A psychology professor called Noam Shpancer said that “mental health is not a destination but a process. It's about how you drive, not where you're going.”
Aged seventeen I learnt to drive a car. Aged thirty I learnt to drive my mind.
In the summer of 2017, as I emerged from the quagmire of mental illness, I wondered how I was going to prevent myself from getting unwell again. Was it possible to get better, and to stay well? Could I learn to live, after wanting to die?
I started to research mental illness, recovery and maintenance. I bought books, read articles, took online courses, attended seminars, watched videos, and even took a job to understand what was being taught in schools. Was there a lesson or two I’d missed?
Over time, and much experimentation, I identified six things I need to manage my mental health. I need to rest, to eat well and to exercise. I need to feel part of a community, to appreciate the natural world around me and to learn new things. We are all individuals living in very different circumstances, but I truly believe we all need the same six things to survive, and thrive.
We need to rest
Taking time to pause improves our mood and our memory, lowers our blood pressure and gives our bodies time to repair.
How do I rest? I try to go to bed at the same time every day, I enjoy an afternoon nap, I create pauses throughout the day for simple breathing exercises, like inhaling through my nose for four seconds, exhaling through my mouth for eight.
We need to eat
Eating and drinking well reduces our risk of diseases and ensures we are consuming the right nutrients for our bones and organs to function properly.
I am privileged to have had a reasonable relationship with food and drink throughout my life. I am aware that is often not the case for so many people and that what we eat and drink can be a very contentious and triggering subject.
I am not a nutritionist or a dietician but what I have learnt is that some food and drink make me feel good, and some makes me feel bad. Understanding this has helped me to make changes to what I eat and even encouraged me to stop drinking alcohol.
We need to exercise
Moving more boosts our energy levels, improves our sleep quality and produces endorphins which make it a little easier to maintain a positive frame of mind.
For me, walking with a woolly hat on and the sun on my face is heaven. I like swimming, I like doing yoga and pilates in groups with friends, I like dancing at parties and I count hoovering as exercise, because it means I’m moving more.
I try not to punish myself for the exercise I’m not doing (I absolutely know I’ll never run a marathon), or exercise I didn’t used to think was enough. Instead, I try to celebrate the exercise I actually enjoy.
We need to communicate to the people around us
A sense of belonging is vital for our wellbeing. Creating and maintaining relationships provide us with company, love and a network of support.
When you’ve experienced a crisis, it is routine to be grateful to the people who helped you through. When I was unwell, I was – and still am – grateful for the people who experienced it with me. The right medicine for my crisis was a heady concoction of Fair Isle wearing doctors, card sending sisters-in-law, 4-year-olds and 96-year-olds. An eclectic but vital mix.
Community comes in different shapes and sizes, and can be built anywhere. I’ve learnt to appreciate my neighbours, and the people I see regularly in local shops. Group messages provide a stream of connection through memes and nostalgia. Being with a friend for a coffee or hearing a familiar voice at the end of the phone is always comforting.
We need to connect to the world we live in
It is said that if we acknowledge our surroundings, we are more likely to appreciate how interconnected life is and take care of the people and world around us. Research by the Mental Health Foundation found that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to feel their lives are worthwhile. So appreciating nature, should help us to appreciate ourselves.
My interest in nature has really ramped up in the past few years. Perhaps it’s a result of being unwell. Perhaps it is having a dog who needs daily walks through woodlands, parks and commons. Perhaps it is because I’m around small people more, spotting birds in the park, collecting sticks. Perhaps it’s just being in my mid-30s.
Whatever the reason, I've slowed down enough to notice the weather, to enjoy gardening and to realise how much I love swimming in the freezing sea (there is nothing like the expansive sea to make you feel small and your worries even smaller). Nature is mad, it can be beautiful and it can be frightening, but for me, it is a daily reminder of what a rare privilege it is to be alive.
We need to develop as individuals
Exploring different interests and experiences helps us to work out what is important to us, what keeps us motivated and what makes us feel alive.
There is a lot my 90s/00s education taught me, perhaps most notably how to calculate the length of a triangle’s third side, Henry VIII’s wives and how they did or didn’t meet their end. But there is a lot it didn’t teach me, like understanding myself and others, how to manage relationships, grief and loss. The focus was on academic success, being marked and graded on what we could regurgitate, rather than celebrating curiosity.
I need to keep learning to feel mentally well, and I’m slowly out training the need to have a grade, qualification or a piece of paper to mark this learning as a success.
I try to learn something new every day: a new recipe, a new stretch, a new viewpoint from a podcast or a book. I have friends who teach me things, I see a therapist once a week and I usually have an online course on the go.
If no-one is marking your work or judging your success, what would you like to try?
Fancy trying it for yourself?
These six things help to keep me sane. I spend a little time each day to write down what I have done to meet these six needs and my overall mood, and this helps me to see how the things I do (or don’t do) impact how I feel. They are always at the front of my mind and you may notice that I use them to structure some of my newsletters.
I’ve just printed a small run of Mental Maintenance Notebooks which have day by day tracking of these six things and a weekly reflection page.
So, if you’d like to give it a go for yourself, you can buy a notebook here for a tenner. They would also make a lovely gift for a friend you care about.
You’ll see that the front cover includes a swanky new logo that I developed with my pal Sean. More on that soon.