My mental health stack or 5 things I do when I feel like sh*t
Before we dive in, one disclaimer: I am not a therapist and this article is about what worked for me. I cannot possibly know what you are going through and whether my experiences apply to you. Use your judgement or speak to your doctor if you need to.
Ok, onto the article.
People talk about many things that could help them deal with themselves, and new methods sprinkle up every month, if not daily. Walks, ice-cold showers, meditation, therapy, yoga, eating well, exercise, journaling - the list goes on. There are definitely plenty of options, and each is enticing in its own way, especially because of the many records of people claiming it 'changed their lives'.
The tricky part is how to choose the one for you - you obviously can't do all of them because there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to look after yourself. And how do you choose? How can you know which one would bring some relief and comfort?
You try, of course. You could, for example, try each of them in the span of a week. But the problem is that, most likely, none of them would bring results in one week - you need to practice them over an extended period to see the benefits and sometimes develop a sufficient level of skill that will allow you to reap the benefits in the first place.
And it gets further complicated by the fact that, most probably, there is no single magic bullet. It is likely a combination of things that work well for you when practised together for a longer period.
So, how do you approach this?
My experience tells me that the best way to figure this out is through structured experiments that focus on one thing at a time and last long enough to allow you to draw conclusions.
So, here's an idea. The new year is approaching. And your resolution could be to develop your mental health stack in the next 12 months - because, yes, it will not be an overnight process. Here's how I would go about it:
- Pick 12 things you want to try
- Spend one month on each, tracking how you feel
- If it helps, add it to your mental health stack. If it doesn’t, discard it and move on.
Here are a few ideas to get you started, but this is what worked for me, so you will need to experiment to see what works for you.
1) Write your thoughts in a systematic and guided way
It's similar to the concept of journalling but tweaked to my liking.
I used to journal in a stream-of-consciousness type of way. I would write whatever came to my mind, which was very chaotic. If multiple things were on my mind, it was also difficult to come to closure on any one of them as my writing branched out in all possible directions without a single logical thread.
I then took a great course on processing emotions, where Emma McAdam - the author of the course and certified therapist - introduces multiple introspective exercises that help you deal with yourself. I consolidated these into a template in a tracking app (Daylio) that I use every time I sit down to sift through my thoughts and emotions.
The structure of the questions still allows me to write in a stream-of-consciousness way at the beginning when I go through exploratory questions. But then, the remaining questions guide me through rationalising types of questions and end with closing questions on possible solutions.
Guiding myself in this way has been very helpful in looking at everything on my mind and ensuring I 'conclude' each of them.
2) Read before bed
Quite self-explanatory.
I aim to be in bed by 9 PM and read for the last hour of my day to wind down. Particularly good bedtime reads are those that don't excite you very much - they can still be interesting, but make sure they calm you down rather than motivate you to action. Because of that, I would avoid anything on productivity, business, finance, thrillers etc.
There are times, though, when reading doesn't do the trick because there is something pulling on my attention. This is my sign that it is time to go back to writing. There was this video from The School of Life, where they explained that every hour of living requires 15 minutes of processing your thoughts and emotions. This may be unrealistic, but I always remember this concept when something is pulling on my attention when I try to chill and give it some sifting time.
3) Body scanning
I first learned about body scanning when I read New Earth by Eckhart Tolle a few years ago. He speaks about an exercise where you focus on the palm of your hand and feel it - just realise you have a hand and experience the sensations coming from it. It is a form of meditation because as you shift your attention to feeling, you can't focus on thinking - which gives your mind a rest and creates distance between your sensations and yourself.
If you would like to try it, do the following. Sit down, or lay down - it doesn't really matter - and focus your attention on your body. It might help to close your eyes to avoid distraction from visual stimuli. You can start with your toes and gradually go up, focusing on each part of your body for a few minutes. Or, what I prefer to do is feel my body as a whole. And that's it.
You might find some pleasant and unpleasant sensations in your body. But my biggest takeaway was to realise that whatever you feel, it is just that - a feeling. And if you approach it with curiosity and openness to sit with it, you realise that even if it might feel unpleasant, it isn't as bad as your mind made it out to be in the first place.
4) Exercise
Unless you've been living under a rock, I don't need to tell you that exercise is good for you.
If you don't move your body regularly and don't know what you vaguely like, approach it in the same way that I suggest approaching this whole mental health stack thing. Pick 12 activities, do one regularly for a month, and discard it if you dislike it, but stick with it once you land on something you enjoy. Try different times of day, intensities, places and frequencies - just find something that works for you.
5) Having my external world well-organised
I used to be super messy.
To illustrate just how messy, let me say that once, as I was moving out of a shared apartment and the landlord attempted to show my room to potential tenants, she could not open the door to my room because of the piles of clothes laying on the floor.
But then, by some miracle, I realised that keeping my place tidy and well-organised is so freeing and, although not obvious, is great for mental health (at least imo).
You focus better; you relax better; no tiny things are pulling on your attention randomly throughout the day and having a weekly clean is like a nice reset - leaving the past week behind and starting with a clean slate for the next one.
Conclusion
These five things have improved my mental health a lot. Together, they have helped me find ground under my feet when things get overwhelming. It is a really nice feeling to have a set of things you can do when things get stormy instead of simply waiting for the storm to pass. It has also helped me feel less worried (most of the time) about things getting stormy in the first place because I know there are these few things that can almost always get me out of it.
While it took me a while to find my mental health rotation, it was most definitely worth it, and I would recommend finding theirs to anyone.