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Multitask for Your Mental Health

While May is Mental Health Awareness Month, tending our mental health is important every month (and day!) of the year. Some aspects of improving mental health — such as working with a mental health professional — can take significant time and energy, but other acts of self-care can fit into the small nooks and crannies of our busy days while still improving our health in BIG ways.

Small Step: Check Out a Mental Health Matters Podcast

While you should definitely focus on one thing only when it comes to new, difficult, or dangerous tasks, you likely do many rote activities every day which don’t demand your full attention. A great way to shake up some of the more mundane tasks of your day (like folding laundry or doing the dishes) and boost your mental health is by introducing a new activity that you can accomplish simultaneously — through an act of healthy multitasking. Listening to a podcast is an easy way to do this.

The Mental Health Matters podcast, presented by Portico’s well-being partner, The Big Know, offers practical strategies for improving your mental health. Acclaimed author, psychologist, and speaker Dr. Elisha Goldstein talks with some of the world’s leading experts on topics such as:

  • The effects of stress and how viewing it in a more positive light may have benefits
  • The ways grief evolves and affects our lives, including the ability to feel pain as it directly correlates to our capacity to feel love
  • The benefits of resilience and simple practices for making it our default way of thinking
  • The role of parents’ expectations on their kids’ mental well-being and ways to help kids manage stress in unsettled times
  • The many benefits of happiness and how true happiness is not about what you own but how you live

Pick an episode that speaks to an issue you may be grappling with, and listen while making dinner, commuting, working out, getting ready in the morning, or any other time you find in your day when you can safely multitask. See if listening to a fresh perspective in the background can help to revitalize your routine moments, and in turn, your mental health.

Tip: For easy access from your phone, open Mental Health Matters using the button below. Tap the share image (Apple) or menu (Android) icon. Select “Add to Home Screen,” and enter a name for the shortcut, such as “Mental Health Matters Podcast.” A new icon that takes you right to the podcast will be added to your phone’s home screen.

Pick a Podcast

Motivated to do more?

An additional step anyone can try:

  • Like listening to podcasts and looking for one that intersects mental health concerns with faith insights for church leaders? Being Here —brought to you by Portico in partnership with The Big Know — invites us to learn together, listen to each other, grow together, and move forward together so we can be stronger and more resilient as a unique community.
  • Follow along with a 10-minute guided meditation from Deacon Tammy Devine. This Small Step invites you to take an intentional pause in your day to scan your body and listen to what it’s telling you, breathing out tension and inviting peace and relief in its place.

If you have ELCA-Primary health benefits with Portico:

  • Feeling overwhelmed with relationship troubles, overcoming anxiety or stress, dealing with money issues, or challenging situations caring for loved ones and need to talk with someone immediately? Call the Employee Assistance Program at 800.432.5155 or use the online scheduler to connect with an EAP counselor.
  • If you’re struggling with stress, social anxiety, depression, insomnia, or substance use and want to manage it privately and at your own pace, consider learning the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) through Learn to Live’s completely confidential online mental health program, available 24/7.
  • Check out Being for courses like Spiritual Recharge: Grateful and Grounded with Diana Butler Bass, Resiliency with Jenny Evans, Mindfulness with Alex Haley and Mariann Johnson, and Beating Burnout with ELCA pastors and church leaders.

If you have ELCA Medicare-Primary health benefits with Portico:

  • Call Humana at 888.445.4788 with questions about mental health services covered under your group Medicare Advantage plan, including telehealth services to connect with behavioral health specialists.
  • Find a calendar of live virtual events or see if a neighborhood center is near you on Humana’s Virtual Neighborhood Center.
  • Check Humana’s video library for recorded classes which can help you improve your emotional well-being such as gratitude journaling, meditation moments with a focus on different topics, and decompressing from stress.
  • Visit Humana’s website to learn more about mental well-being.

This information should not be considered or used as a substitute for professional health care advice. By providing this information, Portico Benefit Services is not providing any medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Each individual is responsible for his or her own health and medical treatment decisions. You should talk with your doctor to determine the lifestyle changes and health care treatment options appropriate for you.