 Hey what's up you guys, welcome to my channel, if you're new here, hi, hello, my name's Lydia and today I'm gonna be talking about how to take care of yourself and your mental health during this whole, I can't say the word, because YouTube don't like the word. I do have a little plan, I wrote down, I made this last night, but basically what I want to talk about today is how you can take care of your mental health during this time and why it's important to do so. I do want to add, please follow your local government's procedure lockdown and only go out when you need to. Other than that, stay at home, it doesn't matter if you've got the virus, got symptoms, for all you know you could be a carrier of it and you might not be affected by it, but you're carrying the disease and it goes on to someone else and we're trying to prevent death here. That being said, getting fresh air is super important and if you're in the UK, this is the lockdown protocol, yes the police have got more powers now, I did talk about this in yesterday's video. I have five little tips for maintaining your mental health, I also have some self-care ideas and a few things I want to add into this video, but to start with, feel like we should start with the self-care idea, because I think it's all nice though, I'll just get into the video. I have a self-care box, this crisis box, whatever you want to call it as, I did a video showing what's in mine and I'll put that on the little i-card, whichever side it may be, I think it's outside. I never know, when I'm filming it gets even that side of that, I'll flip it regardless, but it's one of the sides. So my self-care box has been super handy during this actually, I have been struggling with it all and you know, it might be a box that filled with random things but they keep me busy and distracted and that's the way it wants me to be. So some ideas I have and down on here anyway is face masks. So self-care ideas, we've got space masks, space masks, face masks, decorate in your room, I have my fairy lights, they're not plugged in, shut up a minute, decorate in your room, I'm going to be doing this later on, I'm going to be redecorating it, oh yeah, I'm ready, someone's to help. Virtual Netflix, now this isn't, I think it's really cool, I didn't know it, I knew it existed, but I never did it this way. There's an app you can get now where you can virtually watch Netflix with your friends, your family, without being, without breaking the social distancing rule and regulations and highly recommender. And another important thing is two FaceTime friends, family, like I, again, I haven't done this myself but I don't, I don't talk to my family really and after last night, there is no chance. Keeping in contact with friends and loved ones, that's not really important. Another self-care thing I like using is my weight blanket because my PTSD has been, it's been taking me for a ride, but I like using my weighted blanket, I find it really grounding and generally I just like using everything. Scrapbooking, like recently I've been doing like a page a day where I've been drawing poetry, diary entries, like I've been doing it, I'm playing baby with it, so I need to stick it into my scrapbook, which I'm going to do later on today. Another thing is writing. I've been doing this as well, I've been writing like songs and all of that because while I'm teaching myself the ukulele finally. Colouring books, you know I recommend these anyway, I love them. Colouring books, highly recommended, you can get them for super cheap on Amazon if you haven't got one. Also, quickly to add into this video, I am doing the giveaway that ends in 10 days and I've got 464 entries to go through. How fun. There is also daily entries you can do on the giveaway. The giveaway is for a free, fully customised self care box, which at the moment I think we could all do with. And another thing that I like doing that I classify as self care is watching a candle melt. I find it so relaxing and I like ask anyone who's been in my flat, like I will let a candle and just sit and play with the melted wax because it's important to things like I'm, I'm a freak. There's just some little self care ideas and obviously it was like showering, taking care of yourself. I know a lot of us are struggling with motivation right now, I mean I know I am, I know a few other people are, like my motivation is just nothing. I don't know, I was struggling last week with it but I was still trying to use every day and honestly draining me. Like this weekend I adore to get food. Moving on to maintaining your mental health because I have five little tips you guys. So one, take medication and do your best to stay in contact with your mental health team. And I'm saying this because people online have been spreading around that mental health teams aren't working they're not accepting referrals, they're not accepting admissions and I just want to take a minute to say that's completely untrue. I personally know four people who are in hospital at the moment and two of them got admitted since the lockdown was put in place. So I can't confirm. They don't live in London, they don't live in London either, they live in other parts of the UK. They are still fully functioning and that's important to say because people have been saying oh there's no point for them without help. My mental health team is still running fully operational and fully functioning and I should say I'm not under the community mental health team, I'm under the recovery support team which is different to a community means I operate differently. I'm under that team because they suit my needs but yes they are still all working mainly via phone so yes it's not face-to-face but a lot of them are doing phone call appointments which if you're struggling honestly don't be afraid to seek help. Like just don't. I know that's easiest and I'll get back onto this in a minute. Number two is because a lot of us are online now and spending more time online block the negativity. Nobody wants to see people hating on other people. It's not fun, it's not cool, it's not trying to go. So what I'm saying is if people start harassing you, going off on one at you, screenshotting every tweet you post because they haven't got any of the best view of their lives. Number three is to build a crisis plan and I'm going to do a whole video where I share what I did and make one with you. I'm going to be doing that at some point so stay tuned for that. Number four don't be afraid to seek your mental illness. Just not care that there is a global pandemic at the moment. I wish it got the memo to be honest because I don't know like the whole social isolation's just worse and don't be afraid to seek help, don't be afraid to phone crisis numbers. Number five which is the last little point, make sure you keep in contact with friends and family. I said it before, I'm going to say it again it's important. So there is one thing that I want to end this video on and before I answer that, if you're new and you're still here, subscribe. If you have any video ideas or requests leave them in the comments below and this is what I want them to say. Don't tell anybody they shouldn't be seeking support or help for their mental health just because there is a global pandemic going on and mental illness doesn't care that's going on. A lot of us struggle with social isolation already and this whole lockdown thing has made that 10 times worse. Obviously the lockdown was needed but it doesn't mean that we're all gonna cope with that. Mental illness doesn't just come and go because other things are going on in the world, it is there regardless. It's not okay to tell anybody that they shouldn't be seeking support, it's not okay to tell people they can't take care of their mental health. Your mental illness doesn't give a fuck. Yes there's a global pandemic but you know, what's the worst is still there.