Sometimes you have to throw your board and yell obscenities. 

It's good for your brain. 

Skateboarding is often synonymous with activities that negatively impact mental health; booze, drugs, and other forms of celebrated self-destruction. 

Those may be true for some, but there's one positive mental health practice in skateboarding the average person doesn't have the luxury of partaking in. 

'The freak out.' 

Sometimes the session is going great, your tricks are locked in, your crew is all there, and everything feels right. 

Other times, nothing is working, you can't stop thinking about life's problems, and you're an hour deep into trying the same trick with a meltdown on its way. 

Frustration boils over, board tossed, curses yelled, and anyone passing by assumes you've lost it. 

The emotions are already there; the board gets them out.

We are part of a community where it's acceptable to let it out. Even the seemingly psychotic moments. 

If an office worker were having a bad day and threw their phone or computer across the room, there would be repercussions. 

We're allowed the same with no penalty or even a second look from our friends. We've all been there. Must be having a bad day or struggling with something.

If you're going through a rough patch, go skate. Hopefully, it goes well and makes you forget all about it. 

If it doesn't. 

Take advantage of skateboarding and the therapy that most of the real world isn't allowed.  

Zone out to the repeated failed attempts, give in, and completely lose your shit. 

Getting through life's misses is more important than the make.