Staying Mentally Health in Tough Times

Does it feel difficult to just do your life basics lately? If this is true for you, you are certainly not alone. The pandemic has certainly amplified negative feelings and made it very difficult for everyone to feel at ease. There is so much information coming at us at all hours of the day and we have become more reliant on technology to update us on what is happening. Therefore, we end up developing unhealthy relationships with technology to meet our human need of wanting a solution, or wanting more information about a problem. This begs the question so what can we do it about this?

There is no simple answer to the above question. However a simple strategy that has held its weight in gold over the pandemic with many of my clients is boundary and limit setting. What I mean by this is both simple and complicated at the same time. One things many of struggle with is simply saying no. When someone in the work place asks for help on a project that is not your responsibility. We can quickly get pulled into this and feel pressure to be liked and valued so we say yes. However, what we ignore is that our brain is already running on a higher level of alert and anxiety lately, so it takes less for us to get overwhelmed. Once we get overwhelmed, we can often shut down and need time to calm down, or in worse cases need to take the rest of the day off or take tomorrow off.

One strategy I have recommended regularly is not saying yes to anything until you have had time by yourself to consider if this is something that aligns with your values, if this is something that will bring you professional or personal or social value. And it is only once we remove the pressure that we will be better able to make decisions that will not lead to us getting overwhelmed professionally and by ultimately personally with our partners and families.

A second strategy, we often ignore is running off once our work day is done and not really checking in with ourselves to see how we are doing as a person. This matters even more for people with families and partners where they are working under the same roof. Consider this, you have had an overwhelming day and done 8 or more hours work for your employer. And you have not done anything for your mental or physical health yet today. What sort of person do you think will show up for their kids or for their partner? I am not saying it will always be a bad thing. In my opinion, the problematic answer I find is that I don't know what kind of person I will be if I am not checking in with myself. To get more specific, have you asked any thought provoking questions to yourself? Such as: how am I feeling at the end of my work day today? Are there any aspects of the day that are troubling me still? If so what might I need to do in order to let go of them? Once you have done this, the harder part is looking at what ways will work for you to not feel the burden of your work day? The solutions can often be a combination of thinking exercises, physical activity, developing strong grounding statements we can tell ourselves to shift the feeling of control we want back into our corner.

In summary, these are two common strategies that can work for some people.However, there are many more strategies that can work depending on your learning style, motivation and life commitments. If you want to get more in depth feel free to message me.