Birthday Learnings & Mental Health – Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket Vlog:
Yesterday was my birthday so in this video I talk about three mental health factors that arose and that can help you with your mental health and reducing anxiety and stress. Click on the image and have a watch here:
Birthday Learnings & Mental Health:
Hello, it’s Dan here. I hope you’re good today. Yesterday was my birthday – Happy Birthday to me – thank you. It reminded me of three very useful things, that are useful for the kind of stuff we do, and particularly for mental health. Yesterday I took the day off, with my wife and kids, and we spent the day together, went out for a walk and stuff, and just enjoyed spending time together.
It was a nice day, getting out, playing some games at home and just interacting away from the screens and stuff. Certainly one of the main things I was reminded of which is really key in terms of mental health and well-being is just spending time with the people you enjoy spending time with. Whether, like me, that’s your wife and kids and doing that, whether it’s a good friend or whether it’s somebody else. Actually just spending some time with them away from screens, not looking at your phone all the time, just interacting, just hanging out, but just having that quality time is just so important, like I say, for mental health, for well-being, for just enjoying life and being happy.
So really incorporate that into your life, you don’t have to wait until your birthday. You can incorporate elements of that into your day, or into your week, whether it’s a bit of time here, it’s a longer period, whether it’s something special, or just doing routine stuff, just interacting, talking, playing games, conversation, all really good stuff. The second thing that happened yesterday was that yesterday I had my first coffee shop coffee for twelve weeks.
It may not sound a lot to some of you but it was a big deal for me. Before lockdown, routinely and for several months I would grab a coffee shop coffee every morning. I felt like I needed that caffeine hit, in my mind I became almost convinced that without even realising that that habit I was justifying to myself I needed that so I could think clearly and perform, it would give me a lift, a boost, I enjoyed it, there was always a reason to go for that habit. Obviously lockdown took that away and yesterday was a treat, I enjoyed it, yet no longer do I feel controlled by it or compelled to have it. I’m back in control, I can choose – it’s a really important point, we don’t want to be controlled by stuff. If we have to have something or we have to do something then we’ve lost that element of control, we’ve lost the ability to make the decision and we have to keep repeating, repeating, repeating. So, it applies whether it’s caffeine like it was for me, whether it’s sugar, whether certain behaviours, habits or patterns, whatever it is we don’t want to be controlled by those things.
You don’t have to wait for a lockdown to change that view. Put barriers in place, make it harder to do, pause, make the decision beforehand, go a different route, I don’t have to walk past the coffee shop, I don’t have to go in there, I don’t have to carry money, I don’t have to have chocolate or sweets if I don’t want to be eating those, I don’t have to buy them, I don’t have to have them displayed at home, I don’t have to make it easy for myself. I put barriers in place and those barriers support chiefly the kind of goals that you want to. Albeit you might still, like I will, enjoy the occasional coffee here and there. Putting barriers in place puts you in control and makes it easier, you’re not battling with willpower to do the kind of stuff you’re desiring to do.
And the third thing that was really obvious yesterday was that we took some time to just get out in nature. There is a lovely walk that we discovered on a business park just down the road, if you live in Ely, Lancaster Park here there is a nice walk there, fairly new. It was lovely and quiet, solitude, nature, the birds were out, lovely flowers, all that kind of stuff going on. It was tranquil I think is the word I would use and we know from research and evidence that spending time in nature is positively linked with less anxiety, less stress, and more well-being, and feeling better, and satisfied and all that good stuff.
So for your mental health really try to cultivate opportunities to get out in nature. Like I say, research, when they ask people, when they test them, even when they test their saliva for stress hormones, it’s shown time and time again just a small amount of time, even two or three times a week for 10-20 minutes, sometimes even less is enough to give you a nature boost and to really improve your mental health and your well-being.
So spending time in nature is a really positive thing to do, something that I really encourage you to do and particularly you can link it with exercise like walking and stuff, and running through that kind of place. We know again from research that exercise is great. I’ve banged on about that enough probably in my blogs and on these videos. Certainly, like I say, spending time with people you enjoy being with, having real conversations, getting away from screens, doing stuff, interacting, brilliant stuff, putting things in place, putting up barriers, limits, so you’re free of those kind of habits, those behaviours, those things you want to be free of, or at least you’re deciding that you’re in control, again a positive place to be, and you can put physical things in place, you can put thinking patterns in place.
There are lots of things that can be done there and I’ll put a link to a blog I did that was linked to science and research around willpower and being in control. Spending time in nature, a wonderful thing to do. Combine it with time with people you enjoy being with. For your mental health, your well-being, reducing anxiety, reducing stress and all those kinds of things, you probably can’t beat it, except if you link it with exercise, which I said I wouldn’t mention again. So three really valuable things that I noticed yesterday as valuable, and I will speak to you very soon, take care now.
Dan Regan
1st July 2020
Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket
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