Mental Health Tips Part 1 – Ep 14

0:00 Kerry

In the previous episode on mental health I talked about five things that others can do to help someone struggling with their mental health. In this episode I want to talk about 10 things that you can do to help yourself when you’re struggling on your own mental health journey. I actually have 21 things but I think 10 is enough for one video so I’m going to do this in two parts, part one and two. So let’s dive in.

10 Mental Health Tips

1. Take The Correct Medication For Your Mental Health Condition

1:04 Kerry

Number one – take your medication. Work with a qualified doctor who helps to adjust your medications to what you need. If you feel like they’re not working go back get another opinion even a second opinion until it’s right just for you. I know that taking my medications daily is what I need to do to stay on top of my mental health and I work with my doctor to ensure that they’re the right ones for me.

2. Routine

1:35 Kerry

Number two is routine. Although it might sound boring, it actually really really helps when I get up in the morning if I brush my teeth, do my face & have a shower. I feel more confident and ready to go. So right now I’m going to go for my little walk where I go down to the shops, I get a hot chocolate and then I come home and it’s part of my routine. It’s actually a really good incentive to get me out of bed. If I want a hot chocolate I’ve got to walk for it otherwise I don’t get it. So here I go.

Another part of my routine is I love to feel like I’m spoiling myself and I have this beautiful mug. So rather than drinking my hot chocolate from this I like to put it into this beautiful mug. I don’t know if you can see it. It’s got some beautiful roses on it and they remind me of my mum and the Cheltenham rose that she grows and the beautiful butterflies remind me of my gorgeous friend Fifi. I think of them when I drink my hot chocolate in the morning. Then I sit in my favourite corner. I have my hot chocolate and I read my bible.

The wonderful thing about routine is I don’t have to get up and think about what I’m going to do. I just get up and do it. Whether I feel good or I don’t feel good I know what to do. I just get up, follow my routine and then by the time I’ve done that I can decide what I want to do with the rest of my day, if anything.

Early on in my journey of getting into a routine I couldn’t actually do any routine. So I had a checklist that was up on my wall and it said things like get out of bed, have a shower, brush your teeth, wash your face and get dressed. They were the only things that I really could do each day. On the checklist I just ticked them off if I’d done them and that helped me when I couldn’t really think for myself.

Routine is so good for your mental health.

3. Exercise

4:02 Kerry

Number three is exercise. I know when your mood is really low it’s actually challenging to get up and to go and exercise but, if you do, it gets the endorphins in your body moving and working which helps the blood circulating in your brain. It helps to lift your mood. So some of the things I do. I love to go scootering. I love to go walking and as the weather warms up I’ll be able to go swimming as well. All really good things to help your mood.

4. Healthy Food

4:49 Kerry

Number four – healthy food equals healthy mind. I know it might not look like it but Stephen and I actually do eat very healthy. Once a week we have a treat. We go and buy an ice cream but the rest of the time we eat fruit, vegetables, meats and nuts. All things that help our brain to function well.

Basically when we go into a supermarket we shop from the outside of the store. We don’t go into the middle where all the processed foods are. We just shop in the fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, fresh meats and fresh breads and completely skip the middle. We eat non-processed foods 90 percent of the time.

Healthy foods lead to healthy brain.

5. Breathing Techniques

5:38 Kerry

Number five – breathing techniques. I know when I was a school principal and children came to the office because they were in distress, either they’d fallen over in the playground or there had been an incident and they were in a heightened state of anxiety, I would sit with them and I’d say ˝look me in the eyes˝. Then, as they looked me in the eyes I’d say ˝okay breathe with me˝ and we’d just take big breaths like… Then I’d say to them ˝okay drop your shoulders˝ because tension builds up in your shoulders. Then I’d say ˝shake your arms out˝. I would shake our arms out and it just lets all the anxiety out of the body and as they breathed with me they dropped their shoulders and they shook their arms. They came into a much better state of relaxation and anxiety was released.

So what I told the children to do I actually have to do for myself as well because that kind of breathing technique does help bring me from a heightened state of anxiety down to a more relaxed state. There are many techniques but the one that works for me is if I take a deep breath in and a deeper breath out. When I breathe out it’s like breathing through a straw. Let me show you. I’d find as I do that the anxiety, the stress, leaves and just a peace comes.

