3 Simple Approaches to Good Mental Health during the Covid-era.
This article shares three simple approaches to good mental health.
Amidst the uncertainty of the Covid-era and the multiple challenges we’re facing maintaining good mental health takes quite some doing — here’s a few good, and perhaps different, places to start:
Do something good for your body
Nurture friendships by creating structure
Love the place you live in by tidying up
Each day in my work with individuals and teams I’m witness to personal struggles including (but not limited to):
isolation and feeling alone,
fear and uncertainty over catching Covid,
the state of the economy or the health of the planet,
social media’s addictive hook,
and / or the impending potential second lockdown.
On a good day life is full of the unknown, today the level of challenge is through the roof. With these people I help them support good all round health through a variety of approaches. Here are three that seem to be working for most people.
Do something good for your body
By placing our attention onto our body we bring ourselves into the present moment, away from abstraction and distraction, away from ideas and plans, and into the concrete experience of our raw physicality. Although not always comfortable or easy this sense of physical presence is calming on the mind and reminds us; Yes, we’re here, alive and have at least a few things to be grateful for.
Best for the body, in my opinion, is some kind of daily rhythm that involves stretching and strengthening. This is why The Body Coach has been so popular during lockdown. It’s simple daily exercise that you can do in the comfort of your living room. Even if it’s 5 mins of stretching, or taking a walk outside, or a yoga nidra session, or learning some Qi Gong moves from youtube — any and all of these will support your mental health.
It’s easy to forget that we experience 100% of life through our physical body. If we’re feeling anxious or depressed there are thoughts associated with those states, but mostly it’s a physical sensation. We feel anxious, it’s in our stomach, or we feel depressed. Our body gives us the score. And so rhythmical nurturing of your vehicle for life is a foundation of wellbeing.
Nurture friendships by creating structure
Without this becoming an endless stream of Zoom calls — which is totally exhausting, not useful, and what most of us find ourselves doing for work anyway — the principle here is to recognise which friendships of yours bring life and goodness into your life (warning; it’s usually not all the friendships you have!) and then once identified bring some structure to them.
Here I shared a post about how a few of us got together for solstice in the middle of the summer. Adapting to the various lockdown restrictions, that same group of friends has since met up one way or another to celebrate a couple of birthdays and also recently Autumn equinox. Solstice and equinox are turning points in our year and mark the seasonal changes we’re going through. Noticing them and doing something to mark the day with a group of people you love brings depth, meaning and solidarity to friendship.
How can you bring a sense of regularity, rhythm and structure into your friendships? Allow them to there for you with an added security, depth and sense of being in this together.
Love the place you live in by tidying up
Here I wrote about lessons learned from applying the wonderful Marie Kondo technique during lockdown. In brief Marie Kondo has made tidying up into a life-changing art form and it’s working, for lots of people, including myself. One of the lasting impacts of having a tidy up and sort out of my entire life was that I instantly felt more at ease, calmer and more spacious when at home.
Now I have far less stuff, cupboards are organised, things are rarely left around for long. Yes, this is far easier when living on your own and without kids, but I’m privy to some good friends here in Frome who have kids and who still manage to maintain the Kondo style tidiness.
One of the central principles is this:
“Everything has its place, and everything is in its place.”
And so, for you, what about an hour spent tidying, deciding on where thing should live, giving them a home if they don’t already have one, and enjoying the ease and spaciousness this simple act creates.
Conclusion
Friendships, physical health, and the places we live in; they all impact our mental stability and are worth nurturing in some way. If you’d like a deeper dive into good ways to support mental health I’d recommend ‘Lost Connections’ by Johann Hari in which he explains how we feel is based on a number of factors that we can consciously influence.
Our times are tough, let’s not forget that. And finding ways to support ourselves and our friends is more important than even.
In my 1–1 work each day I’m supporting clients to enjoy lives lived in good mental health. If you’d like an exploratory conversation please reach out or subscribe below: