Adopting a Regular Mental Health Practice

A mental health practice is as important for your mental health as physical exercise is for your physical and mental fitness.

Learning a mental health technique and practising it routinely can help to keep you mentally well and also be called upon when you are feeling anxious or depressed.

Your choice of practice will be a personal preference and we have listed some common practices below.

Breathing

When most people are anxious, they take short, shallow breaths that may signal a stress response in the body, your stress response is how the body reacts to a perceived threat, and it can cause that shallow breathing, as well as a quicker heart rate.

Breathing exercises can counteract this tendency toward shallow breathing and provide additional potential benefits:

It can lower your blood pressure and slow your heart rate, making you feel more relaxed

Breathwork may improve the quality of your sleep

Intentional breathing relaxes the nervous system

Deep breathing can release tension in the abdominal area, which counteracts the stress response anxiety can trigger in the body

Breathing exercises are easy to do, cost nothing and are always available.

Types of Breathing Exercises

There are several breathing exercises you can do to help manage anxiety. You can do these exercises in a comfortable seated position or while lying down. Here are six helpful ones:

4-7-8 breathing

Inhale through your nose for four seconds

Hold your breath for seven seconds

Exhale through your mouth for eight seconds, making sure to let all your breath out

Box breathing or four-square breathing – highly recommended for performance anxiety

Breathe out slowly, focusing on letting all your breath out

Inhale through your nose for four seconds

Hold the air in your lungs for four seconds

Exhale through your mouth for four seconds

Hold your lungs empty for four seconds

Humming breath

In yoga, this is called Bhramari pranayama or humming bee breath. It combines vibration and breath to release tension, Rubenstein says.

Inhale through your nose for five seconds

Gently cover both ears with your thumbs

As you slowly exhale through your nose, keep your mouth closed but make a humming sound like that made by a buzzing bee

Belly breathing, also called abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing

Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach

As you inhale, try to expand your stomach into the hand that’s there. This is useful as the expansion works your diaphragm, leading to deeper, calmer breathing

As you exhale, slowly release air through your mouth and constrict your lower belly as if you’re deflating a balloon

Pursed-lip breathing

Place your hands on your stomach. Although this isn’t mandatory for pursed-lip breathing, it will help you feel your stomach getting larger when you inhale

Inhale slowly through your nose, keeping your mouth closed. Do this for two seconds

Purse your lips, thinking of the movement you use to whistle

Slowly exhale for at least four seconds

Breathing exercises for stress – NHS

6 Best Breathing Techniques for Anxiety and Stress Relief | U.S. News

Meditation

Meditation is the practice of intentionally spending time with our mind.

We take time out of our busy days to sit, breathe, and try to remain focused on our breath practising letting our thoughts come and go. Meditation trains us to let the thought come, gently shift our focus away from it and back onto our breath — to let the thought go.

The more we practice, the more we can see thoughts for what they are: just thoughts. Meditation creates the conditions for us to see things more clearly, feel calmer and content, and be kind to ourselves and others no matter what’s happening in our lives.

A short meditation can be five minutes or less. We don’t need perfect quiet to meditate. Total silence might be too overwhelming in meditation for beginners. Life is rarely ever quiet anyway.

How to meditate for beginners – Mental wellbeing tips – Every Mind Matters – NHS

Meditation For Beginners – Headspace

Mindfulness

Mindfulness involves paying attention to what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment.

It’s easy to stop noticing the world around us. It’s also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living “in our heads” – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour.

An important part of mindfulness is reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they experience. This means paying attention to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the present moment. That might be something as simple as the feel of a banister as we walk upstairs.

Another important part of mindfulness is an awareness of our thoughts and feelings as they happen moment to moment. Becoming more aware of the present moment can help us enjoy the world around us more and understand ourselves better.

Mindfulness also allows us to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that we experience, and to see how we can become entangled in that stream in ways that are not helpful.

This lets us stand back from our thoughts and start to see their patterns. Gradually, we can train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over and realise that thoughts are simply “mental events” that do not have to control us.

Mindfulness can help us deal with issues more productively. We can ask: “Is trying to solve this by brooding about it helpful, or am I just getting caught up in my thoughts?”

