Being open about mental health: How to deal with backlash

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So often we’re encouraged to speak up about our mental health struggles, but what happens when our honesty is met with criticism?

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are dominating headlines recently and not just for the sporting prowess on display. More and more athletes are opening up about their mental health struggles. Gymnast Simone Biles, cricketer Ben Stokes and swimmer Adam Peaty have all discussed their struggles and the necessary stepbacks needed to focus on their wellbeing.

Many are applauding this honesty, with it bringing up an important discussion about mental health in sport. Sadly, however, there has also been a backlash – with some criticizing the Olympians’ decisions.

Speaking to inews, Adam expressed his disappointment with the reaction he’s received.

“Reading some of the comments in response to this is why we have such a stigma around mental wellbeing in sport. It isn’t a normal job. There is a huge amount of pressure. Money does not buy happiness.

“I’m taking a break because I’ve been going extremely hard for as long as I can remember. I’ve averaged two weeks off a year for the last seven years. Unfortunately, there are people out there who think they know you more than you know yourself.”

In contrast to this, pictures of diver Tom Daley knitting to take care of his mental health during the Olympics have been applauded far and wide. Having opened up about mental health in the past, Tom has been promoting knitting and crocheting as a form of self-care which is certainly something we can get behind.

 

But there is an interesting point here to note – that self-care during the Olympics has looked different for athletes, and the self-care getting negative attention is the difficult decision to step back from competing.

Self-care can be seen as involving light-hearted, ‘comfortable’ activities – like knitting, taking long baths, and meditation. And, of course, these are valid and incredibly helpful for many. But self-care can also be tough. It can be putting yourself first, saying no, setting boundaries, and withdrawing from commitments. While these actions are rarely celebrated, they are at the core of true self-care.

So what can you do if you’ve opened up about your mental health and self-care but are met with criticism?

Recognize that everyone sees the world through a filter of their own baggage

We all see the world differently and this will depend on several factors including our own experiences and how we’re raised. This makes it very difficult to see a situation and not input our own opinions/biases no matter how objective we try to be.

Keep this in mind when someone is being critical of you. Often they are viewing the situation through their own filter so their reaction is likely to be a reflection of their own experiences and opinions which have no impact on your decisions.

Remind yourself that you are the expert of you

You know yourself best. If you have made a self-care decision, trust that you know this is the best move for you right now and follow your intuition. Others may have opinions, but ultimately you live in your body and mind so you know what you need to do to prioritize your health. The exception to this, of course, is if you reach out for professional support.

Doctors and counselors can support you in your self-care decision-making with your mental health and wellbeing in mind.

Find support where you can

It can be very difficult to receive criticism when you’ve been honest about how you’re feeling but try not to let it deter you from reaching out. There are some people in this world who won’t understand due to their particular filters, but there will be people who understand.

Look for support groups (we list nationwide groups on our Happiful app), reach out to loved ones you have a good relationship with and professionals who can be there for you. As much as it might feel like it at times, you truly aren’t alone.

Keep your boundaries strong

If you’ve made a decision that’s being criticized but you know it’s best for your mental health, try to maintain your position here. Shut out criticism and unhelpful opinions and focus your attention inwardly so you can give yourself the care you need.

Holding your boundaries can feel difficult, especially when it leads to strong reactions, but it’s the best way to reclaim your power and take charge of your mental health.


If you’re looking for professional support, visit Counselling Directory.

 

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8 Subtle Signs You Need To Take A Mental Health Day, Right Now!

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Signs You Need To Take A Mental Health Day

Do you take a break from work when you feel under the weather? Yes, right? But, do you take a day off when you feel exhausted (and I don’t mean physically)? Probably not, right? Knowing when our body needs a day off is easy but understanding the signs you need a mental break is also important for our wellbeing.

What exactly is a mental health day, though?

Recently, I read in a news article that Simon Biles, an American athlete withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics 2020 to focus on her mental wellbeing and health. This got me thinking. When we are all too eager to take a break from work when we are sick, why do we hesitate to take a break or a day off when we feel too mentally and emotionally.. off?

