mental health is not the mystery
that it once was
although there's a lot of things we
don't know about how the brain works
or why people feel certain things
or what makes it better,
there also is a lot that we have
figured out since the days
of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung
and those early pioneers of psychology.
There are many things that we can
definitively say:
"If you do this thing you will see
some amount of improvement ."
The problem is that a lot
of these proven strategies
for improving mental health are difficult,
uncomfortable or unpleasant to implement;
and a trap I see people get sucked into
all the time is they keep looking
for new solutions, new answers, new ideas,
not because they don't have any solutions
but because they don't like
the solutions they have.
They don't want to implement the things
that they already know
and so they spend hours and hours
reading books listening to podcasts
watching YouTube videos to try to find
an easier faster or more convenient way
to make the changes they already know
they should be making.
The thing about this is it's at best
this is procrastination
at worst it's avoidance.
Sometimes we need to stop acquiring
new information and focus
on applying the information
we already have.
And rather than looking
for that magic bullet, so to speak,
work on creating a foundation
combined with all of the things
we already know are definitely going
to help us if we could get them going.
When I hear somebody in therapy say:
"I've tried everything",
what they usually mean is:
I've tried everything that I want to try".
So that's why today instead of presenting
a new concept,
I'm going to review some things
that you probably already know,
but what I am hoping to do is maybe
present them in a new or novel way
that will make them feel more accessible,
more attainable
or more applicable
than they previously did.
So, without further ado
here are seven things
that you probably already know
you should be doing
but might be struggling to implement
into your life.
And the first is doing things
that you are scared to do,
in other words exposure therapy,
facing your fears.
Your comfort zone only grows
when you are not in it.
This is critical for you to understand.
And engaging in activities that cause you
anxiety or that cause you discomfort
is a lot ... it's kind of like stretching
your emotional range
in the same way that something
like yoga or calisthenics
is like stretching your movement range.
It doesn't necessarily feel great
while you are doing it.
In fact it can often be an unpleasant
experience while you're doing it.
But if you do it regularly,
navigating the world
becomes more enjoyable and less painful.
And you're less likely to get hurt:
if you stretch regularly,
you are less likely to hurt your body
when you're out and about
moving around
and there's fewer situations that you're
unable to physically navigate, right?
When you practice regular exposure therapy
and work on
in a sort of a planned strategic manner
facing, and hopefully eventually
conquering the things you are afraid of,
the world starts to open up to you.
It becomes more accessible and less scary
because there are fewer situations
you can imagine that you would find
yourself in that overwhelm your anxiety.
This is a huge part of why I used to be
so isolated when I was younger,
it's because I was terrified of doing
literally everything
other than playing video games in my room,
to be honest with you.
And so I avoided people I avoided
opportunity, I avoided school,
I avoided work because I felt like
I had so few skills
and so little coping ability that
it was only a matter of time
before I'd encounter a situation
that would completely overwhelm me,
so I didn't enter situations like
literally I just didn't
The more confidence you have
about your ability to navigate
these stressful situations
the less scary life becomes
and the more opportunities you have.
The second thing that you probably
already know you should be doing
but might be struggling to do
is taking good care of your living space.
Unless you are an absurdly wealthy person,
you are going to spend
the vast majority of your life
in two environments:
the place that you work
and the place that you live.
Now the place you live: you might own
your entire home,
you might rent, you might have a room
you might have a condo.
Whatever you have you have
an environment that you call home.
And so these two environments,
your work and your home,
they have a tremendous impact
on your mental health
if for no reason, no other reason,
I should say, than volume.
They're where you spend
the majority of your time
and so the way they look,
the way they feel, the way they function,
is critical to your emotional well-being-
We know that the environments
that you spend your time in
have a huge impact on your mental health.
And basically, what it comes down to
for me, my phrasing is,
if you're your home doesn't feel
comfortable to you,
you basically never feel like your home,
it's like you don't have a home,
you don't have a space: you have a home
but what you don't have is a space
in this world that feels right to you:
that's what you're missing
and we all need that
and I believe we all deserve that.