Awareness of this kind may also help us notice signs of stress or anxiety earlier and deal with them better. Mindfulness-based therapies are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a way to treat less severe depression.

How to be more mindful

Reminding yourself to take notice of your thoughts, feelings, body sensations and the world around you is the first step to mindfulness.

Notice the everyday

As we go about our daily lives, we can notice the sensations of things, the food we eat, the air moving past the body as we walk.

Keep it regular

It can be helpful to pick a regular time, such as a morning journey to work or a walk at lunchtime, during which you decide to be aware of the sensations created by the world around you.

Try something new

Trying new things, such as sitting in a different seat in meetings or going somewhere new for lunch, can also help you notice the world in a new way.

Watch your thoughts

Some people find it very difficult to practise mindfulness. As soon as they stop what they’re doing, lots of thoughts and worries crowd in.

It might be useful to remember that mindfulness isn’t about making these thoughts go away, but rather about seeing them as mental events that come and go. This can be very hard at first, but with gentle persistence it is possible.

Some people find that it is easier to cope with an over-busy mind if they are doing gentle yoga or walking.

Name thoughts and feelings

To develop an awareness of thoughts and feelings, some people find it helpful to silently name them: “Here’s the thought that I might fail that exam” or: “This is anxiety”.

Free yourself from the past and future

You can practise mindfulness anywhere, but it can be especially helpful to take a mindful approach if you realise that, for several minutes, you have been trapped in reliving past problems or pre-living future worries.

Different mindfulness practices

As well as practising mindfulness in daily life, it can be helpful to set aside time for a more formal mindfulness practice. Mindfulness meditation involves sitting silently and paying attention to thoughts, sounds, the sensations of breathing or parts of the body, bringing your attention back whenever the mind starts to wander.

Yoga and tai-chi can also help with developing awareness of your breathing.

Mindfulness – NHS

Beginner’s guide to meditation from Every Mind Matters.

Yoga

Yoga is an ancient practice from Northern India that involves physical poses, concentration, and deep breathing. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word “yuj,” which means “union” or “to join.”

The overall philosophy of yoga is about connecting the mind, body, and spirit and a regular yoga practice can promote endurance, strength, calmness, flexibility, and well-being.

There are many yoga classes and online sessions available.

Feldenkrais

The Feldenkrais Method is a type of alternative movement therapy that proponents claim can repair impaired connections between the motor cortex and the body, so benefiting the quality of body movement and improving wellbeing.

Practitioners view it as a form of somatic education “that integrates the body, mind and psyche through an educational model in which a trained Feldenkrais practitioner guides a client (the ‘student’) through movements with hands-on and verbally administered cues,” according to Clinical Sports Medicine.

The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance describes FM as “an experiential learning process that uses movement and guided attention to develop and refine self-awareness.” It notes that FM is “increasingly used among high-level performers, such as musicians, actors, dancers, and athletes.”

Feldenkrais lessons have two types, one verbally guided and practised in groups called Awareness Through Movement, and one hands-on and practised one-to-one called Functional Integration.

FM operates broadly within five principles:

Learning is a process: “relies on sensory and kinesthetic information that one experiences through interactions with the environment”
Posture as dynamic equilibrium: “the ability to regain equilibrium after a large disturbance”
Exploratory versus performative movement:” the ability to make distinctions in the ease and quality of movement and to try out movements that may be unfamiliar”
Whole versus part learning: “exploring component parts of an action as well as the whole”
Repetition and variation: “introducing novelty in learning in order to expand possibilities for choice”

Whilst there is no evidence of effectiveness from studies, many musicians advocate this technique and there is a regular online class offered by the Musicians’ Union

Whichever technique you think might work for you, learn the technique and make a time to practice regularly – even 5-10 minutes each day can make a difference.

Journaling

With thanks to Nicky Torode for providing this information.

Journaling is that free, spontaneous writing, unplanned, that tumbles onto the page. We don’t edit, stop to ponder the best word. We keep going, catching words and more words that emerge in the rhythm of pen across page.

Journaling doesn’t need a lot of time – 5-10 minutes will bring the benefits. It doesn’t have to be every day. Small and consistent. You’ll find your rhythm.

