J's Top 7 Tips For Staying Mentally Healthy

Usain Bolt reportedly fuels the world’s fastest body on a diet of mainly chicken nuggets and other fast food. Some people smoke and drink and never exercise a day in their life and live to be a hundred, while others who train hard and eat sensibly end up with high blood pressure--or worse--in their thirties. Some people seem to maintain good mental health with no apparent effort. Others of us really have to work for it.

I am one of those who has to “work out” hard to maintain mental health. So here is my regimen for staying in good mental shape:

1. Physical exercise. Our minds are thoroughly intertwined into our bodies, so good mental health needs good physical health. I have started many workouts feeling depressed, but have finished very few while still in a bad mood. It’s pretty much a fool-proof mood-lifter. Regular exercise has been shown to improve self-esteem, decrease stress, and regulate blood sugar levels. Exercise is also an important part of good sleep hygiene (see number 2, below!)
2. Sleep! It is one of the best medicines for the brain; in fact, the brain actually heals itself during sleep. Sleep also promotes and cements learning, which is particularly critical during periods of intense therapy while you re-learn and re-direct thinking patterns.
3. Cut yourself yards and yards of slack. Chronic illnesses always come with their set of restrictions on energy, motivation and strength. Our culture disproportionately values busyness and productivity. Your worth is not determined by how much you can get done in a day! Know your limits, know your priorities, and choose accordingly how to invest your energy. Then be unapologetic--to others and to yourself--about those choices. When your lack of energy chooses for you, be unapologetic about unscheduled breaks.
4. Get sunlight or light therapy. A lot of people insist on the importance of getting outside for fresh air. I have no doubt it is critical for some people, and have found the outdoors to lift my spirits sometimes as well. However, I actually get a lot more pleasure and stress relief from curling up inside with a cup of tea and a book, than from a walk outside. Outdoor pursuits are also complicated by my disorder--a lot of my fears are around going outside. Now, I do NOT advocate staying indoors and never challenging those fears. On the contrary, challenging my fears has been my door to recovery. But I can’t string myself taut on a line of fear all the time and remain mentally healthy! There are days when I just need to stay in my comfort zone and regain strength for the next round of fear-challenging. But I do find that it is important to get sunlight. I live far enough up my hemisphere however that for much of the year, even if I did spend every daylight hour outside, it still would not be sufficient sunlight for my brain chemistry. So I have a light therapy lamp. I use it mainly in the winter months, but it is helpful all year long.
5. Breathe. There is so much power in just breathing. Several times throughout the day I try to stop and focus only on breathing. It is tremendously calming. It’s my reset button.
6. Re-focus. There is so much involved in this idea, and no way I can sum it up in a single post, but essentially if a particular thought is dragging you down or causing severe emotional pain, it is time to let it go. Thoughts just aren’t worth suffering for. Seriously, it is just a thought. Thoughts that “aren’t working” need to be challenged--often repeatedly--and redirected. You may need help with identifying and challenging problematic thought patterns. This is why therapy is so critical. Now that I know where my mind tends to go and which problematic patterns I am most prone to, I am ready with an arsenal of re-directing thoughts to counter the destructive ones.
7. Treat yourself like a friend. When your self-talk turns dark, think about what you would say to a friend who was telling themselves things like that. Now practice looking in the mirror and being a friend to yourself. There is no reason on earth (or in heaven!) that you shouldn’t treat yourself as well as you treat your friends.