Of course, this all can be because we don’t exactly know when our body and mind need a mental health break. Below are some subtle signs you need to take a mental health day.

If you relate to any of the signs below, you should consider taking a mental health break or a mental health day to unwind, relax, and reboot.

8 Signs You Need A Mental Health Day

signs you need a mental health day

1. You’re Too Exhausted, All The Time

One of the first signs you need to go for mental health day is physical and emotional exhaustion. When our body is exhausted, it can lead to two situations; one is getting too much sleep and the other is not getting enough sleep. Sleep and mental health are related, don’t forget.

On average, a person needs 6-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep but when we are too emotionally drained and continuously face high levels of stress, we can develop sleep issues such as insomnia. You can try taking a day off and sleep in. Getting enough sleep can help reboot your mind as well as your body.

2. You’re Too Testy These Days

Getting angry or overreacting to small things can also be a sign you need a mental health day. When we are too stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious, we might overreact and snap at our loved ones without meaning to. Getting testy over minor inconveniences and snapping at others – at work and home – is not going to help.

If you find yourself getting angry with minor inconveniences, you might want to take a step back and focus on nurturing your mental health. On your mental day off, do something that takes the edge and pent-up energy off. For example, physical exercises, massage therapy, etc.

3. You’re Anxious Than Usual

Too many thoughts in your head? Feeling uneasy all the time? It can be a sign of impending anxiety. And too much anxiety can be a sign of you needing a mental break. When anxiety shows up, it can disguise itself in the form of racing thoughts, shortness of breath, physical discomfort, or just general uneasiness during your day.

Try to spend time with your loved ones, go for a relaxing massage, try yoga, breathing exercises, or other relaxing exercises to help you release anxiety and return your mood to normal.

4. You’re Unable To Focus On Daily Tasks

When focusing becomes a struggle, it’s a sign you need a mental break. Too much work at home and work when you can’t keep track of everything can lead you to make mistakes and experience stress you don’t need. All of us need some time away from our stressful lives to breathe and regroup.

Focusing on caring for your emotional being and mental wellness can help you increase productivity, performance, improve concentration, and much more! You can try practicing mindfulness meditation to improve your focus.

5. You’ve Been Sick A Lot

Physical health is also related to our mental health, never forget. Our immune system reacts to our stressors. If you can’t seem to shake off your physical illness (even after being given a clean bill of health), you might want to take this as a sign you need a mental health day.

Recurring or continuous physical illness can mean that you have too much stress in your life and you need to tone it down. If not kept in check, your physical illness can worsen and so can your mental health.

Just as you would consult a physician for help, there is no shame in asking a mental health professional for help.

6. You Feel Sluggish

Some people believe that a cup of coffee or a boost of caffeine can make them lose sluggishness. However, if you’re not able to shake off the sluggishness with caffeinated beverages, it can be a sign you need a mental break. Bear in mind that drinking caffeine can make you feel more tired if your mental health is left unchecked.

Consuming too much caffeine can also make you dehydrate. Make sure you drink lots of water and stay hydrated during the day. Just a day of eating a well-nourished diet and lots of water can go a long way to decrease sluggishness.

7. You Feel Detached From The World

Because of WFH, many of us spend half of our week staring at a computer screen. When work becomes a priority and when we can’t keep a healthy work-life balance, it can make us feel detached and disconnected from the world (or the world around us).

When you find yourself withdrawing from people you love, it is an alarm you need a mental health day. Take a day off to reconnect with your loved ones, go have lunch with your friends, go for dinner with your partner. Do things to help you restore the connection you might’ve lost.

8. You Feel Down And Sad

It doesn’t matter if it’s personal issues or office drama but if you’re feeling down, frustrated, or sad – a lot more usual than normal, Then you need a mental health day. You can try watching a funny movie, reading a book, engaging in a hobby, or anything that lifts your spirits.

