3 Proactive Mental Health tips you needed in your life, yesterday.

We hear the term mental health thrown around a lot these days and given the circumstances, we can understand why! Something that you may not have thought about is that the term ‘mental health’ is actually a neutral term. It simply refers to our psychological, emotional and social wellbeing. It is neither good nor bad but rather it lives on a continuum, where one can experience poor mental health or one can experience excellent mental health and everything in between. Our mental health determines many things; how we interact with people, how we navigate life’s everyday challenges and how we think and feel. Just like with our physical health there are things we can do to proactively support our mental health.

Unfortunately there is still a lot of stigma attached to living with poor mental health. Whilst things are slowly improving and it is more common now than ever for people to openly share about their struggles with mental health, most conversations are still had in hushed tones or in fear of certain people finding out. (But stigma is a topic for another time!)

I wanted to share some proactive mental health tips with you, things that you can do when things are okay. There are some tools that we need when we feel like things are melting down around us, I call these crisis mode tools but what we are thinking about today are the proactive mental health tools.

#1 Avoid the ‘it could be worse’ trap…

A common thing I hear when people talk about being stressed is this idea that ‘ oh you know, things could be worse.’ We have all looked at someone else’s struggles and thought well I am doing better than them so I should look at the bright side. The problem with this is that you are diminishing your experience in comparison to another’s. You are dismissing your own emotions. 

So firstly, repeat after me:

“My emotions are valid.”

“I give myself permission to feel this way.”

“My experience is not dependent on someone else’s.”

“My experience does not require validation from anyone else.”

Your experience holds value irrespective of the struggle and circumstances of others.

When we say, ‘X has it worse than me so I can’t complain’, we place our experience at the bottom of the pile. Think about it as though it were a broken ankle, if you continue to walk on it, you would most likely exacerbate the injury. Same goes for your emotional experience, which may mean by not acknowledging or validating your own experience, you are exacerbating the injury. Your experience holds value irrespective of the struggle and circumstances of others.

Acknowledging our experiences as valid helps us navigate them. Once we acknowledge our experiences we can get support. You don’t have to wait until you are in crisis mode before you can reach out for support. If you are having a tough time, if things feel overwhelming - that is okay. You don’t need to push through or battle to do it alone. There is support out there for you. You can go to a friend, a family member, anyone you trust to hold space for you. 

We can also extend this gift to others. It is important to note that validating is not the same as agreeing. When we think about validating another person’s experience, doesn’t mean we have to agree with them. We can feel differently but still hold space for someone else and what they may be experiencing. There is no right or wrong, but rather an empathetic acknowledgement of subjective experience. 

#2 Learn to respond rather than react - how to set boundaries for your mental health.

By asking yourself one simple question you can change your behavioural patterns. How do I want to respond to this situation? Let me back up here and give you a deeper explanation.

A-B-C

Antecedent - Behaviour - Consequence.

A very simple behavioural psychology theory. Antecedent is the thing that comes before a particular Behaviour, which creates a particular Consequence.

This is particularly helpful when it comes to behaviours we wish to change or even a consequence we want more or less of.

Who struggles with saying no?

Let’s set the scene: you’re at work and you are swamped! You have deadlines coming out the wazoo and your colleague who you get along with really well comes up to you and says that they are really struggling with something and because you are the expert in this can you please help me? Naturally we say, okay sure let me see what I can do and then 10 seconds later you face palm yourself thinking ‘why the hell did I just agree to that?!’

There are a couple of ways to look at this one depending on the individual but let’s say stress is the Antecedent, saying yes is the Behaviour and being overworked is the Consequence.

A - stress

B - saying yes

C - consequence

Maybe this is a pattern for you. Maybe this is new for you. Either way, how can we learn to respond rather than react? 

KNOW YOUR TRIGGERS (antecedents).

If you know that when you’re stressed you are more likely to say yes to things, leading to further stress then you know your trigger is stress. So what can you do?

When you’re stressed and you see that colleague coming up to you to ask you that question, pick up your things and run away. Lol jokes not really but you could if you needed to (it’s called an emergency action plan). No but seriously, take a breath and tell them you will get back to them. You can say, ‘Hey I’m sorry to hear you are struggling. I have loads on my plate right at the minute but is it okay if I assess the situation and get back to you (insert manageable time frame)?’ Acknowledging their needs whilst respecting yours - magic!

Get to know your triggers. Reverse engineer that shit, track it back, journal, voice note, whatever you need to do.

#3 Ask yourself WHAT instead of why.  

Take this nugget, put it in your pocket and keep it for a rainy rumination day.

The problem with why… so you know how the Titanic hit an iceberg? It was so devastating because most of the iceberg is below the water but we only see the teeny visible bit on top. Well, our consciousness is a little bit like that. So when we ask ourselves ‘why’ we are digging around our conscious mind thinking ‘why can’t I find this very specific and complex thing?!’ well babes, it’s likely to be buried deep in your unconscious mind.

Luckily, we have our friend ‘what’. Asking ‘what’ allows you to be very solution focused about it all. 

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and then I write down the things I feel overwhelmed about and it’s three simple things... If I asked myself ‘why’ do I feel overwhelmed by these three simple things I would be taking a futile dig around. However, if I changed the question slightly and asked:

What is making me feel overwhelmed right now?

What about these things are feeling big for me?

What small step can I take?

What can I plan for?

You get the picture… so try asking yourself what instead of why and see how that goes!

I hope these little nuggets of proactive mental health tips are useful for you. As always, healthy discussion is always welcome, what are your favourite proactive mental health strategies? Comment below!