Book
Mental Health and Wellness Book: Ways to be Proactive and Focus on Anxiety and Depression Prevention vs. Coping with It After Symptoms Happen
Most therapists focus on discussing the problem and what coping skills might help after the symptoms occur. This is negative and reactive versus being proactive and focusing on solutions and client’s strengths. Focusing on the positives, self-awareness, solutions and strengths, gives the control back to the client because they are being proactive and developing healthy life habits for mental, physical, emotional and nutritional health. You have the power to change your life. There are natural, holistic things you can do to help!
Mental Health and wellness should start long before anxiety and depression symptoms emerge. It’s much easier and more effective to be proactive with your mental health than trying to overcome symptoms once they start. Child therapists agree that when it comes to mental health, a holistic approach will have the most effective outcome every time. This book contains information gathered from child and adult therapists, medical doctors, and naturopathic doctors about mental, physical, and spiritual health that will help the reader transform their thoughts, actions and various aspects of their life. Being proactive with one’s overall health puts the individual in control, thus leaving anxiety and depression powerless.
Excerpts from the book –
Cold Therapy
Over time, many individuals have gotten used to pushing themselves to do more and take on more and achieve more… This desire to push themselves to the limit has caused them to have a constant, underlying level of anxiety or stress. Because the anxiety or stress has been present for so long, most people just get used to it and just push through because they want to achieve what they want. Therefore, our neurological system gets used to this level of underlying stress on the body.
However, when the individual is under more stress then usual it is easy for the anxiety to spike quickly. Often times, people call these attacks panic or anxiety attacks. Cold therapy can be extremely helpful in these situations and the extreme cold can help to reset one’s neurological system and bring stress/anxiety levels back down to normal. Cold therapy techniques include: rubbing ice cubes on your wrists, running cold water on your wrists, taking a cold shower, opening the freezer and breathing in the cold air for a few seconds, even going outside when it is cold out and breathing in the cold air.
Anxiety and PTSD Response
It is impossible to have an anxiety attack or panic attack when your body is relaxed. A panic attack is a combination of outward symptoms of having your nervous system stuck in high alert. This happens when your amygdala sends a message that you’re in danger, therefore your body goes into the fight, flight or freeze response. When stressed, our muscles get tense…when nervous our breathing gets shallow. Breathe deep and slowly…
Learn how to regulate your nervous system to be calm, centered, grounded. Train your mind to separate what you’re doing and how you feel about it. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) – use self-talk and deep slow breathing to reprogram the thought process in the given activity. Try washing your face with cold water. Remember that mono-tasking is good…mentally multi-tasking is bad. Practice mindfulness – be present doing what we’re doing. Notice where you’re at. Do one slow thing a day…stop to pet animal, cuddle, stretch, willingness to be motivated to do activities to be calm, mindful, deep/slow breathing. Remember to self-regulate and check in with your body and mind every few minutes every day.
Externalization
As a child and adult therapist, most of my patients in the 10+ years that I’ve been a psychotherapist have claimed anxiety and call it, “my anxiety.” This is so terrible because when you say “my anxiety” or “my depression” repeatedly, you are literally claiming it and saying to yourself that it will never go away…you are saying that it will always be a part of you. Externalization is an extremely useful technique as it allows the individual to create distance from anxiety or depression. Externalization requires the individual to talk to anxiety as if it’s an external force trying to control the individual.
One way of communicating with anxiety would be to say, “Anxiety, you are not controlling me today. That was an irrational thought and I know it’s not true.” Or talk to depression by saying, “Depression, I’m not going to lay in bed today. I’m going for a walk and I’m meeting up with a friend and you’re not going to stop me.” This is a great way for the individual to take back their control from anxiety and depression while achieving their goals and living the life that they want.
Reflect and Scale Anxiety, Depression Symptoms, and Happiness: (Mood Tracking)
Daily reflection is a must for self-improvement. You can learn so much about yourself through reflection and scaling different variables. For example, if you have noticed that you have heightened anxiety for a while, at the end of the day take ten minutes to think back over your day, in various situations and around different people and scale the anxiety/stress on a scale from 1-10. From here, make small schedule, routine changes to see if the anxiety/stress comes down.
You can scale anxiety/stress, depression symptoms, happiness, etc. This daily self-care reflecting routine will greatly help you to become self-aware and in control of your life, your happiness, anxiety and depression symptoms. Mood tracking is the one thing that has been impactful and effective for all of my patients, no matter what the reason was for seeking therapy. The daily act of reflecting alone is extremely beneficial but tracking your progress allows for the empowerment to make the changes needed for happiness.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the continued effort to bring awareness to the present moment. Being mindful is noticing what you see, smell, hear, can touch, and what you can taste in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle said that anxiety lives in the future and depression symptoms live in the past, so if you can train your brain to be present in the moment you are in, you are at the highest ability to find inner peace and balance. From here, you can recognize your true heart’s desires, make goals and decide how to move forward.
Child and adult therapists agree that with the growing need for and importance of being present in the moment, research on mindfulness has grown. The research has shown that when you train your brain to be mindful of the present moment, you are actually remodeling the physical structure of your brain.