We have learned a great deal about mental health over the years, and we continue to learn even more as time goes on. Our mental health affects many areas of our lives—it can have a positive or negative impact on our self-esteem; our ability to perform; our relationships; our professions; our sense of peace, contentment, and well-being; our purpose and direction in life; and so much more. Our mental health helps us navigate through times of emotional challenge, change, disappointments, even everyday stress. Science has begun to realize the brain’s ability to create what we call neural patterning, either negative or positive, by subconscious programming resulting from repetitive experiences or thought patterns. If, for example, we have continually experienced traumatic events, one after another, our mental fortitude to work through future traumatic events significantly diminishes, potentially leading to what may be called a mental break. Essentially, our brains become programmed for these repeated thought patterns and behaviors. While most of us are mentally equipped to handle typical day-to-day life stressors such as sadness, anxiety, and disappointments, there are breaking points for all of us. We must take care to implement strategies to mitigate the damage that may be caused by too many mental and emotional stressors.
How to Control Your Stressors
The best approach to controlling stressors involves mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual interventions. A majority of mental health stress is generated by fear and feeling out of control of our lives. I like to say that most of the time, fear is “false evidence appearing real.” Most of the time! While there are certainly events in life that may cause apprehension and fear, most of the time we fear things that do not ever come to fruition.
- Mental: So, the first mental exercise is to establish truth. Is what I am “fearing” even likely to happen?
- Physical: Physically, we may experience some challenges because we do not have proper diet and exercise habits. When our physical foundation of diet and exercise is not in alignment, the chemical components of our being cannot properly mitigate stress, which often causes our rational thinking to be off as well. Experiencing this physical imbalance can often lead to lack of sleep, which can change the way we are able to process things mentally.
- Emotional: Reconciling our emotions can be tough, so finding productive ways to manage them most certainly gives way to more positive mental health. It is all connected! Mental health affects physical health, physical health affects emotional health, and so on. When one is off-kilter they all can be thrown off—which leads us to the spiritual category.
- Spiritual: Faith in a power greater than ourselves, one that operates in the realm of love and goodness that cares about us, that wants to see good things happen to us and for us, often provides a sense of peace and calm when things happen that seem out of our control and that we do not understand. Faith in a power greater than ourselves, that is good and loving, also provides us with hope. It is extremely important to never lose hope in the good. There is good and bad in all of us, but what we focus ourselves on affects our mental health and well-being.
Positivity Promotes Mental Health
Science continues to prove that the brain has the ability to be reprogrammed, known as the quality of neuroplasticity. Just as negative mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences can create more stress and mental fatigue, so can positive mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences create more peace, contentment, and a healthy mental state. Finding the right mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences is an important part of the journey, and well worth seeking.
There are many therapies and modalities that can reduce stress and give your body a chance to properly process situations and events, which can be vital in a balanced, healthy mental state. We thrive in community and need to feel needed and wanted. Staying connected to others is very important and spending time around uplifting and positive people is extremely beneficial for a healthy mental state. These principles are the driving force behind the strategies used by the team members of Omni Balanced Life Center to assist our clients and patients with cultivating a healthy Mind, Body, and Spirit!
Jamie Kliewe is the founder of Omni Balanced Life Center, which offers many different types of stress reducing techniques such as Therapeutic Massage, Reflexology, Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine, Yoga, Reiki, and energy work such as the BioCharger NG and Biofeedback. All services are offered by trained and licensed professionals in a clean and safe environment.
Call 239-234-1608 to schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation. Services are offered at Omni Balanced Life Center 720 Goodlette Rd., Ste 205 Naples, FL 34102.
Visit: www.OmniNaples.com to learn more.