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Health

19 small changes people made that had a huge impact on their mental health

Sleep is a big one.

mental health, life hacks, self-care
via Pixabay

A woman embraces a beautiful new day.

Mental health is a very complex issue and it would be naive to say there are quick and easy solutions to significant issues. However, there are many things in our lives we often overlook that may be bringing us down that can be substituted for simple habits that can help bring us back up.

The National Institute of Mental Health says that maintaining our mental health requires routine maintenance known as “self-care.”

“Mental health is more than the absence of a mental illness—it’s essential to your overall health and quality of life,” the Institute says on its website. “Self-care can play a role in maintaining your mental health and help support your treatment and recovery if you have a mental illness.”

This perspective on mental health suggests it’s just as important to focus on our mental well-being as we do on our physical. The NIMH says that cultivating an attitude of gratitude, regular exercise, getting enough sleep, eating healthy and staying hydrated can all have a positive impact on our mental health.

A Reddit user by the unfortunate name pissed_at_everything reached out to the online forum asking people to share the small changes they’ve made that had a big impact on their mental health. The post received nearly 5,000 pieces of advice.

"What is something that drastically improved your mental health?" they posted on the AskReddit subforum. A lot of people said that eliminating toxic things from their lives had a big impact, whether it was social media, people or negative self-talk. There are bound to be a few suggestions on the list that can help you, too.

Here are 19 of the responses we thought were most helpful.

1.

"Sleep." — ortolon

2.

"Silencing my activity on social media, and replacing my time spent on there by reading books instead. I’ve finished 6 books since the start of January. I feel so good about myself because of it." — chick3nslut

3.


"Knowing it's okay to leave some people behind." — Black_Guardian-

4.

"Being honest and transparent about how I'm feeling. 'I'm not mad at you, my brain just hates me right now,' has helped mitigate lots of fights and awkward conversations." — Nillabeans

Ansteve1 added:

"Being honest with myself and those closest really helped. Even on bad days I don't feel like I am hopeless."

5.

"Something small that has helped me is saying aloud 'What a beautiful day, today is.' It’s small but I have better outlook." — turtlepawa123

6.

"Exercise." — iamnobody1970

Counterboudd added:

"It sucks at how well it works. I used to hate my mom telling me that exercise would reduce my depression but she was absolutely right. The issue is that when you’re really depressed it’s the last thing you feel like doing. But nothing else has as much of a positive effect on my mental state as regular exercise."

7.

"Taking vitamin D and B supplements and getting enough sleep. Really helped reduce excessive thinking and fixating on negative things from my past." — AnDagdadubh

Tracknumberseven added:

"One exercise I sort of figured out myself is: Whenever I find myself regretting things or remembering embarrassing moments is to tell myself to 'look forward, not backwards' and I'll start thinking about things I'm looking forward to or things I'm grateful for.

"If I can't think of any of these things then I'll think of things I don't have to worry about, like having a paycheck. Failing any of that I go smaller and think about positive times, making someone laugh or helping someone out and usually by that time I've forgotten about whatever I was thinking about in the first place."

8.

"Deleting my Facebook account." — theStormweaver

MichaelM_yaa added:

"Yeah, so it turns out that the algorithms that keep users addicted to social media are WAY more powerful than the AI bots that can beat the best chess players in the world. People tend to engage media that makes someone enraged or negative. it further polarizes humans. it also is a massive disinformation sink as a majority of its users do not fact check any info they see."

​9.


"Moving to a place that wasn't winter 8 months of the year and I was close to the ocean. Haven't felt suicidal in over a year and a half, probably for the first time since i was 16." — wyrd_werks

10.

"Getting a job that paid a living wage improved my mental health 1000%." — rigel899

11.


"Enforcing boundaries in work." — SmartPromegranate4833

12.

"Saying no to things that I don't actually want to do instead of trying to help everyone out." — LoanOptionsai

13.

"Stopping hormonal birth control. Didn't realize how much it was messing with me." — impossibility_day27

14.

"Eating breakfast.

"I'd often describe to my boss and coworkers that I'd have a really bad brain fog that I sometimes couldn't think at all. I usually wouldn't eat until around 1pm or 2pm when I'd been up since 9am. I had to start getting up around 8am or sometimes 7am and I would have extra time to get food.

"Once I did, the brain fog went away and the change was immediate." — Christygl7


15.

"Quit having grudges with people. Let them go and you’ll be relaxed." — Weak_Carpenter_7060

16.

"Adult hobbies. Surfing. Fishing. Running. Mine are solo activities, but you just need something challenging that you have to work at to get better. It gives you little things to look forward to so you’re not focused on all the depressing bs." — musashi-swanson

17.

