harvard Gazette. "Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation."
So, create the space to build and strengthen your relationships. Be intentional about it. Make the time for it. It’s worth it.
“It’s OK to actually talk to people about how you’re feeling now, versus my generation when it was like, you just fight through it.”
The next time you’re kicking yourself over something, take these three steps:
Encourage the people in your life. Find ways to lift them up, to motivate them. Sometimes, one of the most important things we can offer someone is a unique perspective.
Name someone who would be invested in sharing a wellness or performance journey alongside you. Now, become accountability partners!
This could mean teaming up to:
“There were so many times where I knew what I was feeling, but I chose to neglect it and push it down. Now going through this, I know it makes you so much stronger to be able to articulate what you’re feeling.”
It’s human nature to compare yourself with others — to friends, to co-workers, to neighbors. But remember: Our paths and our journeys are all unique.
Don’t judge yourself by the standards of someone else’s experience. Honor your own journey:
We're all stronger because of our diversity. Take a basketball team, for example. You wouldn’t necessarily want to field a team of five centers or five point guards. You need a range of roles and skills. The same applies to our lives.
Here are three places to start:
"We have to talk about [mental health]. … Now that we’re talking about it on a consistent basis, that alone does so much to put it on the forefront. It gives us the confidence to want to talk about it and tell our stories. The more stories that are told, the more confidence it gives in someone else’s life."
Mind Health is guided by the central idea of humanizing mental health. We promote overall wellness and optimal performance through education, proactive care, mental skill development, and direct support. Our mission is to engage, educate, and serve the NBA community and to position mental health as an essential element of wellness and excellence — both on and off the court.
We see mental health as a part of our lived experiences and are here to help you navigate challenges but to also help you identify mental health-related opportunities and strengths.
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