If you still feel down after a few weeks, you might be struggling with something serious other than just a low mood. Intense sadness, irritability, loss of interest in previously pleasurable activities can be early symptoms of depression.

If the above activities aren’t helpful, you can try and reach out to a mental health professional here.

Your attempts to restore your mental health will not work if you don’t take this wholeheartedly. If you’ve taken a day off to work on your mental health, then really work on getting better. Unplug and unwind for a day, relax.

If your mental space is not healthy, how can you expect your physical space to be healthy? If you’d like to know what to do on a mental health day, you can refer to this blog below.

Also Read: How To Spend Your ‘Mental Health Day Off’

I hope these above signs you need a mental health day helped you understand if you need one or not. You can also write to us at info@calmsage.com to know more about mental wellness or follow us on social media.

Like this article? Do let me know in the comments below!

Taking care of your mental health is in your hands. Be kind to yourself and take care!

Continue Reading8 Subtle Signs You Need To Take A Mental Health Day, Right Now!

Returning to my southern roots helped me cope with mental illness – Reckon South

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By Laura Watts

I was 21, and it was summer in Alabama.

That April, a tornado outbreak devastated the state. My hometown of Birmingham had been shaken to its very core and I along with it.

A large oak tree had fallen through my former bedroom directly into my parents’ room moments after they’d fled to the basement to escape the storm raging outside. Had I not been away at school, I most likely would have been killed by the fallen tree. This was my first brush with death, and the first time I’d nearly lost people I loved.

Seeing my childhood home stripped to its studs made me feel empty in a way that surprised me. This was a place I’d wanted to leave so badly, a place I’d snuck out from in the middle of the night only a few years earlier. This was a place where I felt suffocated.

That fall, I would return to school in Indiana for my senior year, only to suffer from heartache and hopelessness. I went through a bad breakup with my college boyfriend who I was living with at the time, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was lost.

I spent holidays at home wrapped up in an unhealthy relationship with a guy I went to high school with. I partied. I did everything I could to distract myself from what was really going on in my life.

When I graduated and got offered a job even farther from home, I took it without a second thought. This was my chance to start over. To escape the mess I’d made in Indiana and leave behind the wreckage in Birmingham.

I was 23, and it was winter in Cleveland, and I was right in the middle of losing my damn mind.

Even though I’d grown up in Alabama, I had experienced winter before. I’d spent the last four years living in a Midwestern town that was blanketed in snow three months out of the year. But this time it was different. This was the kind of cold you felt inside your bones. This was the kind of cold you couldn’t shake even after hours inside.

And just like the cold, the darkness began to strangle me, slowly but surely choking the life out of me. I stayed in bed all day, often without eating. I was prescribed heavy drugs, and I stopped hanging out with friends. At night I’d wake up, shaking, gasping for air as waves of panic shot through me. These were anxiety attacks, I was later told. I had them often.

But no one seemed to understand where these episodes came from. Depression is for people with abusive pasts and addicted children. One look at my perfect life, and even I knew that my mental illness looked like a characteristic I’d developed out of boredom.

After that, everything spiraled. I looked forward to death the way some people looked forward to a long weekend or the end of a visit with their in-laws. I daydreamed about stepping off my sixth-floor balcony, but it was too cold to go outside, even for sudden death. After months of feeling helpless, I knew it was time to go home.

I was 24, and it was spring this time.

I moved back into my childhood home, sick and exhausted from my six-year stint in the Midwest. My parents did my laundry, cooked my food, and made sure I got out of bed. It was the comforts of home that I so craved, and the only thing that kept me alive in those early days.

Moving back to Birmingham forced me to face my past in a way I didn’t realize I needed. I’d told myself I’d never come back when I left after high school. I wanted to escape the dark days that I’d experienced since I was a child, and I thought I could leave all that behind by simply…leaving. But when the deterioration of my mental health only accelerated living in the Midwest, it became clear to me that I was running from the wrong thing.