"Cutting back on negative self-talk. It’s difficult to stop doing and to catch myself thinking poorly about myself but I try my best. I’ve started replacing it with kind things in a sarcastic tone, for example I often call myself a 'national treasure' or 'god’s favorite' (i am not religious, it just makes me smile) and the sarcasm scratches the itch, it works very very well. My goal is then to replace the sarcastically nice self-talk with genuinely kind and positive self-talk.

"It's helped tremendously with my self image honestly." — bunnihun

18.

"I take ten minutes a day (usually before bed) to tidy things up. I'm always surprised at how much I can get done in just ten minutes, and it's so much easier to keep the place clean that way. When things start getting really bad, the fact that I've always got a clean place is incredibly helpful." — future-unperson

19.

"Stopped paying close attention to the news. I realized I wasn't going to be making a big change in the world and all it was doing was getting me upset so I stopped. The world is just as messed up and/or ok as it was then and I'm much less stressed about it all." — rhett342

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Family

Heartbroken wife files for divorce after DNA test reveals 2-year-old son isn't hers

She first became suspicious when her son didn't have blue eyes.

via Liza Summer and Liza Summer

A woman in distress contemplates her future.

It’s pretty common to hear a story about a man whose life is turned upside down after a DNA test proves that he’s not the father of a child he thought was his. However, hearing a mother dealing with the same scenario is rare. That’s why a recent post on Reddit has so many people talking.

A user named ThrowRA-3xbetrayal claims that a DNA test shows her husband is the father of the 2-year-old boy they’ve raised but she isn’t the biological mother.

The story began 6 years ago when the couple tried to conceive but had no luck. The woman then discovered she had a “medical condition” that meant she couldn’t bring a baby to term, which resulted in a partial hysterectomy. The woman, who refers to herself as the family’s “breadwinner” took on multiple jobs to pay a surrogate to have their child.

“I still had my ovaries so we started looking into cost of a surrogate. It is really expensive! My close friend since college who'd already had 2 kids of her own, offered to serve as the surrogate for us to cut down on costs. After two disappointing IVF sessions that did not result in pregnancy, she became pregnant on the 3rd try and carried a boy to term for us,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote.

The couple was over the moon after the birth of the boy and the surrogate became a bigger part of their lives.

dna test, paternity test, maternity testA woman in distress being comforted.via Liza Summer

“My friend and my husband started talking more and I would sometimes come home from my weekend job to find her already hanging out at our house when my husband was there,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “I chalked it up as innocuous and it's good for her to know my husband better since she was in the process of hopefully carrying our child for us. I was grateful to have someone helping us have a child.”

But the mother became suspicious because the baby’s eyes were brown when she and her husband’s were blue.

The mother took the child to a doctor’s appointment and she received some devastating news. She discovered that her son’s blood type is B+ while his father’s is O+ and She is A+. The doctor said it was “biologically impossible” for her son to have that blood type given his parents’.

ThrowRA-3xbetrayal thought the fertility clinic made a horrible mistake. She took a DNA test and found that her husband was the boy’s father, but she was not the mother. “Then my husband confessed that he'd slept with my friend (our surrogate) on a few different occasions during our struggle to have her get pregnant with our embryos,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “This means what I thought was our son conceived by IVF and carried with a surrogate isn't my son at all and was, in fact, conceived the old-fashioned way, which I can't ever do.”

The woman says that the terrible news felt like a triple betrayal. The woman has decided to divorce her husband and wants to give up any parental rights to the child. Her husband, the surrogate and her family all believe that she’s wrong to give up rights to the child that she’s raised for 2 years.

She asked Reddit’s AITA forum to tell her if she was in the wrong and the community responded with overwhelmingly positive support, affirming her tough decision.

dna test, paternity test, maternity testA happy toddler playing on the beach. via Taryn Elliott/Pexels

The most popular commenter said that she should sue the surrogate for taking her money without having her baby. “One of the things that gets me is that you were working extra jobs to pay for the surrogacy which I am assuming included her medical bills and financially supporting her. I would speak to a solicitor about suing her for your money back. She knew that if she was having sex then there was always a chance that the child was biologically hers,” they wrote.

Another affirmed the wife’s decision to leave her husband and to surrender any parental rights. “He cheated... it's not yours. I will absolutely tell you what I tell men posting this. It would be wonderful if you love the kid enough to stay, but if you're in shock and damaged too much to do so, you aren't the A**le for walking away,” they wrote.

Another pointed out that if a man were in this position, no one would judge him for giving up his parental rights. “If these roles were reversed and you were a man saying that his wife had cheated and had another man’s baby, people would have no problem telling him that he’s within his rights to leave and have nothing to do with the child if he doesn’t want to,” the commenter wrote.

If the story that ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote tells is true, it’s an incredible tragedy. She fought so hard to have a child only to realize she was living a lie two years later. So, let’s hope she found some solace in the hundreds of people who supported her decision to move on with her life while also sharing some great advice on going forward.

