I realize that I am not the first one to propose the concept of preventative mental health. The idea that we need to do things on a daily basis to “exercise” our brains seems like a “no brainer” when I have this thought in my own brain. It reminds me of the see my idea that a lot of people have when they think about physical activity in the form of exercise: “I’m not sure I know what to do.” Usually next the idea of signing up for a gym seems to come to mind. A lot of patients report to me that they are going to or have just or plan to in the future do just that: sign up for a gym membership. Seems logical enough. In order to be able to exercise you need to go somewhere where exercise is what is happening. If you go to a gym and see people exercising not only do the ideas of what to do in terms of exercise come to mind, but also you quickly realize that part of what you just bought into was motivational in nature. This brings about the question for me: should we have gyms that exercise our minds? I think by now I’m pretty far off track from the original topic which was preventative mental health.
The idea that we need to do things to exercise our mind is incredibly important and in the modern world not something we do. We just simply wait until there is a problem, and then we decide we are going to do something about it. Typically it takes even longer because not only do we avoid seeking that out for the stigma attached to it, but even if and when we go about seeking mental health treatment, we are stymied multiple times along the way. This is the typical course: go online and look for mental health treatment and find several options and wonder if your insurance is going to cover them. So then you go to your insurance to see who is covered and make several attempts to contact the ones you know are covered. A phone call with a long message… Perhaps even an email sent to someone requesting an appointment. Several attempts at this leads to several days later and maybe a 25% response rate if that. And finally you are notified by someone that they can schedule you but it will not be for 6 months. Strangely enough your mental health matters today. But fear not there are many ways to access mental health treatment much quicker and perhaps in another discussion I will provide that information. For now, I want to emphasize how to do this on a daily basis without anyone else. It’s called cognitive restructuring: It’s the same thing that all of the highest paid professional athletes do. Of course they’re guided by someone called a sports psychologist, but it’s no different than what you can do from home by starting right now with taking your negative thoughts and making them more positive. Much easier said than done, but without having identified problematic thoughts in the first place, you simply need to create a lot of positive thoughts that connect together and practice reciting them every day. That in combination with other things such as meditation, deep breathing, and ideally reducing some of the negative inputs such as blue light, social media, and creating/reciting what’s on your gratitude list is it good starting point.
- Today, I choose to be happy.
- Today, I choose to live better.
- Today, I choose health.
- Today, I intend to live in the moment.
- Today, I’m going to not let the little things disrupt my intention to be happy.
- Today, I intend to be the positive one.
- Today, I’m going to give to others.
- Today, I intend to identify what’s right about the world.
- Today, I intend to see the good in others.
- Today, I intend to seek the purpose in the way I am choosing to live.
Leave a Reply