I cried most days. I missed my friends. I missed my life from before. But I knew that things would never be the same.

This is not a story with a happy ending. They say it gets better, and it does. But some days there is only darkness. Some days I’m fighting for my life.

Every six weeks, it’s a new pill that will either make you stronger or crazier. And sometimes not knowing what’s going to happen is the worst part. Not knowing whether or not you are going to be dependent on antidepressants for the rest of your life. Not knowing if tomorrow will be worse. Not knowing what mental illness will take from you next.

Although as a society, we’re talking about it more than ever, mental illness still comes with a stigma. And growing up in the South, that stigma seemed magnified to me. It seemed like everyone I knew was getting married and having children in their early twenties. Everyone seemed happy. They had the white picket fence and I had an anxiety disorder. I wanted a partner, but I had to learn to love myself first. I wanted children, but I didn’t know if postpartum depression would take me to my darkest place yet.

And after years of therapy and hours of listening to unsolicited advice, I’ve learned that I can’t solve my illness with yoga or happy thoughts. But reconnecting with my roots has become an important part of recovery. By coming home, I finally wasn’t running anymore.

Laura Watts is a Birmingham, Alabama, native who works in user experience design, but her first love was telling people’s stories. She has called Indiana and Ohio home over the years, but nothing compares to the Magic City. 

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A beginner’s guide to EFT tapping

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Are you curious about tapping? Here, we’ll cover the basics of EFT, and guide you through a routine to reduce anxiety

It’s well-known that positive affirmations can empower us and make us feel good. But, have you ever said them while tapping on certain points around your body? It might sound unusual, but this is the premise of the emotional freedom technique (EFT, also known as tapping), a holistic wellness practice that can help with relaxation and stopping negative thoughts.

Incorporating elements of acupressure, energy medicine, and neuro-linguistic programming, EFT works to release blocked energy in the body. It’s thought that the physical action of tapping calms the nervous system by interrupting our fight-or-flight response and increasing our endorphins. By saying positive affirmations as we do this, we can stimulate our energy channels and ‘neutralize’ emotional blocks.

“By tapping on the meridian points around the body, we send calming signals to the amygdala, which activates the stress response in the brain,” explains Nicola Bard, a counselor, and EFT practitioner.

“These calming signals begin to reduce the effects of cortisol, which produces the physical symptoms of anxiety. Those signals help the brain to make us feel safe, more in control, and grounded.”

What are EFT’s benefits?

EFT requires little effort in exchange for immediate benefits. And, once you understand the basics, you can use it whenever and wherever.

“Life can be tough, full of uncertainty and worries. But, by tapping regularly, you’ll be in a better position to harness your anxious thoughts, stay grounded, and respond calmly and rationally to whatever comes your way,” says Nicola.

How to get started with EFT

Firstly, get familiar with the key tapping points:

  • Top of the head
  • Eyebrow
  • Side of the eye
  • Under the eye
  • Under the nose
  • Under the mouth/chin
  • Collarbone
  • Under the arm
  • Side of the hand

Typically, you’ll tap each point between five and seven times. The order doesn’t matter, but going from top to bottom can help you remember each one.

Here, Nicola takes us through a simple tapping routine:

“Put one hand on your belly, and the other on your heart center. Take a moment to connect with your body, and focus on your breath. Tune in to any anxious feelings, and notice where in your body you feel that sensation – it might be butterflies in your belly or tightness in your chest.

“Rate the intensity of that feeling on a scale of 0 to 10 – 0 being nothing at all, and 10 being the worst it’s ever felt. Now we can set our intention to gently challenge these feelings of anxiety.”

Work through the points, reading the affirmations aloud. You can treat this routine as a template, and alter the affirmations to suit your needs – do whatever works for you.

Side of the hand: Even though I’m holding on to all this anxiety, all this uncertainty and worry, and I feel it in the pit of my stomach and in my chest, I allow and accept these feelings, and I know I’m not alone.

