25. Mindful behaviours to improve mental health

Caring for yourself involves making sure you eat, sleep, and drink water regularly. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

Mindful behaviours to improve mental health

If you’re struggling with your emotions, consider utilizing DBT skills to stay grounded and increase your happiness

ELENI KOPSAFTIS

Note: This list of DBT skills, from Marsha M. Linehan’s “DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition” and “DBT Skills Training Manual, Second Edition,” are courtesy of Student Health Services’ Mental Health Care Coordinator Lindsay Smart, and are not a replacement for professional therapy. Please consult the suggested mental health resources.

During this whirlwind of a year, I’ve had lots of time to spend idly browsing social media while holed up at home during lockdowns. In this time, I’ve seen plenty of encouragement online urging others to stay strong during these uncertain times.

For me, these messages felt… lackluster. Sentiments about “searching for silver linings” and “counting my blessings” fed into the self-deprecating part of my brain. If others are finding the silver linings, why can’t I? If others have it worse than me, why do I feel bad?

While I’m sure all of these online messages were made in good faith, I have a hard time responding to thought-based encouragement. Some of us simply work better with a different approach to mental health than just thinking more positively.

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a behaviour-based therapy developed by American psychologist Marsha M. Linehan that focuses on altering our negative behaviours when thoughtbased therapies fail.

Our thoughts and behaviour affect each other in a cycle which then affects emotion. If this cycle leads you into a spiral of negative emotions, therapy will teach you to disrupt it. For example, thoughtbased therapies will encourage you to replace negative thoughts with affirming ones so that your behaviour can subsequently be influenced. Meanwhile, DBT focuses on interrupting negative behaviours so that our thought process can follow suit.

If you’re like me and thoughtbased therapies don’t always work for you, hopefully some of these DBT skills, courtesy of Student Health Services’ Mental Health Care Coordinator Lindsay Smart, can help you practice positive mental health.

According to DBT principles, most people are influenced by their reasonable mind and emotional mind. The reasonable mind is task-focused while the emotional mind is mood-dependent and acts based on feelings and urges.

Ideally, we want to remain in what’s called the ‘wise mind’, a state where we see the value of both reason and emotion and can make thoughtful choices as a result. In order to balance logic and feeling and remain in our wise minds, it’s important not to indulge in behaviour that favours just one mind.

The emotional mind is greatly influenced by the state our bodies are in. Have you not been eating and sleeping regularly? Are you not drinking enough water? Are you under the weather? These are all factors that shift our minds into the realm of emotion. If your body detects that it isn’t being taken care of, it will shift your focus away from logic until you can fulfill your needs.

Before you act on impulse due to anger, sadness, or other negative emotions, consider grabbing a bite to eat or taking a nap. While the problems you’re facing may deserve being addressed, being in the right state of mind will help you deal with those problems in a more constructive way.

It’s still entirely possible for emotions to take over even when your body is well taken care of. During instances where our feelings are out of control, you can try to ease yourself out of the emotion

DBT THERAPY

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

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PRACTICE MINDFULNESS WITH “WHAT” SKILLS

with “what” skills.

These skills are used during a moment when emotions are overwhelming. Their purpose is to increase control over your mind and ground yourself in the present all the while reducing suffering and increasing happiness. They take practice, and some might work better for you than others, so try them out in moments of emotional clarity too. This way, you’ll have a better idea of which skills are the most effective for you and you’ll be ready when a surge of overwhelming emotion hits.

The first “what” skill is observation. Take a moment to wordlessly notice bodily sensations such as those coming through your eyes, ears, and skin. Don’t push away or cling to thoughts and emotions. Instead, let them slip by. Focus your attention strictly on the present moment.

The next skill is description. Give labels to thoughts and experiences non-judgmentally such as “I am feeling sadness” or “my hands are shaking.” This skill applies only to what you can experience through your five senses, not to opinions or interpretations. Focus on the facts. A way to do this is by describing the “who, what, where, and when” of your observation.

The last “what” skill is participation. Go ahead and throw yourself completely into an activity. Sing, dance, talk to a friend, or even do some chores. Simply engage yourself in something that you can focus on in the present moment. Try not to separate yourself from the activity, such as clinging to a negative thought while washing the dishes. Fully immerse yourself in your actions.

These skills are meant to be done one at a time, not merged. Don’t try to observe while participating, otherwise you won’t be able to fully immerse yourself in a single skill.

If an emotion is severe, “what” skills might not be enough to bring you down. In these instances of extreme emotion, increasing happiness and control might not sound like realistic goals to the overwhelmed mind. Should you find yourself in such a case of severe and uncontrollable emotion, you might need to get in control of your body before proceeding forward.

The following skills are scientifically backed since they utilize body chemistry.

Your brain and body work together when cycling through thoughts and behaviours. If one provides a signal for an emotion, the other will follow in accordance. For example, if your brain makes you feel anger, your body will probably tighten up. Similarly, if we move our body in a certain way, our brain will provide the appropriate signal.

The first method is stopping, which, as the word suggests, simply means stopping everything you’re doing. Completely freeze your body and don’t move. Your brain will be sending signals according to the emotion you’re feeling, like clenching your jaw or pacing, but resist the urge. Your brain will eventually conform to the signals your body is sending it.

Next is intense exercise. Spending all of your energy on a single physical task will leave you with little left to spend on your emotion. Try going for a run, lifting some weights (be sure to use proper form), or playing a fastpaced sport. Make sure to ease off the exercise once the emotion has worn off as to not over-exert yourself needlessly.

You can also try pacing your breathing. With distressing emotions, your breathing will likely be quick or out of sorts. Try slowing it by breathing deeply and purposefully. The most important part is to breathe out more slowly than you breathe in so that your heart rate can slow and your brain can ease off its distress signals. Breathe in for five seconds and out for seven and repeat for several minutes.

Finally, try slowly tipping your face into cold water, holding it there for approximately 30 seconds but being careful to surface and breathe if need be. For safety reasons, the water should be above 10 degrees C (50 degrees F). This method will trigger the mammalian response, a diving reflex that causes your heart rate to slow dramatically. Similar to paced breathing, a slowed heart rate will calm distress signals. However, consider a different method if your emotion is causing you to have trouble breathing.

If you’re like me and you’ve struggled to incorporate thoughtbased therapies to improve your mental health, some of these behaviour-altering ideas might help you. If not, that’s OK too! There are lots of resources and other modes of therapy out there that might resonate better with you.

UTILIZE YOUR BODY CHEMISTRY

By using the participation skill and concentrating solely on an activity, such as talking on the phone with a friend, you are grounding yourself in the present instead of lingering on negative thoughts. CREDIT: UNSPLASH

ALL IN ALL...

• Good2Talk hotline 1-866925-5454 or text GOOD2TALKON to 686868 • Here 24/7 hotline 1-844437-3247 or 519-821-3582 • Therapistaid.com mental health worksheet archive • Inkblottherapy.com mental health video counselling app • For University of Guelph resources, first dial 519-8244120 and then enter the extension number. › Counselling services and health clinic ex. 52131 › Wellness Education Centre ex. 53327 › Sexual violence support and education coordinator ex. 53020 › Stress management and high performance clinic ex. 52662