Even if you are not diagnosed with a mental health disorder, it doesn’t mean that life never gets hard or overwhelming. You still can experience deep sadness or go through stressful events. Mental health is often overlooked. As a society we are only just beginning to understand that mental health is an important component of our overall wellbeing. We are still not used to making our mental health a priority.
Looking after our mental health is a bit like doing physical exercise. It’s sometimes hard to get motivated and do it regularly, but we still get motivated to go to the gym, or run, or do yoga, because we understand that having a healthy body is a crucial part of our lives, now, and into the future.
The same is true of looking after our mental health. It’s easy to ignore experiences like low mood, feelings of worthlessness, or other common thoughts that can intrude into our minds, and make our lives worse. Sometimes we find ourselves reacting out of proportion to situations, or find small problems escalating into insurmoutable obstacles. Addressing these parts of ourselves, and learning how to understand them better, allows us to be healthier, happier humans.
Mental health affects our relationships, our productivity at work, our sleep, and our creativity. It even affects our physical health. With so much at stake, it makes sense to take our mental health seriously.
I use a range of techniques, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help you understand why you have certain thoughts, or why certain situations can be challenging. While we may not always be able to change the reality of these situations, we can change the way that we respond to them.