A Therapist’s Top 10 Tips For Supporting Your Mental Health.
1. First, recognize and realize that mental health is every single bit as important as physical health.
In assigning mental health the importance it deserves, it can make it far easier and more motivating to seek out and build supports to manage your own mental health.
2. Put together your mental health care team.
You have medical supports, right? A doctor and an OBGYN? A legal and financial team like a lawyer and CPA?
Then I suggest you model your mental health care in the same proactive way and gather around you the supports you need even before you need them: a therapist, a psychiatrist, a clergy counselor, whatever this means for you, curate and gather your mental healthcare team.
Many of us need someone who is not our significant other/friend/parent to talk to about life’s toughest stuff. Get your team in place so you can count on them for that.
3. If you believe medication may be of support to you, seek it out.
Please don’t be dissuaded by any stigma or shame about potentially needing short or long-term pharmacological supports if that’s what your particular brain chemistry needs. Talk to your doctor or psychiatrist if you feel this may be an option you would like/need.
4. Take very good care of your physical health.
Always rule out any underlying physical conditions that may be contributing to your mental health and, of course, visit your doctor regularly to make sure your body is functioning well.
Make sure you’ve got a solid, nutritional plan established that works well for your own body’s unique chemistry (consult with a nutritionist if need be for this!). Move your body daily in moderate, invigorating ways that feel good and enlivening for you.
GET ENOUGH SLEEP! I can’t stress this enough: everything in life – including our mental health – becomes more challenged when we don’t get enough sleep. Avoid mood-altering substances as much as possible and in ways that you specifically need depending on your own brain chemistry.
5. Build nourishing relationships in your life.
Seek out and spend time with those who you feel seen, accepted, and celebrated by. Whether this is friends, a loving partner, a women’s group, your therapist, your spiritual community, or your family, make a point of intentional, regular contact with those nourishing relationships in your life.
And, also note that this tip may sometimes may mean withdrawing from or decreasing contact with those relationships in your life that feel painful, challenging, and unsupportive.
6. Plan play and joy and adventure!
Between the often grueling demands of work and adulting, days can fly, weeks can bleed into one another, and the months pass.
