New Moon Phase Feature for eMoods!
Happy Moon Day! For as long as we’ve existed, humans have been obsessed with the moon. On July 20th, 1969, we finally stepped foot on its surface: a vicarious human achievement through astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11.
It’s only fitting that July 20th is National Moon Day. Yes, technically it says ‘national’, but we feel that reaching the moon is a humanity-wide achievement.
You can learn more about it on the National Day Calender website-- they have some great reading suggestions about Apollo 11, too! 👨🏼🚀
In conjunction with Moon Day, we’re thrilled to announce that Moon Phases are here for iPhone and Android! Nature is a huge part of our individual and collective healing as human beings. 🌙🌱🔥🌊💨⛰🦅
You can now keep track of your sleep, moods, and medications while taking a step to becoming more present in our natural world by correlating your inner-self with the natural cycles of the moon.
(Of course, if this isn’t your thing, you can leave this setting off in the app! ✌️)
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eMoods and the Black Mental Health Alliance
We are pleased to announce a new partnership between eMoods and the Black Mental Health Alliance!
The Black Mental Health Alliance's mission is to "develop, promote and sponsor trusted culturally-relevant educational forums, trainings and referral services that support the health and well-being of Black people and their communities".
We strongly believe in BMHA's mission because we feel that it works towards making mental health treatment into a community process, and understands that providing respect and understanding to those working towards a path of healing is so important. Ending stigma and marginalization in mental health-- and especially within the Black community-- is such a critical piece towards people living their best lives.
We will be offering up eMoods Insights Enterprise Portal accounts to BMHA’s provider directory as our first round of users once it is launched later this Summer (Winter for folks in the Southern Hemisphere! 😀). In addition, we hope to work with BMHA’s youth services to encourage self-guided tracking/journaling as part of mental health recovery.
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Hey, how’s your Vitamin D?
Vitamin D is crucial for mental health, even for kids (as per this 2021 study). We’re not kidding.
The effect of vitamin D has been studied in relation to a variety of health issues. While most of these studies relate to autoimmune or neurocognitive issues, there’s also a lot of data in relation to mental disorders and depressive therapy, and the results are resoundingly positive. 🌞
The exact details on how vitamin D helps mental health are unknown, but we do know that vitamin D has the potential to cross the blood-brain barrier, meaning it can make its impact directly on the central nervous system. This explains why it’s so effective for mental health therapies. 🌱
There is risk of toxicity at high levels, though, so if you think you need to supplement beyond daily recommended values in over the counter vitamins, talk to your doctor-- taking too much vitamin D can cause nausea, vomiting, irregular heart rhythms or mental status changes.
For most of us, though, sufficient vitamin D comes from a proper diet and safe exposure to sunshine ☀️ (preferably while exercising). It’s simple and free, so get out there for a walk and soak in some good mental health!
References
Cover photo credit to NASA/JSC, found online at https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/187/apollo-11-mission-image-view-of-moon-limb-with-earth-on-the-horizon/ .