6. Self Soothing

7:33 Kerry

Number six – self soothing. It’s something that I do now quite naturally. I might rub myself, rub my shoulders or rub my arms. Sometimes I rub my forehead. These are all things that soothe me and help me to come down from a heightened anxiety.

I’m going to just put the video of when I fell in the water. As i got out i actually started self-soothing. While I was talking you can see that I’m in a heightened state of anxiety because I start to stutter a little bit but then I start soothing myself quite naturally. That’s something that I’ve developed over the last three years and I find that it actually does help me. Some people tap. I don’t like to tap because it reminds me of TMS and that’s not a good memory for me. So self-soothing, rubbing myself is something that I do that really does help just bring that anxiety down as well.

7. Weighted Blanket

9:06 Kerry

I’m going to tell you my secret weapon now. This is number seven for when I get really anxious and I’m out and I don’t want to look weird or strange. I always carry with me my cardigan and my backpack because if I get anxious I can take my cardigan off, put it on and it’s a bit like a weighted blanket. It brings comfort and I can wrap it around myself and I feel more secure. Then, because I don’t have a weighted blanket here, I get my bag and I put it on my lap and it becomes the weighted blanket so I have security. I can actually just sit here and look normal, kind of.

I’m actually waiting for a friend to come and we’re going to have a coffee together but because I’m anxious I’ve got my secret weapon ready.

8. No Shoulds

10:21 Kerry

Number eight – no shoulds. I don’t know about you but in my head I’m always saying to myself ˝I should do this. I should behave like this. I should be able to do this and I berate myself all the time˝. If you can take the shoulds out and say ˝well if I can I will or I’ll try˝ and just stop the shoulds, just take should out of your vocabulary and that will really help you because ultimately you’re doing whatever you can. You’re doing the best you can so don’t berate yourself. Stop saying ˝I should˝ and just cheer yourself on.

To add to the no shoulds there’s other language that we use that can be helpful or non-helpful. I wonder if you ever say things like ˝I’ll never be able to do that. It’s impossible. Everyone’s against me. Noone likes me. I can’t achieve anything. I must be broken˝. They’re all very strong statements and they’re all negative statements. So I have this little card that I use and I keep it in my wallet and it just reminds me that the language I use is really powerful and it does impact on my mental health. So just as I don’t use shoulds, I try not to use some of those as well.

9. Fragrances

11:46 Kerry

Number nine and perhaps one of my most favourite mental health tips to really help boost my mood and my mental health is these beautiful fragrances that I can have around me. What happens is that inside our nose there’s cells that are connected to our limbic system. Our limbic system is responsible or governs our emotions, behaviour and long-term memory. By using fabulous smells to our advantage it can really help boost our mood. Let me give you some examples:

I know that, for me, smells really contribute to affecting my mood. increasing my mood and helping my mental health. When I was in the hospital I had a very bad panic attack and the nurses got some rosemary from the garden and some geranium from the garden and I remember them just putting it under my nose and suddenly I was just able to focus again. It brought me back from that state of panic and that heightened anxiety and brought me back into a positive mental health state again. It took some time but it was used as a tool to help me.

I love to keep all of these smells around me each day and these produce feel good hormones in my body and they lift my mood and help me with my mental health.

10. Mind, Body and Spirit

14:54 Kerry

Number 10 is actually one that’s often ignored and it may be one of the most important mental health tips. We need to recognise that we’re not just body and we’re not just mind. We’re body, mind and spirit. So if I don’t work on my spirit life then part of my healing won’t be complete.

For me, spirit is my connection with God. Some might prefer to think of this as their higher power. Regardless of how you perceive your spirit life if we neglect this area it’s difficult to heal completely.

What I did was I got a Bible and each day I opened it up and used a pencil to highlight something that jumped out at me. I’d write comments and dates and then the following day I’d read another little portion and then the next day another little portion. Some days it was just one or two verses. Other days it was a whole chapter. Some days it was a couple of pages. What I found in doing this is that the word and the spirit from the Bible was touching my spirit and helping me to come alive .

We all need to have connection and for me it was connection with people and also with God. This is something that I found helped me with my body, my mind and my spirit to bring me more on the journey towards wholeness and healing. I’m not there yet but I’m certainly on the way.

So that’s it. 1 to 10 mental health tips you can do yourself on your mental health journey. In the next episode on mental health I’ll do 11 to 20 plus one bonus extra. So stay tuned for that and I’m really hoping that these things will help you just as much as they’ve helped me.

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