Selfcare and the Art of Balancing Your Mental Health

Achieving skillful mental health is all nigh achieving a skillful balance in your life. When your work, relationships, and self are attended to, and so your well-existence and personal satisfaction is maintained.

In this podcast episode ,  John Sharry , Psychotherapist, Clinical Managing director and Co-Founder of SilverCloud Health, uses the metaphor of a  three-legged stool to describe practiced mental health. The iii legs correspond the key life domains of piece of work , relationships  and self : If whatever of the legs is out of kilter, the stool falls over but if all are  in  balance then the stool and your mental health is rock solid.

Our mental health and personal well-being  are tied up in the quality of our personal relationships. The more closely we are continued to the people we love, thursday eastward  happ ier  nosotros feel and the more than personal satisfaction nosotros have in our lives.  However, c reating and maintaining happy personal relationships and belonging to positive communities is non straightforward.

It is important to continuously attend to and nurture our relationships with the important people in lives too as taking time to strengthen the communities to which we belong.

In the podcast, John provides seven simple habits that are the fundamental to keeping your shut relationships happy, supportive and personally satisfying.

Work is the second leg of our well-being stool that is key to maintaining balance in our lives . This may  include your paid employment or  how one  contribute s in li atomic number 26 , such as  volunteering in a charity, getting involved in customs projects also as creating music or art to entertain and inspire others.

John explains how  work becomes more meaningful when it is aligned with our strengths, passions and values  and how to find work we love.

T he 3rd important life domain crucial to our positive mental health  is self-care . We won't have skillful mental wellness unless nosotros look afterwards our physical health  and well-being .

Frequently,  modern life is characterized by decorated and largely sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles.  Many people suffer from increased levels of insomnia, stress, low and anxiety which are often related to a simple neglect of our health and fitness.

In the podcast, John discusses the iii pillars of physical heal thursday: eating well, beingness physically fit and getting enough relaxation and slumber.

Heed to the total podcast below, on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. Follow usa on LinkedIn to stay up to engagement with our latest podcast episodes and content.

Prof. John Sharry is a Psychotherapist, Clinical Director and Co-Founder of SilverCloud  Health. He is a founder of the Parents Plus Charity, an adjunct professor at the School of Psychology in University College Dublin and the acknowledged writer of fourteen positive psychology and cocky-help books for families.

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Welcome to Digital Mental Health Conversations, the podcast, by SilverCloud Health. Today, we are going to have Professor John Sharry talk near how creating good mental wellness is almost creating balance in your life and looking at this through the lens of relationships, work, self-care, eating well, being physically active, every bit well as the importance of sleep and relaxation. But before I hand over to Professor Sharry, a lilliputian bit virtually our guest speaker. Professor John Sharry is a psychotherapist and clinical managing director and co-founder of SilverCloud Health. He is the founder of the Parents Plus Clemency and an adjunct professor at the School of Psychology at the University College Dublin. And the bestselling author of 14 positive psychology and self-help books for families. Over to you lot, John.

Hello, I'1000 John Sharry, psychotherapist, clinical managing director and co-founder of SilverCloud Health. In this podcast, I look at how you lot can have care of your well-being by creating residual in your life. Achieving good mental wellness is all well-nigh achieving balance. People usually become stressed when the different part of their lives are out of balance. Y'all might start over working and spending too much time at the office, which means you neglect your relationships with your family and friends. Or yous might spend hours obsessed with a work or personal project that you just stop exercising or eating well. In one case nosotros neglect key areas of our lives our mental health and well-being tin can take a nosedive. If you lot continually bring stress home and neglect your close family relationships, you lot can find yourself heading for relationship breakup and increased stress and trauma. If you stop sleeping well or exercising your power to cope in work will be compromised and your stress levels volition rocket.

In this podcast, I look at how you tin accept intendance of your well-being by creating rest in your life. In particular, I will look at the iii virtually important domains of your life that need to exist in balance, namely your work and contribution, your family and relationships and your personal self-care. When your work, relationships and self are attended to, then your mental wellness and well-being is maintained. A good metaphor for mental health is a three-legged stool. The iii legs represent the key life domains of work, relationships and self and thus seizes your well-beingness and mental health. If any of the legs is out of kilter, the stool falls over merely if all are in balance then the stool and your mental health is stone solid.

