I have said it many times on My Brain’s Not Broken – I am not a mental health professional. I have life experience and have discussed the topic with many professionals over the years, but this isn’t my line of work. However, I love to do research and find out what the experts are saying. After sharing my own perspective on the importance of feeling, I decided to poke around the Internet and see what mental health professionals are saying about the importance of feelings and emotions. Here’s a little bit of what I found!
Continue readingGuest Post: Burnout, Shame and the Sticking Point of Our Words
Today’s guest post is written by Rachael, who runs the amazing Call On Courage podcast.
Have you ever noticed how you call something affects how you perceive it? There’s a famous quote: “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; your words become your actions; your actions become your habits; your habits become your character; your character, it becomes your destiny.” We go from the micro that is a single idea right through to the macro of future destiny. Is that grandiose or grain of truth? I think this quote inhabits both descriptions. Where mental health is concerned, it’s vital; we label and frame our diagnosis around the language of recovery. It’s unhelpful to my mental health and well-being to describe myself as a depressed person…but someone who has had challenges facing depression and anxiety.
Continue readingThe Value of Feeling
Several times a day, I’m reminded of how important it is to feel. I don’t mean to be happy or sad, nervous or stressed out. But I mean to feel, really feel, an emotion coming over me or an action that I’m taking. This might sound a little out there, or even simplistic, so I hope you can stick with me for this post. But today, I want to share how valuable it is to actually, really, truly feel your feelings.
Continue readingFive Ways to Manage Automatic Negative Thoughts
Last week, I broke down a mental health term I’ve learned more about in recent years – automatic negative thoughts. We all process things in different ways, and negative thoughts are a byproduct of that processing. While I haven’t been able to rid myself of negative thoughts, I have been able to recognize them and try to deal with them in a more direct way than I used to. Here are some ways I try dealing with automatic negative thoughts, as well as some reminders about managing them.
Continue readingBreaking Down Mental Health Terms: What Are Automatic Negative Thoughts?
I’d been in therapy for a few years when I first heard the phrase automatic negative thoughts for the first time. It wasn’t hard to deduce the meaning of the phrase, but I found it interesting nonetheless. Like everyone else, I deal with negative thoughts every single day. They might be about myself or other things, but one thing is certain: they’re negative. It’s the automatic part that I find interesting, and I wanted to learn more about this concept. That’s why today, I’ll be breaking down what automatic negative thoughts are, what they look like, and what we can do about them.
Continue readingFive Reminders for Building Mentally Healthy Habits
A lot of my focus for the past few weeks has been on habits. I’ve written about habits before on My Brain’s Not Broken, but every time I revisit the topic I learn something new. Building healthy habits is an essential aspect of my mental health toolkit, but it doesn’t stop there. Maintaining healthy habits is just as important as building them; however, that’s easier said than done. Here are five reminders about building mentally healthy habits that can help keep us as healthy as we can be!
Continue readingForming Healthy Habits Amidst Setbacks
Living with mental illness can make people feel like they’re failing all the time. Moments of progress can feel impossible to recapture after a misstep. We can be very harsh on our failures, and our reactions can exacerbate those failures. Mental health setbacks happen to everyone, but they can be hard to deal with. Despite our failures, we should still strive to build healthy habits and goals to work toward. So, how can we form healthy habits when we feel like we have constant setbacks?
Continue readingThe Impact of Anxiety on Our Physical Health
Living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder has taught me so many things about myself. I’ve learned what some of my tendencies are, as well as what habits I fall into when it comes to coping mechanisms. I’ve learned about my triggers, what overstimulates me and what makes me anxious. But over the past few years, I’ve started focusing on other things connected to my anxiety. My GAD has always impacted my physical health, but it wasn’t something I often reflected on. Like other mental health disorders, anxiety can affect our physical health. Here’s how it impacts mine!
Continue readingMaking Mental Health A Global Priority
While every day is a good opportunity to talk about mental health, awareness days are some of the best chances to have a conversation. Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, the latest opportunity to shrink the stigma and share our stories around mental health and mental health challenges. Every year brings a different theme that focuses on various aspects of mental health. This year, the theme for World Mental Health Day is “Make Mental Health & Well-Being for All A Global Priority.” Here’s why that matters, and why it’s important that mental health is a global priority.
Continue readingA Reminder About Healthy Foundations
Earlier this week, I wrote about how everything we do serves a purpose when it comes to our health and wellness. I focused on physical exercise and my therapy sessions, but it applies to all areas of life. Each activity can serve a different purpose, and each moment can help us in a different way. Today, I want to elaborate further on that point because something else needs to be shared along with it. In the same way everything serves a purpose, there’s not one thing we need to do that will “solve” our mental health. There’s no magical elixir that will solve all our issues. It may sound obvious but it’s often forgotten, which is why that’s the reminder I want to share in this post.
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