Journaling matters, especially by hand, because it’s an act of self-care. It’s an act of grounding yourself from buzzy, busy brain. As you write what’s worrying you onto the page, this inside out is cathartic, diminishing the negative grip those emotions and stresses have.

Journaling matters because it helps you understand better what you’re thinking. We journal to find out what we’re thinking! Knowing what precisely is troubling us, is the first step to gaining clarity.

Journaling matters because it helps us shift our thinking. By pausing from busy to slow, noisy to quiet, we see things anew, and on the page, we may dance into a change of perspective. Ahhh, that shift shifts the heaviness too.

Journaling matters because there’s always something to learn, some insight to gleam. New ideas, new ways forward, journaling through something helps us feel more optimistic, feel a greater sense of control over those challenges close by.

Journaling matters because it is also a way to build a better sense of yourself, including your professional self. Journaling is dialoguing with yourself. Out tiptoes your quiet inner voice, or the one tucked away for some reason or other. Get to know yourself, again, and do the work you love from that renewed connection.

Words Matter

Let’s start with the word journaling.

Someone recently tutted and said Journaling, yuck! Sounds teenage and angsty.

Exercise # 1 Journaling is…

Write what journaling is for you. An inviting, appealing way that draws you in. Go wild, definitely not a dictionary definition! Bring in your professional interests to flavour it, wrap it to entice you and your interests.

My example as coach | writer

Journaling is like coaching myself, writing myself clear and free.

Journaling brings out those half-buried ideas, my brave voice, like a gold finch, top branch, early morning song. From first croaks to golden melodies. Best start.

Mindset Matters

It’s about how you arrive to journaling. What’s the mindset that you turn up to your journal with? Here’s some guidance to get into a journaling frame of mind.

Nook and Time

Sit where’s comfy, away from a work desk. A nice view outside or inside. That special corner where you feel more like you.

Is it first thing in the morning or last thing at night? Is it five minutes at lunch or a new ritual for the close of your working day? Find the time where you feel more ready for discovery.

Time constraint helps. 5- or 10-minutes journaling can work. Sounds doable, right?

Beginner’s mind

Come to your journal with a curious, open mind. What wants to come out will come out. Don’t force. In the silence, your comfy spot, thoughts rise you didn’t know were there. Your pen’s ready to catch them.

Trust something useful comes out

It might not be in the first minute or so, but one sentence leads to another and the thing you’ve not known was there, is there. Even your choice of words can surprise. Didn’t know you saw the situation like that? There’s an opening.

Write-Reflect-Act is a great way to harness the wisdom that fell onto the page today. Glimpse at what you wrote and pick 3 words that feel alive, significant in some way. See if there’s a step to take in your words: a conversation to open, a decision to make, an opening somehow.

Lay down the mask

Honesty matters. It’s your journal, for your eyes only so this is a place to discover what’s worrying you, connecting some dots, wanting to understand and work through.

Self-care

Journaling connects you to yourself deeply and quickly. Be mindful if this is where you want to go right now. If not, leave for a more suitable time. Perhaps, seek a friend or colleague you may prefer to chat it through with.

Self-Compassion

We’ve heard of the inner critic, forever criticising, dismissing our talents as luck. Journal with self-compassion – actively turn the lens towards how you’re managing despite, what’s helping, what’s enjoyable, what you’re proud of and what positive words people have offered you this week. Journaling builds self-compassion and self-appreciation.

Exercise #2 My Journaling Mindset

Write yourself some guidance for journaling. Where’s your comfy spot? Best time? Favourite cushion? What’s around that will get you feeling ready?

Simple Tools Matter

The simplest tools work best… a notebook that you are not afraid of writing messy in. Fancy journals, I’ve found, get kept in the drawer!

Exercise # 3 My kind of journal

Write what kind of a journal might work best for you. What’s on the cover? What’s inside? Give it a name other than journal:

Stilling and Stirring Matter

Are there any activities that stimulate your urge to journal?

Those activities that put you in relaxed mode, a being-with-yourself mode. A quiet library, walking a busy street, a buzzy café, a concert, alone in nature or washing dishes?

Exercise # 4 Activities to still and stir

Write a list of your stilling and stirring activities, or possible ones: