Getting Your Mind RIght

This first month of the year is often full of people, myself included, sharing their thoughts on how to be more physically well by modifying physical activity and nutrition.  As January wraps up I’d like to dig deeper into a dimension of wellness that gets neglected a lot, emotional health.  Many people think not being in the midst of an emotional breakdown equates to emotional wellness.  Similarly, others believe taking prescription medications or seeing a mental health professional means their emotional wellness is covered.  The problem with both these ways of thinking is it can make you a passive participant in your own emotional well-being.  As any cardiologist can tell you, taking the meds and seeing a specialist will only take you so far if you don’t engage in activities on your own that support those therapies.  Floating through life overlooking your emotional health until a crisis occurs is also not the best strategy.  As with physical health, there needs to be some prevention and maintenance to ensure emotional wellness.  Below are a few simple steps to start taking care of your emotional health.

Determine what brings you joy in life.  This is about identifying what you enjoy and being OK with it.  Be honest.  Do you like to sit at home and read a book while drinking a cup of hot tea?  Do you like to travel internationally and party with the locals until the early morning hours?   Is there is nothing in the world that warms your heart more than hearing your children laugh?  Once you stake a claim to what brings you joy, figure out how to make that a more frequent part of your life experience.  This may mean shifting priorities in terms of time management and finances, but the benefits in terms of your emotional well-being will be worth it.

Don’t get caught up in other people’s vortex of negativity.   While we like to focus on the power of positive thinking, it is important to remember the corollary.  There is power in negativity.  It is nice to believe your positivity can overcome the negative attitude of others.  In reality, that is only true when the negative person is willing to meet you half-way.  Trying to bring sunshine into the lives of those who are determined to remain bummed out can be a futile effort.  Let me be clear.  There is a difference between the occasional therapeutic vent and a constant doom and gloom perspective.  Some people are perpetually negative and even mean-spirited.  Spending time in that environment is not without repercussions on your emotional health.  A negative perspective has the ability to bring down even the most Pollyanna among us.  Particularly when you are trying to get your own mind right, it is beneficial to scale back the self-pitying folks in your world.  Don’t be dragged into their downward spiral.  

Stop doing the things you hate doing.  There are dreaded items on everyone’s to-do list.  Sometimes the best thing to remove the dread is to relocate the items to someone else’s list.  The most important part of any to-do list is that the activities get done, not who completes them.  Taking into account cost and feasibility, some tasks need to be outsourced.   It could be as small as buying the birthday cupcakes from bakery instead of making them or as large as having someone cater Thanksgiving dinner.  Some things are still being done by you simply because it has become expected.  It may be time to modify the expectations of the people in your life.  Admit you were wrong in thinking how much fun it would be to tend the lawn when you bought the house.   Hire someone else to do it.  While many solutions involve a fee, in the end you may come out ahead from the perspective of time better spent on other activities.   You may also avoid the financial burdens associated with the coping mechanisms you currently employ to deal with the stress of yet another thing to accomplish.  For the benefit of your emotional well-being it may be worth the investment. 

Don’t always be available.  This comes down to valuing your own time.  Other people respect your time when you teach them it is to be respected.  Some of us fall into the trap of saying yes just because we can’t think of a “good” reason to say no.  It can be an honor to be asked to participate in a project or to attend a function.  However, “no” can still be an appropriate response.  Once you have established yourself as the safety valve, other people learn to wait you out when a task arises.  Whether it is agreeing to chair a committee at your child’s school or to pick up extra call as a physician, don’t feel like it always has to be your duty.  You may end up harboring bitterness towards others simply because they choose to exercise the same right of refusal you have.  Just because there is a space in your schedule does not mean it has to be filled with other people’s priorities.  Time is precious and using it wisely is a key to emotional health.

Be grateful.  How well we deal with most situations in life is a matter of perspective.  Approaching life with an attitude of gratitude helps us to handle its difficulties as well as its blessings.  Recently, I heard a sermon about gratitude which brought up two important points I’d like to share.  First, comparison deactivates the desire to appreciate.  It is very easy to be unappreciative of good things in your life if you are constantly measuring them against what others have.  Second, gratitude begins where entitlement ends.  Thinking something is owed to you tends to make it feel less worthy of thanks.  One way to maintain a grateful spirit is to regularly count your blessings.  Whether it is every day, every week, or even just once a month, writing down at least one thing for which you are grateful automatically puts you in a better head space.  Also, knowing you are going to put it in writing causes you to be more conscious of things for which to be grateful.  Try it and see if there is an effect on your emotional well-being.

Initially, some of these tips may seem like a license to be selfish.  However, consider how you would feel if the same advice was being given to someone you love instead of to yourself.  Remember the first step in emotional health is loving yourself as much as anyone else.