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Education

Why every American should be poor at least once in their life

People who've always been financially comfortable really have no idea.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya/Pexels

Being poor for a while is an eye-opening experience.

Let me start by saying that no one should have to live in poverty. I do, however, believe that every American should experience being poor at least once in their life.

I've never lived in true poverty, thankfully, but I've been poor. I've eaten government cheese. I've internalized the principals of "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" out of necessity. I know what it's like to pinch every penny and to not even think about buying anything "extra." I know the anxiety of paying for a car repair with a credit card that I can only afford minimum payments on, knowing the interest I can't afford will keep piling up.

I've also been fortunate to experience financial comfort. Not enormous wealth, but having enough to not be concerned about affording every little thing I buy. I know how it feels to go to the grocery store without a calculator. I've blown a tire and had the money to cover it. I've been annoyed instead of terrified when I have to replace an appliance. I've been able to take a vacation and splurge a little.

Being financially comfortable is better than being poor, of course. But I don't think people who've never known true financial struggle have any idea how much better it is. They may joke about being "poor" when they have to save their money for something, but they've never experienced not having any money to save.

Being poor teaches you so many things, far beyond just how to budget. You learn that it's hard as hell to climb your way out of financial trouble, how it can feel like you're stuck in a toilet bowl that's constantly swirling and pulling you back down. You learn how expensive it is to be poor—knowing you could save money in the long run shopping at Costco and buying in bulk or stocking up on things during big sales, but you have to have extra means in the moment to be able to do that.

You learn that a few hundred dollars is actually a huge amount of money. You learn that a lot of what people spend money on is totally wasteful. You learn which things are actually worth spending money on (brand names don't matter, shoe quality does). You learn to make excuses for not being able to go on fun outings with friends because you don't want to say, "Sorry, I can't afford that" and feel the awkwardness of it all.

What's surprising, though, is how much more you learn about being poor once you do have some financial ease. When you apply for a loan and get the best interest rates and the lowest fees because you have good credit and some money in the bank, you learn how much the system screws over poor people. When you are able to buy a car that doesn't constantly need repairs and furniture that doesn't fall apart after a year, it really sinks in how much more it costs to not have money. When you're able to pay less overall because you can afford the annual payment instead of the monthly payment for a service, you learn that having money saves money in ways you never imagined.

You learn gratitude for small things if you've been poor. The joy of treating yourself to a fancy coffee or some fresh flowers hits different when it's something you couldn't afford before.

You also learn that there are a lot of people who've never known financial hardship, and it blows your mind. As you spend more time in middle and upper middle class circles, you meet more and more people who aren't necessarily rich but who've never had to actually worry about money. It's not their fault, of course, but it's bizarre to witness these folks in the wild. Like, for some people, it's just normal to pay for a haircut and color at a salon every six weeks, as if it's no different than paying a phone bill. There are people who have never bought generic to save $.50 and simply wouldn't dream of doing so. There are people who set their thermostats to whatever temperature is comfortable and then just go about their day not thinking about their utility bill. It's unnerving to see things you know as luxuries just treated as the norm, to see how much freedom there is in simply not being poor.

But really, the most important lesson you (hopefully) learn from being poor is empathy. You learn not to judge someone for their financial situation. You learn that most people don't choose to be poor, and that it takes not just time and effort, but also luck and very often help, to get to a place of financial okay-ness. You learn that assuming anything about a poor person is likely wrong and that someone's financial situation is almost never a reflection of their moral character. You learn to be humble and kind and not take anything you have for granted.

I'm not saying anyone should go out and become poor on purpose. But even putting yourself through a mental exercise of trying to get by in a low-wage job or figuring out how you would handle a major financial setback can go a long way toward increasing understanding and empathy. Being poor isn't a necessity, but it does provide a valuable first-hand perspective that can be hard to get otherwise.

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Pop Culture

The Bee Gees a capella version of 'How Deep is Your Love' might be even better than the original

Only family can harmonize this well.

via Edu Seijas/YouTube

The Bee Gees singing "How Deep is Your Love" in 1998.

In 1998, the Bee Gees, brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, stopped by ITV’s “Des O'Connor Tonight” with acoustic guitars in hand to promote their recent release, “One Night Only,” an album and live concert DVD featuring many of the band’s biggest hits.

The highlight of the performance was when Barry got ready to strum his guitar for a performance of “How Deep is Your Love,” the 1977 megahit from the “Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack,” but instead chose to sing the song a capella.

Barry starts the song solo in his beautiful falsetto, but then, when his brothers join him, they create a wonderful harmony that only brothers can make. The show’s host, Des O’Conner, a notable singer himself, even joins in for a few bars.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Earlier in the performance, the brothers played their version of “Islands in the Stream,” a song made famous by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers in 1983 that was written by the Bee Gees. In 1998, the song was enjoying a resurgence as its melody was used in the song “Ghetto Superstar” by Pras of The Fugees.

Robin Gibb later admitted that the song was initially written for Marvin Gaye to sing, but he was tragically murdered in 1984 by his father. The band also had Diana Ross in mind while composing the tune.

During the appearance, the band also sang “Guilty,” a song that the Bee Gees wrote for Barbara Streisand and Barry produced in 1980.

You can watch the entire performance in the video below.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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The unexpectedly wild history of the word "soccer" has Americans feeling justified and a bit peeved

“So once again, it’s the English’s fault.”

Photo credit: Canva

Unexpected history of the word soccer has people giggling

America and England have a long history, something about kings, tea and taxes kicked the whole thing off. Since the establishment of the United States there has been this sibling like rivalry between the two countries. People in England make fun of Americans' accents and Americans tease the British about their food. It's generally playful and everyone has a chuckle.

One of the main points of good natured ribbing is the different words used by the two groups of people for common items. In Britain women's underwear are knickers, potato chips are crisps, French fries are chips, and biscuits are cookies. These things can get a bit confusing if you're unaware of the different names of things, but one of the most diabolically accidental jokes is the word soccer.

Americans know that soccer is a game that involves a black and white round ball being kicked down the field. In England this sport is known as football, which is obviously not the same as American football but the reason "soccer" is used in the U.S. instead of football has people feeling gaslit by an entire country.

Americans didn't invent the term soccer. Nope. Not even a little bit. On "Red Handed the Podcast," the two co-hosts discuss the origins of the word soccer leaving one of them shocked after she declared that the proper term was football.

"Did you know soccer was coined by none other than the English," one of the women asks before getting into the etymology of the word. "So, let me take you back to the 1800s. Association Football, as it was called, was shortened to just ASSOC."

She goes on to explain that in the late 1800s there was a brief fad of adding "er" to the end of some words, basically causing a shortened word to be lengthened. The whole explanation is quite fascinating but people are a little annoyed but also satisfied given that the British often poke fun at Americans calling the sport soccer. Turns out they were the culprits all along like some sort of multigenerational practical joke that's just been discovered.



"Everyone also hates America for the Imperial system, but England invented that too," one person declares.

"Is there no end to the villainy of the Brits," someone laughs while questioning the entirety of Britain.

"You come over here and made us use imperial units then bailed. Now you did soccer," another commenter exclaims their feigned frustration.

Things take a bit of a sassy turn as the realization hits others. One person scolds, "gaslighting a whole country is such a British thing to do." While another one teases changing the name of soccer in America, "I just think we (we being Americans) should stop calling it soccer and call it Metric Football instead."

In the end someone called it out for what it seems to be, "it’s giving older sibling vibes lol."

Now that this information has been shared in short form on the internet, Americans are likely not going to let this one go but it's all in good fun.

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Pop Culture

Singer performs original song Prince himself wrote for her and leaves "AGT" judges astounded

Liv Warfield gave "America's Got Talent" audiences a special gem by The Purple One.

Flickr/Wikipedia, America's Got Talent/Youtube

Prince would be so proud.

The Olympics might be over, but we are far from done at marveling at elite-level humans at the top of their game.

“America’s Got Talent” returned from its two week hiatus with eleven incredible acts, but it was R&B singer Liv Warfield who stole the show with her rendition of “The Unexpected,” a song that just so happened to be written specifically for her by Prince. No big deal.

Warfield had already wowed audiences with her initial audition, which earned a Golden Buzzer from Simon Cowell. But this next performance had Cowell saying “If this was the Olympics for singing, you would have won the gold medal.”

Judges Sofia Vergara and Howie Mandel echoed similar praises. Vergara called Warfield’s set “perfection,” while Mandel, a self-proclaimed Prince fan, told Warfield that The Purple One “knew what he was doing when he gave you this gem. That was a million-dollar performance.”

And it’s not hard to see why Warfield got such high remarks. Beyond her unbelievable vocals was her undeniable star power…as well as her ability to transport us all back in time to the days of 70s rock n’ roll.

As one viewer put it, “If Prince and Janis Joplin had a baby = Liv Warfield!”

Just watch:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Warfield’s connection to Prince began in 2009, when she joined his New Power Generation band. Though she noted that “backing up Prince was a dream,” not to mention the fact that she’s already made several chart topping achievements on her own, she still felt like her ultimate potential had yet to be reached. Hence her “AGT” audition, and now her quarterfinal performance which Cowell declared a defining moment in her career.

“It felt to me like all those years you’ve been climbing the ladder to where you want to be, it all came out in those three minutes,” he said.

Indeed, what a testament to the power of steadily going after your dreams. Raw talent is great, but even with god given gifts, there’s still so much work that goes into being ready for big opportunities. No matter how this competition fares, Warfield is a winner through and through.

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