Even though I feel anxious because so many things seem uncertain and out of control right now, I allow and accept these feelings. I honor my body for trying to protect me from danger.

I’m not always going to feel this way, I just feel this way right now. And I set my intention to gently let that go and to begin to relax.

Top of head: All of these anxious thoughts
Eyebrow: I can feel them in my chest
Side of eye: But I choose to gently challenge my belief that there is danger out there
Under eye: I understand it limits me and keeps me stuck
Under nose: I want my life to return to normal
Under mouth: I choose to take back control
Collarbone: Right here, right now, I know I’m safe
Underarm: And I allow my body to relax
Top of head: I acknowledge how hard things have been
Eyebrow: But I choose to take back control right now
Side of eye: I choose to call on my courage
Under eye: I choose to release all my old fears
Under nose: I’m open to trusting myself and trusting in life
Under mouth: Right here, right now, I know I’m safe
Collarbone: I choose to feel grounded and calm
Underarm: Right now this is enough, I’ll figure it out as I go along
Top of head: Once more I honor my body for keeping me safe. But I can take it from here, I’m doing well, and I’m proud of myself.

Once you’ve completed this sequence, Nicola invites you to take a moment for reflection.

“Gently stop tapping, take a breath in, and let it go,” she says. “Tune-in to see how you feel. Check-in on that feeling of stress or anxiety, and notice where it is on the scale now.”

Usually, this exercise helps people get an instant sense of relief. So, whether you practise EFT regularly, or keep it in mind for particularly overwhelming moments, tapping can offer a welcome sense of calm.


Find out more about Nicola and EFT on therapy-directory.org.uk

 

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Physical activity jolts brain into action in the event of depression

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Physical activity does the brain well. For example, it fosters its ability to change and adapt.

The dual beneficial effect of physical activity in depression is confirmed by a study at the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe campus: physical activity not only reduces depressive symptoms. It also increases the brain’s ability to change, which is necessary for adaptation and learning processes.

“The results show how important seemingly simple things like physical activity are in treating and preventing illnesses such as depression,” says study leader associate professor Dr. Karin Rosenkranz.

The study was published on 9 June 2021 in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Exercise program promotes motivation and togetherness

People with depression often withdraw and are physically inactive. To investigate the effect of physical activity, Karin Rosenkranz’s working group enlisted 41 people, who were undergoing treatment at the hospital, for the study. The participants were each assigned to one of two groups, one of which completed a three-week exercise program. The program, which was developed by the sports science team from the University of Bielefeld led by Professor Thomas Schack, was varied, contained fun elements, and did not take the form of a competition or test, but instead required teamwork from the participants. “This specifically promoted motivation and social togetherness while breaking down a fear of challenges and negative experiences with physical activity — such as school PE lessons,” explains Karin Rosenkranz. The other group took part in a control program without physical activity.

The study team ascertained the severity of the depressive symptoms, such as a loss of drive and interest, lack of motivation, and negative feelings, both before and after the program. The brain’s ability to change, known as neuroplasticity, was also measured. It can be determined externally with the help of transcranial magnetic stimulation. “The ability to change is important for all of the brain’s learning and adaptation processes,” explains Karin Rosenkranz.

Ability to change increased — symptoms decreased

The results show that the brain’s ability to change is lower in people with depression than in healthy people. Following the program with physical activity, this ability to change increased significantly and achieved the same values as healthy people. At the same time, depressive symptoms decreased in the group. “The more the ability to change increased, the more clearly the clinical symptoms decreased,” summarises Karin Rosenkranz. These changes were not so pronounced in the group who took part in the control program. “This shows that physical activity has an effect on symptoms and the brain’s ability to change. We cannot say to what extent the change in symptoms and the brain’s ability to change are causally linked based on this data,” says the doctor, referring to the limitations. “It is known that physical activity does the brain well, as it, for instance, promotes the formation of neuron connections. This could certainly also play a role here.”

Story Source:

Materials provided by Ruhr-University Bochum. Original written by Meike Drießen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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