But you will not have one
unless you make one
you're the one that has to create
and maintain it;
and I don't always like that either
but I don't make the rules,
I just report on them
and this is the way we work
Taking good care of your environment
can be a very time-consuming task
especially if you've neglected it
for a long time
but remember that you don't have
to do it all at once, right?
Start small do a little bit each day
and before you know it
maybe your heart will have a home again
and that's something that can be
invaluable for our mental health journey.
The third thing you probably already know
you should be doing
but might be struggling to do
is to actually Implement
sleep hygiene techniques.
There are two types of insomnia:
there's clinical insomnia and
there's behavioral insomnia.
Clinical insomnia is when,
for the most part,
you are doing things right:
your day is structured in a way that
should allow you to fall asleep
and stay asleep reasonably well
but you are unable to do so
and it takes hours to fall asleep.
Behavioral insomnia is when
you have a double shot at 300 p.m.,
you get into bed at 11:00 p.m.,
you scroll on your phone till midnight,
then you toss and turn
until 3 in the morning.
In other words, you have insomnia
but it's because of choices you're making,
it's not because your brain doesn't know
how to go to sleep,
it's because you're not letting it
go to sleep
and you've set up your life in a way
that simply does not support sleep.
Most people who struggle with sleep
have behavioral insomnia,
not clinical insomnia
Clinical insomnia is actually
relatively rare and it's usually a matter
of lifestyle and habits
that are primarily facilitating
the experience of insomnia.
So my question to you would be:
"Are you actually practicing sleep hygiene
and suffering clinical insomnia
as a result
or are you self-sabotaging
and then complaining about it?"
Because -- not to put
too fine a point on it --
but that's basically
what behavioral insomnia is:
you are -- unintentionally I know, I'm
oversimplifying things a little bit --
you're making it as difficult as possible
for your brain to fall asleep
and then being, like:
"Brain, why didn't you fall asleep?"
I mean you're you're kind of gaslighting
your sleep cycle in a sense.
It's a weird way to think of it. I know,
but that's kind of what you're doing.
If you struggle with insomnia,
take a real honest inventory
of your nighttime routine
and ask yourself:
"Do I think it's reasonable that I should
be able to fall asleep pretty quickly
or am I basically taking everything
I know about sleep,
throwing it out the window
and thinking that's still going to work?"
Because it won't.
You're -- you have a brain
and you have a nervous system
and we know a lot about how these factors
affect our ability to fall asleep
and stay asleep.
And so sleep is not really a mystery,
it's just that most people
aren't doing it right and that's really
what I want you to consider if you're
struggling with insomnia:
"Am I am I doing it right or am I just
gaslighting my own sleep cycle?"
The 4th thing that you probably
already know you should be doing
but might be having trouble with
is minimizing or eliminating
drug and alcohol use
Now this one's a little bit different,
I know, because this one is harder
for a person to control directly
than some of the other topics
we're going to discuss here and
believe me, I am understanding of that.
Most people who use drugs and alcohol
use them because they want to feel
anything other than what it is like
to be themselves
and it seems like nothing could possibly
worse than just waking up today
and feeling like me -- and frankly I know
what that feeling is like.
Substances put you on a physical
and mental roller coaster, though,
where instead of changing
what it feels like to be you,
which is ultimately the reality
that you are struggling with
you are temporarily escaping
what it feels like to be you
and when the escape wears up off
you often feel even worse than before
and therefore you feel an even stronger
desire to escape from yourself,
which manifests as increased substance use
and creates a downward spiral that
the longer it goes on
becomes harder and harder
to extricate yourself from.
So if this is you, and I have a little bit
of a different idea for you here,
because everything else in this video
has been about "here's what you can do".
If you're struggling with drug
and alcohol use
and the pattern I just described
kind of sounds like you,
maybe it's time to admit that
you cannot do this alone
and that you need some help
with this problem
Substance misuse is probably
the hardest mental health condition
to treat without support,
maybe tied with eating disorders
because they're very similar
neurologically
and I think that's mainly because
it's so easy to lie to yourself.
And, you know, most people
aren't deceiving themselves
about their depression or their anxiety
so, like, well, it's not that bad.
