World Mental Health Day

As we wrap our heads around the havoc the pandemic caused in our lives, as we deal with the atrocious losses and irreversible changes that we have seen in the recent past, we must all ask ourselves the glaring question: Have we done enough for our and our community’s mental health? Clearly the answer is a big NO, given the increase in mental health issues seen today.

WHO describes health as and overall wellbeing and not just absence of disease. And this best explains the current context. We erroneously assume that mental health care is for those who have mental health “issues”. On the contrary, mental health care is for everyone!

Your mind space is like a garden. We must care for it and provide it with what it needs. Prune the weeds in time. Bask in the sunshine of gratitude. Cherish the blooms of simple joys. Harvest achievements. Gather the flowers of mindfulness. It’s your garden… Don’t allow someone else to ruin it!

Try pondering over these points to evaluate how your garden is:

As we wrap our heads around the havoc the pandemic caused in our lives, as we deal with the atrocious losses and irreversible changes that we have seen in the recent past, we must all ask ourselves the glaring question: Have we done enough for our and our community’s mental health? Clearly the answer is a big NO, given the increase in mental health issues seen today.

WHO describes health as and overall wellbeing and not just absence of disease. And this best explains the current context. We erroneously assume that mental health care is for those who have mental health “issues”. On the contrary, mental health care is for everyone!

Your mind space is like a garden. We must care for it and provide it with what it needs. Prune the weeds in time. Bask in the sunshine of gratitude. Cherish the blooms of simple joys. Harvest achievements. Gather the flowers of mindfulness. It’s your garden… Don’t allow someone else to ruin it!

Try pondering over these points to evaluate how your garden is:

Life Satisfaction: How satisfied you are? Are you living it fully? Or struggling through the day and feeling relieved that its gone? Are you floundering, just barely surviving or thriving?

* Resilience: While resilience is described as the ability to bounce back and move on from an adverse situation, it is also your belief in you and your support system of how you would deal with a contingency. A crisis is never easy, but a resilient mind can help reduce the anticipation of it.

* Social Support:  How supported we feel at any point in our lives helps us keep the anxiety at bay. Surrounding yourself with meaningful relationships contributes to our belief that life happens and sometimes things don’t go our way. But we must face it when it comes.

* Non-perfect is perfect!: Rigid expectations lead us into stress to achieve it or disappointment that it could not be achieved. Flexibility in thoughts, expectations and adaptability to suit the circumstances goes a long way in preserving our sanity and mental hygiene.

Mental health or more specifically, the lack of it has an all-pervading impact on our lives. To mention a few, poor mental health care practices leads to:

• Poor sleeping patterns
  

• Poor eating patterns
  

• Poor gadget/screen habits
  

• Lowered threshold – increased irritability – mood disturbance

• Lifestyle disorders
  

• Aches and pains, muscular rigidity

• Poor or strained relationships – personal and professional

• Poor stress management strategies – leading to unhealthy coping mechanisms like addictions
  

• Decreased productivity

Let us think of our pool of mental resources to be like one of our gadgets. As we use our apps, like family, work, parenting, finances, social expectations, caring for ailing parents, break-ups and other stressors, each day, we consume the battery. And if we don’t recharge this, we will reach a point of saturation and then burn out completely.

According to this analogy, a sure shot way of preventing this burn out is to pre-emptively charge ourselves. If we charge ourselves regularly, we will always have enough battery to deal with the apps of life effectively with a grounded and centred approach.  

A sure-shot way of recharging our resources is self-care. Self-care is not only important, but also mandatory today!

And here’s a way to RESET yourselves and rejuvenate our souls…

As Noam Shpancer says, “Mental health…is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.”

In the hope that we take care of our gardens,

Anagha Pandit

Psychologist