Tips for Taking Care of Your Mental Health
Let’s be honest, 2020 has been a bit of a shitshow. We’re still having to navigate living in a pandemic whilst holding all the stress, anxiety and grief that the last 7 months have thrown at us, and face up to the fact that it’s unlikely that things will ease off for a while yet.
In honour of World Mental Health Day (10th October), I’ve compiled a list of tips for taking care of your mental health. It’s important to take care of - and talk about - our mental health every single day, not just on annual “awareness days”. We need to encourage each other to open up on the good days, and the not-so-good days, because doing so will help to end the stigma around talking about mental health struggles.
Sleep
Sleep is so important for our overall health and wellbeing, but it’s often relegated to the bottom of the priority pile. So many people aren’t getting enough sleep, and build up a kind of “sleep deficit” that they try to rebalance at the weekend with a lie-in.
The problem with this strategy is that the body isn’t getting enough consistent rest to heal if it needs to, and the brain doesn’t have enough time to process each day properly. This means that you’re more likely to feel tired and irritable, lack focus and energy, and become susceptible to illness.
To improve your sleep: have a regular bedtime (even on weekends and holidays when possible!); switch off electronic devices like tablets and mobile phones at least 1 hour before you go to sleep; read a book or listen to the radio, a podcast or an audiobook; meditate or practice yoga, and keep a sleep and/or dream journal.
Diet & exercise
It’s easy to underestimate the power of eating well and exercising regularly, especially because so much of daily life revolves around screens and eating “on-the-go”. I’m not going to preach to you about what to eat or the “best” exercise because we’re all different and want, need and like different things.
What I will say though, is that cooking and exercise can become habits. Habits are like muscles: the more we use them, the stronger they’ll become, and the easier it will be to keep doing them without overthinking.
It’s important to find meals that you enjoy cooking and eating, and exercise that doesn’t feel like a chore or punishment. If you can share these things with someone else - whether that’s a partner, friend, colleague or other relative - then great! Doing so will help you to stay motivated and can be a good way to keep you accountable.
Try not to beat yourself up if you have an “off” day. It can be helpful to be curious about why you’re not feeling inspired to eat well and exercise because this can help you to identify what you need. Maybe you need to do something different, or have a chat to someone who encourages you? Or perhaps you just need to rest, and that’s okay too. Each day presents an opportunity to reset and try again, so don’t feel too deflated.
Social media & current affairs
Like a lot of people, I have to minimise how much time I spend on social media, and how much news I consume, simply because it utterly drains me to hear about the latest shitstorm.
It’s okay to take a break from these things when you need to. Social media is specifically designed to keep us hooked on it, and to keep checking it compulsively (I’ll be talking more about this in a future post, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested!). You don’t need to justify or explain why you’re switching off for a bit, you’re allowed to hold that boundary and do what you need to do to take care of yourself.
Follow accounts that help you to feel better and part of a community, and unfollow the ones that don’t. Just like in the “real” world, you can choose who you interact with, and if someone is upsetting and antagonising you, it’s okay to disengage from that.
The 24 hour news cycle is, in my humble opinion, one of the worst things ever to have been created! It deliberately feeds our anxieties, and adds to feelings of stress and overwhelm. In a time of “fake news”, it can be hard to differentiate between what’s real and what isn’t, and social media plays a big part in this.
It’s okay and important to stay informed to an extent, especially at the moment when restrictions are changing regularly, but you can control how much time and energy you put in to this. Personally, I check the news no more than once a day, and if I sense that I’m not in the right headspace to manage that, I won’t check it at all.
Talk about your feelings
Okay, so as a therapist, I’m obviously going to recommend this one! But in all seriousness, talking about our feelings and our mental health is so important.
There’s still a lot of stigma around this, and many people think that acknowledging that they’re struggling makes them weak. I promise you, it doesn’t. If we don’t talk about how we’re feeling, those feelings get bottled up and eventually we explode.
The “explosion” can be anger, but it can also be sadness, burnout, anxiety, and withdrawal. Many people wait until they’re “in crisis” or “at breaking point” before they reach out and ask for help, and this is often because they either “don’t want to bother you”, or think that they “should be able to cope with this”.
Everyone needs help and support from time-to-time, and there is no shame in asking for this. Not everyone feels able to ask explicitly for help, so if you notice that someone is behaving differently or that they don’t seem like themselves, it’s okay to ask if they’re alright. They might not open up straightaway, but please keep checking in anyway; this will help them to feel safe.
Have you found these tips useful? Are there any others you would add? Let me know in the comments or you can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram @emmapooleytherapy. Please keep checking in with each other, and as ever, if you’re struggling and think I might be the therapist for you, feel free to get in touch with me using the form below.