Usually you face those things
pretty head on
you're like no this is awful
and I need help
but when it comes to things that produce
a momentary sense of reward
like eating disorders and substance misuse
you tend to rationalize,
you tend to explain,
you tend to minimize,
you tend to make excuses.
And if you've had several unsuccessful
attempts at changing those habits
for yourself, maybe it's time to stop
putting so much pressure on yourself,
to accept some help and to accept
some support in this domain.
There is no shame in that: this is typically
not a solo endeavor
and it might be time to think
about asking for for help
The fifth thing that you probably already
know you should be doing
but might be having a hard time doing
is being physically active every day.
So I mean, this one is no mystery right?
You probably had a million people
tell you this already,
including your doctor every time
you see them
and every other medical professional
you interact with.
You've probably heard it so many times
that you're sick of hearing it
and you have an innate automatic
defensive response
when someone says this to you.
So sorry about that, because I probably
just triggered it but here's the thing:
your brain needs blood your brain
does not work very well
if it does not have healthy
accessible blood flow.
It's literally one of the resources
your brain runs on,
it's like gasoline for your brain and
most of us have very sedentary lifestyles
which negatively impact
our cardiovascular health.
I mean, that's that's just the way
society is, it's not your fault.
That's the way society has gone:
most jobs don't use our bodies.
If you have a very physically active job
you probably don't need
to worry about this
because you are physically active
every day.
It doesn't have to be extra, right?
it doesn't have to be prescribed exercise
if you get this in from your job
or from your kids or whatever: fine.
But if you're like me
and you literally just sit on your butt
for nine hours a day at work,
you need to add this if your
predefined life doesn't have enough of it.
I'm not a fan of how society
has made us so sedentary
but it is what it is since your brain
needs blood to work right.
Cardiovascular health is brain health.
if you constantly feel foggy, forgetful,
distracted or moody,
it might be because your brain
doesn't have enough blood flow
it might be because your brain
doesn't have one of the resources
that it needs to keep your prefrontal
cortex powered on.
Because all the things that I just said
live there
and when your brain is lacking in any
essential resource
-- blood, oxygen, rest
or caloric energy --
it enters a low power mode, much like
what's on your phone
or your tablet or your laptop,
and certain processes don't work as well
as they normally do.
The first part of the brain
that takes the hit
when we're low on resources
is the prefrontal cortex:
it's executive functioning,
it's emotion regulation
it's social engagement.
So, if those are things
you're struggling with,
it's probably because your brain
doesn't have all the resources it needs
to do its job properly.
The one thing I always try to emphasize
with physical activity too
is like the way you do it really
doesn't matter if you want to lift
weights lift weights if you want to run
run if you want to do team sports do
team sports like if you hate some
certain type of exercise don't do it
it's not it's not huge
critical how you do it it's just
critical that you do it so find
something that you either like ideally
if there's nothing like literally
nothing find the thing you hate the
least it can be some weird obscure thing
maybe you want to get into hobby horsing
and if you don't know what that is you
should look it up on social media it's a
fascinating world if you do know what it
is I appreciate the people who
understand my obscure references because
there are many of them just do something
to get that that blood going to your
brain you might be amazed how much it
helps you really might be amazed the
sixth and final thing that you probably
asteris did this one probably know you
should be doing but are probably having
trouble doing is to stop beating
yourself up about how long it is taking
to get your life in order now I realize
that you might have been doing that
throughout this video already because as
I'm saying things that you probably
already knew you should be doing you
might have been beating yourself up
guilt tripping yourself shaming yourself
and if you were knock it off right now
sorry I had to say it that way but
seriously you're not doing yourself any
favors we all have enough pressure on us
already probably more than enough
pressure probably a maladaptive amount
of pressure and changes hard our brains
actively resist it because they're wired
for homeostasis we associate familiarity
with safety and with security and on a
very basic survival level we fight back
against our own attempts change putting
too much pressure on yourself tends to
keep you stuck so try patience and
gentleness instead and see what happens
it is amazing what people can do when
they finally feel understood and are
treated with respect and compassion and
it is very possible that the person most
standing in your way of feeling those
things and experiencing those things is
you