Mental health issues have caught our attention recently. New terms such as “post pandemic stress disorder” along with well-known terms like “depression” and “anxiety” are popular in search engine nowadays. Learning about these terms and reading the news related to this topic could be overwhelming and worrying, some of us even start to believe that we all have certain extent of mental issues.
The good news is that most of us do not have mental disorders, we may have a lot of issues bothering us, but most of us do not have symptoms that last long enough to be classified as disorders. However, stress does accumulate, if we do not manage it, we increase our chance of having mental disorders, since stress is proven to be a strong environmental factor for various mental disorders in urban life (McGrath et al., 2004; Dawson, 1984).
In my last article, I suggested some quick ways to relieve stress, those are like “first-aids”. To stay mentally healthy in long run, we need to do the followings:
Choose an exercise that suits you and commit to it, do it regularly, at least twice a week. Exercising helps you burn off adrenaline and cortisol, and produces endorphins. Endorphins is a hormone that reduces pain and stress, and it improves your overall sense of well-being. Mind-body programme such as Yoga, Tai Qi and Qi Gong are also supported with evidence regarding their effectiveness on relieving stress (Harkess et al., 2016; Gonçalves et al., 2023; Harvard Health Publishing online).
Stay connected with others. Human being are social, it is in our genes that we need to connect with each other. Have you noticed (or even experienced it yourself) people who disconnect themselves from others get even more unhappy? Sometimes people find it stressful in social situations and decide to stay away from others; that is alright for a short break. But for long term, we all need to connect to others, not just virtually, but actually seeing and talking. Even if you don’t have anyone to talk to, go to a coffee shop and sit there, being surrounded by people’s sound can also give you a feeling of connection to others and to the world.
Show gratitude to yourself. We all have ups and downs, we all face problems and try to work out solutions. But when things don’t go well, we automatically focus on how bad they are, how disappointing we are, and forget how much effort we have already put in. Studies show gratitude decreases risk for mental disorders (McGuire et al., 2021; Taylor et al., 2022). Showing gratitude to ourselves is the first step before we show gratitude to others. Starting from now, thank yourself and appreciate your own work every day.
Learn new things regularly. We do not always have to enrol ourselves in courses to learn; learning is in everyday life. Just learning a new way to cook an old dish, a new faster route to go to work, a new vacation destination option, a new function on the computer … we are already learning. Learning new things often keeps us moving forward, helps us feel fulfilled, gives us sense of achievement, sometimes also makes us feel smarter!
Give to others. It’s not giving money to others, but if you like it also makes you feel good. It doesn’t require you to do voluntary work, only if you have time. As simple as saying “thank you”, doing small favours for others, giving compliments, increasing trust and attachment with others, then your brain will release oxytocin, which helps to reduce stress, fear, and pain, and increases feelings of love. So, giving to others not only help others, it helps you.
If you have read along this article till here, it shows that you do care about your well-being, good job! In that case, 1 more for you, it is fundamental - be mindful, be aware of yourself - your feelings, thoughts, bodily reactions, and your actions (Lieberman et al., 2007). Only by noticing and understanding yourself, you can manage to accomplish the 5 points above, if 5 is too many, start with 1, even doing 1 of the them as a start deserves an applause, as long as you take action for your health, and you wouldn’t need to worry about mental disorders anymore!
Yvonne Lee
Experienced and result-oriented well-being facilitator, focuses on enhancing individuals’ resilience at work and balance in mental health. Combining over two decades of business background and counselling experience, Yvonne applies various therapeutic approaches to work with youth and adult individuals to make improvements and achieve rebalance.
Reference:
Dawson, K. H. E. (1984). A heuristic vulnerability/stress model of schizophrenic episodes. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 10(2), 300–312.
Gonçalves, M., Duarte, L., Rodrigues, J. M., Greten, H. J., & Machado, J. (2023). Can Qigong Be a Tool to Assist Students in Handling COVID-19’s Resulting Academic Stress? Healthcare (Basel), 11(3), 307.
Harkess, K. N., Delfabbro, P., & Cohen-Woods, S. (2016). The longitudinal mental health benefits of a yoga intervention in women experiencing chronic stress: A clinical trial. Cogent Psychology, 3(1), 1256037.
Harvard Health Publishing Online Learning
https://www.health.harvard.edu/promotions/harvard-health-publications/an-introduction-to-tai-chi-ecourse-nov2019-test?utm_source=delivra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EL20230701-TaiChi&utm_id=5516853&dlv-emuid=e9509af4-642e-462b-95b2-0a3345ae4495&dlv-mlid=5516853
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting Feelings into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
McGuire, A. P., Fogle, B. M., Tsai, J., Southwick, S. M., & Pietrzak, R. H. (2021). Dispositional gratitude and mental health in the U.S. veteran population: Results from the National Health and Resilience Veterans Study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 135, 279–288.
McGrath, J., Saha, S., Welham, J., El Saadi, O., MacCauley, C., & Chant, D. (2004). A systematic review of the incidence of schizophrenia: the distribution of rates and the influence of sex, urbanicity, migrant status and methodology. BMC Medicine, 2(1), 13–13.
Taylor, Z. E., Bailey, K., Herrera, F., Nair, N., & Adams, A. (2022). Strengths of the heart: Stressors, gratitude, and mental health in single mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(3), 346–357.
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