For the rest of this podcast we are going to look at these cardinal life domains in turn. Permit'southward kickoff look at relationships. Our mental wellness and personal well-being is tied up in the quality of our personal relationships. The more closely we are connected to the people nosotros love, the happier we experience and the more personal satisfaction we have in our lives. Virtually people rate moments of connectedness and shared enjoyment with their loved ones equally their most important life experiences. These important relationships not simply include family and personal friends but also the wider groups and communities we vest to. Forming connections and a sense of community with piece of work colleagues, neighbours and the various groups that make upwards our identity (these are sports, hobbies, religious and customs groups), all contribute to our well-being. Forming a sense of belonging with other people around a shared mission or identity is a major contributor to our sense of personal meaning in life. Our personal resilience is interwoven into the resilience of the communities to which we belong. It is from this web of relationships and connections with other people that we draw our strength. Such communities can lift us when we are down and give united states of america the capacity to deal with whatever challenges come up our mode.

Nevertheless, creating and maintaining happy personal relationships and belonging to positive communities is not straightforward. We might starting time out with a loving supportive relationship with a partner simply then inattention, neglect and stressful life events tin take their toll, and this leads to human relationship conflicts and breakdown. At this point, the human relationship far from being a source of well-existence and happiness becomes a source of stress and dissatisfaction. As a upshot, it is very of import to continuously attend to and to nurture our relationships with all the important people in our lives. It is also important to strengthen the communities to which we belong.

There are six uncomplicated habits that are the fundamental to keeping your close relationships happy supportive and personally satisfying:

1 – Take time: Brand certain to spend regular time with your partner, children, family and friends. One to one relaxed time, when yous accept plenty of space to chat and have fun together is all-time.

2 – Be present: In our busy lives a major challenge is simply non beingness present with the ones we love. Whether this is us being spaced out or checking email all the time when they are talking or being caught up in worries or stress that we are not there for them. Not being nowadays does impairment the relationships. The key is to take fourth dimension to fully attend and to exist fully present when we are with the ones we love.

3 – Express appreciation: Relationships are nurtured by frequent displays of appreciation. Whether these are simply kind words of cheers to an important colleague, a souvenir to an of import friend, amore with your partner or a reassuring hug for a child, everyone needs to exist appreciated and nurtured in shut relationships.

iv – Listen: Listening is the most important communication skill of all. Taking time to sympathize the other person's point of view is key to connecting with them. Listening is especially important as the beginning footstep to managing conflict.

five – Learn to communicate: Relationships suffer when i person cuts off and does not communicate about their needs. Or when they do communicate, they do it in an aggressive, explosive or dis-respectful way. Learning to talk respectfully, warmly and assertively about what you want or need is crucial to happy relationships.

vi – Apologise and forgive: All close relationships will involve disappointment and getting hurt at times. Taking responsibility and apologising, when you have injure someone and moving on and forgiving, when you have been hurt is the key to maintaining happy relationships through hard times.

Now let'southward look at the second important life domain that is crucial to our mental health, namely our work and employment. Work is the second leg of our well-existence stool that is key to maintaining residue in our lives. Work contributes to our well-being when it allows us to be productive in a meaningful manner or when it expresses our talents and passions. Piece of work also contributes to our well-being when it is aligned with our values and how we want to make a difference. While the goal is to seek out work you love to do, the key is to bring dearest to whatever work you lot're actually doing. While information technology is important to seek out employment that matches your strengths, passions and values, in many situations it's the case of bringing these strengths, passions and values to the employment you lot are already in.

I was watching a documentary a few years ago that explored what it meant to exist happy in work and employment. The makers told a surprising story of a motorway price booth operator, who in a survey had much higher piece of work satisfaction than other people on average. When they spoke to her about this, she did non but see her task as just being a cost booth operator, instead she saw her task equally sharing a fleck of happiness with the drivers she met daily. She noticed that many of the drivers she encountered were often stressed, depressed and grumpy as they drove by her toll booth. And she made information technology her personal mission to conversation to each of them and to try and put a smiling on their faces as they passed through. She transformed her work by bringing her values, her strengths and passions to it.

In considering the importance of work I am non just talking nigh your career or your paid employment but rather how in the whole of your life you lot are making a contribution. Your work tin can include volunteering in a charity, getting involved in customs projects as well as creating music or art to entertain and inspire others. While many people are engaged in meaningful piece of work through their jobs, for others their main source of pregnant comes from other projects and commitments in other areas of their lives. Many people get their greatest sense of satisfaction in their roles outside of the '24-hour interval job' whether this is existence a coach in a children's football team, or working in local politics, or exhibiting their art or performing theatre or any else expresses their passions, strengths and values.

Now let's expect at the third important life domain crucial to our positive mental health, namely self-care. We won't have skillful mental health unless we await afterward our physical wellness and well-being. Eating well, concrete exercise and getting enough sleep, balance and relaxation are crucial to positive well-existence and mental wellness.

