Every month we hear another report from the media about the escalating percentage of our population who experience difficulties maintaining their mental health across all age groups and demographics. Given the trend does it seem reasonable to suggest that we are not really providing effective solutions for maintaining our mental health?
We are encouraged to talk about our mental health problems in order to relieve stigma, and the talking does have its place. But too much talk can be counter-productive, if we become increasingly focused on our problems. After the initial relief talking can fail to make us feel better because talking about the problem does not teach us how to effectively transcend the situations which ‘get us down’.
Wouldn’t we be wiser to deliver a more systemic approach, and make it so that we don’t have mental health problems to talk about in the first place?
How would things be if we all made a positive decision to refocus our attention from analysing and diagnosing our mental health difficulties to progressively building our individual mental strength?
Nearly everyone can take responsibility for strengthening their own minds and develop the psychological equipment to transcend most of their anxiety and depression. Achieving mental strength is easier than many people might imagine. The first, and perhaps most significant step, is deepening our understanding of how our paradigms affect our responses to our day-to-day lives, our achievements and the probability that we will achieve our potential.
Our paradigms are supported by our thinking habits. For example, if you think that you have done something wrong you are likely to feel bad about it. If you feel bad about your actions or particular lack of achievement you eventually start to feel bad about yourself. And if you habituate the “I’ve done something wrong” thinking habit you are very likely to start feeling bad about yourself which inevitably damages your self-esteem and so impacts your mood.
Our paradigms and thinking habits are, in very many cases, the real root cause of our mental condition. The good news is that it’s relatively straightforward to change our thinking habits and adapt our paradigms so that we can lead happier, healthier and more productive lives.
It is an accepted societal norm that we will be healthier if we do physical exercise to maintain our physical strength, happily fittening our bodies also has a positive effect on our minds. Imagine how it would be if the majority of us made a conscious decision to strengthen our minds?
You may be familiar with Pilates or yoga, you may regularly visit a gym? If you engage in any of these physical strengthening activities you will know that key to success is repetition and persistence. If you engage with them you will probably have experienced some psychological benefits as well.
The psychological benefit of physical exercise is to some degree a byproduct of the activity which releases endorphins and causes us to feel more grounded. But there is much more that you can learn about how to strengthen your mind.
What you may not know is that there are more than 50 mental practices which you can do to make your mind stronger on a daily basis. If you would like to know more about how to strengthen your mind to improve your quality of life why not join one of our free mental fitness sessions https://achieving-momentum.com/events/
