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Have you ever had one of those months where your mind just won’t clear up? This happens to me in the spring when I need to increase my allergy medication. Claritin clear? Claritin wonky is more like it!

Anyway, this year it seems to be having a detrimental effect on my editorial skills. Typos and misspelled words are getting by me at an alarming rate.

So what do I do? I slow down. I take things off my to do list and try my best to be OK with accomplishing less.

Sometimes, you just need a break. And, if you won’t take on voluntarily, your mind, body or spirit will force the issue.

Everyone experiences stress. Some people experience a lot of stress, but do not let it get to them. Then there are people that get too stressed out — everything gets to them.

A case in point: I’m a very anxious person. I can stress out easily. I’ve learned a few techniques (which I’ll share a little later) for dealing with this, but my body can still tell me I’m stressed when I’m not conciously aware of it.

Now, given that everyone experiences stress — it is a perfectly natural reaction to certain circumstances — what does this mean for you?
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Since this section of The Holistic Writer is all about the mind, I thought I’d cover some basics of mental health. A healthy mind is free to be a creative mind that supports your writing talent.

Definition

Mental health is defined as a state or condition on which an individual feels a sense of well-being. This gives him or her the capacity to live life in fulfillment of what he or she wants to achieve in accordance to the available resources. This condition also provides an individual the capacity to be resilient to the stresses he or she meets and to respond to these challenges without having to compromise his or her well-being. This also makes him or her productive and fruitful for him- or herself and the community.

Mental wellness could also be defined as the lack of mental problems or disorders. People who do not present diagnosable behaviors that could qualify as a mental disorder are seen as mentally healthy. For example, a man with an obsession on things may not necessarily have a mental disorder like obsession. Thus he is said to have mental wellness. But when this obsession is combined with an unrelenting compulsion to do the object of obsession, the person may be diagnosed with a mental disorder called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD.
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