Unfortunately, modern life is characterised by decorated merely largely sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles. People are rushing effectually doing things but not physically moving plenty, or they are eating quick meals simply they are not eating healthily. Or they are working hard, just not relaxing and resting plenty. The health statistics reveal a problematic picture. Despite greater wealth and easier access to sporting facilities, poor wellness and obesity are on the rise. A shocking statistic is that the average person is 20 pounds heavier than twenty years agone. Think about that. That means on boilerplate nosotros are putting on an extra pound every year.

Aside from the serious physical illnesses that our unhealthy lifestyles lead to, our mental wellness is also taking a hammering. Increased levels of insomnia, stress, depression and anxiety are often related to a simple neglect of our health and fitness.

Our positive mental health and well-existence are e'er rooted in the physical care of our bodies. A healthy listen is closely related to a healthy body. The three pillars of physical wellness are eating well, beingness physically fit and getting enough relaxation and sleep. Now let's look at these of these in plow.

Eating well: In many ways we take never known equally much as we exercise at present near the importance of diet and eating well. Wellness and cooking books are best sellers, TV programmes on nutrient and diets abound, and most people know almost the food pyramid and the importance of eating vegetables. Still despite this knowledge, on average, we continue to eat badly and struggle to sustain a good nutrition in our lives. The problem is largely ecology - we are surrounded by unhealthy foods in shops, convenience dinners on sale and are too time poor to set healthy dinners at dwelling.

When moving to a salubrious lifestyle, the key is to take charge of the surround and to make pocket-size changes that requite yous some control. This can include simple things similar ever bringing a water bottle with yous to ensure you drink more water and thus avoid unhealthy drinks, exercise your breakfast at home every bit a filling healthy one so you avert eating snacks afterward in the day or bringing your own good for you lunch to piece of work and then y'all avoid eating junk food in a restaurant.

Being physically agile: Co-ordinate to the WHO, adults should practice at to the lowest degree 150 minutes weekly of aerobic physical activity. This blazon of activity can be brisk walking, cycling or swimming or even vigorous housework! Even if you don't reach the weekly WHO goal, increasing your level of activity has enormous benefits to your well-being, including helping you concentrate amend, experience more energy and even to sleep better.

Only like making positive changes to your nutrition, making small-scale steps is the key with concrete activity. Await at easy means you can integrate activity into your day, whether this is choosing to walk instead of driving, using the stairs rather than the lift in work or even trying the new business trend of conducting walking meetings instead of sit down down ones!

Take steps to make exercise fun and enjoyable by committing to an activity you love, such as team sports, or hill walking or even dancing or aerobic classes. Also, bring together an activity with a friend or family fellow member which make information technology all the more than social and more likely that you continue.

Sleep and relaxation: In a recent acknowledged book 'Why We Sleep', by neuroscientist Matthew Walker, he exploded the myth of the high performing person who gets by on 5 hours of sleep or less. He instead showed the many studies that testify that people who go about 8 hours of restful sleep are the ones who perform the all-time. These are also the people who are more than likely to be happier, slimmer, and fifty-fifty more able to ward off diseases such every bit cancer and Alzheimer'southward. Taking time to create a good slumber routine is crucial your well-beingness and positive mental health. This is something I have always known as a psychotherapist working with families. Most of the stressed families I worked with, had poor sleep routines which were belatedly and ofttimes fractious. The first important step with these families was building relaxed and early bedtime routines. This in plow would reduce stress and conflict and make family life more than harmonious. Though it can take time making sure you're getting a proficient sleep and building a expert routine around your bedtime and including lots of residuum or relaxation through the twenty-four hour period. This is key to your well-being.

We are coming to the end of this podcast, so now let'due south take a look at to where we take got to. We have proposed that looking later your mental health is virtually creating balance in your life. The goal is to look later on the iii key areas in your life all at once. This ways taking time to nurture your close relationships, bringing your talents and passions to your piece of work and making sure you prioritise your cocky-care. In particular, you want to ensure you swallow well, are physically active and go plenty of rest and relaxation. Taking some time to create new healthy habits in your life can transform your mental wellness and sense of well-being.

Cheers for taking time to listen to my podcast. I'yard John Sharry from Silverish Cloud Health.

For more information please become to silvercloudhealth.com. Thank you very much.

Thank yous John for your insights. At that place is plenty to think almost at that place and lots of means to create that all of import balance in our lives.

And delight join us for our next podcast which is on supporting mental health and well-being in the workplace subsequently COVID-xix with the utilise of digital. Cheers.

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Source: https://www.silvercloudhealth.com/uk/blog/mental-health-balance-in-your-life

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