The green ribbon—donned in May for mental health awareness month—is the international symbol for mental health awareness. If you see someone wearing a green ribbon in the month of May, they are making a statement that they care about and support mental health.

The Mental Health Association chooses a focus each year.  For May of 2023, the focus will be on “the way our neighborhoods and built environments—our physical surroundings—impact both individual and population mental health (www.mhanational.org ). Specifically, the focus will be on:  safe and stable housing, healthy home environments, neighborhoods and towns and the outdoors and nature.

The Mental Health Association hopes by focusing on these 4 specific topics they can get people thinking about how their surroundings impact mental health. Furthermore, they want to inspire people to change their surroundings if possible, or learn how to better cope if change is not possible. They have created a free toolkit that you can download from their website: www.mhanational.org to get you started.

I will speak more to this topic in the personal blog on this piece, but for now, I encourage you to take a mini-inventory of your environments (work, home, school) etc. and how you believe these environments impact your mental health. Do you feel better in some environments than others? Is it within your power to change anything in the environments that you feel are not serving you well? If so, what do those changes look like—are they personal (affecting only you) or larger (affecting the environment as a whole and others in it)?

If you are feeling overly-stressed, depressed or anxious, we can help. Our licensed mental health clinicians can provide the support and tools you need to learn how best to intersect with each environment you find yourself in. Just as you care for your physical health, your mental health is equally important. Please don’t hesitate to reach out today. Contact Life Enhancement Counseling Services at 407-443-8862 to schedule an appointment.