Mood Check-In For Mental Wellness

Hi,

Thanks for joining me for this episode of Calm Unfolding.

I'm Susan,

A counsellor,

EMDR certified therapist and owner of Live Happy Counselling Services.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'll be sharing a simple check-in strategy today,

One you can use to gain insight into those very first indicators that emotion is activating up.

It's about fostering a habit of self-awareness,

One that,

Once learned,

Can help you know when to utilize a coping strategy to anchor back into the present moment.

He probably wasn't referring to regulating emotion when Ice Cube wrote the lyric,

Check yourself before you wreck yourself,

But the statement fits today,

So let's go with it.

I'll also share a gentle perspective modification that encourages mental health to be recognized within one's overall view of health,

And I'll share a guided breathing practice because being emotionally overwhelmed can feel scary and everyone can benefit from learning how to lessen that discomfort.

Many of us have a sense of what it means to be physically healthy as well as what it means to take care of our physical health,

But I find the same doesn't hold true for our mental health.

Let's dive in.

Get comfortable,

Take a moment to quiet any distractions around you.

Draw in your breath,

And release it out.

I like to use the breath as a way to symbolize the transition from one activity to the next.

If that's an idea that fits for you,

Take another breath with me now.

Breathing in connection with just this one moment,

And exhaling out.

Now that you're comfortable and fully present,

Let's talk about mental wellness.

It really can be seen as the umbrella under which sits our emotional,

Psychological,

And social well-being,

And also under that umbrella is how we think,

Feel,

And behave.

It's because our mental health determines how we approach situations,

Such as how we handle stressful moments,

And it even dictates how times we relate to others.

It impacts our expectations and our choices.

It impacts our sleep and even our physical health.

In simplicity,

We can safely assert that mental wellness is the foundation upon which our overall health is built.

We thrive in life when our mental health is strong,

And when we're struggling,

Well,

That's when we have to go about our day a little differently.

The problem is that many of us haven't been taught to acknowledge our mental health as part of our health,

And when we don't acknowledge our mental health,

Or we do but we don't know what to do about it,

And therefore ignore it or minimize it,

When our mental health suffers in ways such as anxiety,

Depression,

And post-traumatic stress,

We still tend to go about trying to approach life the same way we always have.

Perhaps we take a medication the doctor prescribed but otherwise not really changing the way we go about the day,

And because of that,

Mental health continues to suffer and our quality of life suffers.

The longer this goes on,

The more likely it is that feelings of helplessness can start to arise.

We're doing what the doctor suggested,

But nothing's changing.

Our mood isn't lightening enough.

Happiness might start to seep in because we feel unsure that things will ever get better.

I'd like to suggest a gentle perspective modification.

Ready?

Here goes.

From the very moment we experience a mental health challenge,

That is,

The moment we start to experience anxiety,

Panic,

Experience a loss,

Or have a traumatic experience that sends us into symptoms of post-traumatic stress,

From the moment we have that experience,

That is the moment when we need to start doing life differently.

That's what we would do if our physical health was compromised and our mental health is no different.

It requires the same care and concern,

Attention and compassion.

Okay,

I'm going to use an example,

And I'm going to use the example of diabetes.

The day a person is diagnosed with diabetes is the day they need to start doing life differently.

For anyone listening who isn't familiar with what diabetes is,

I'll give you a super-brief summary.

It's a chronic health condition that affects how the body turns food into energy.

The body doesn't make enough insulin or isn't able to use insulin the way a body that isn't diabetic would.

When there isn't enough insulin,

Or when the body is no longer responding to insulin,

There's too much sugar that stays in the bloodstream,

And over time,

This can cause serious health problems.

That being said,

Those with diabetes can live very healthy lives by checking their blood sugar level throughout the day and by knowing their unique warning signs of low blood sugar.

As soon as the numbers start to be off,

They respond.

They take corrective action to keep their body in a state of wellness.

If they don't pay attention,

Well,

Their body won't stay in that place of wellness,

And that's when the serious health problems start to factor in.

Comparatively,

When mental health is suffering from potentially chronic conditions like anxiety,

Depression,

And post-traumatic stress,

People have to start doing life differently.

By changing a few things in the course of how they approach their day,

Symptoms can be reduced,

And mental health is more likely to be improved.

It's not just about medication.

That can be part of the care plan that one has for their mental health if their doctor has prescribed them something,

But in these circumstances,

Caring for one's mental health has to involve a balance between pills and skills.

The pills referring to what your doctor prescribed and the skills referring to emotion regulation.

Let's look at one of those skills now.

The one I'd like to start with is all about creating a habit of checking in with yourself.

Zoning out and emotionally shutting down is a common reaction when someone feels stressed out or overwhelmed.

That's why I'd like to start with tuning in,

Helping you develop a habit of noticing,

Acknowledging,

And taking action to thereby reduce activation from getting so high that shutting down becomes the option.

In that diabetes example earlier,

Individuals check their blood sugar levels and take action if it's out of range,

And this is a parallel comparison because when it comes to mental health and emotional activation,

We need a way to check in with ourselves to know when to take action so that we don't escalate all the way up into panic or say something we regret in a rage-filled moment.

For this check-in,

I'd like you to think of a rating scale from 1 to 10,

Where 10 represents the most distressed you've ever felt and 1 is neutral.

In counseling psychology,

We call this the subjective units of distress scale,

Or SUDs for short.

It's subjective because you make the rating for yourself based on how you feel and what you overall know of yourself.

When we are under pressure or stress or feeling emotionally overwhelmed,

We live in a constant place upwards of a 4,

An emotionally charged place where our brain is saturated in stress hormones.

This chronic psychological and emotional activation is not good for us.

We need to get into a habit of checking out our number to know when we can take corrective action with an emotional coping strategy.

You can start by checking in,

Using this rating scale with yourself simply by saying to yourself,

What's my number,

And if you are at a 4 or higher,

Pause and engage in an activity that will lower that number.

I'm going to share one here,

But first a question for you.

What number would you give it when you first start noticing emotion activating up within you?

And how do you know?

What does it look like for you?

For example,

When emotion starts activating up within you,

Do you notice the muscles in your jaw clenching?

Do your shoulders get tight and raised up?

Does your breathing become short and shallow?

Perhaps you hold your breath.

Does your thinking start to become fixated or rigid?

If you have a hard time thinking of this for yourself,

Consider what would those around you say if you asked them?

How do the people in your life know when you are starting to activate up into emotion?

What's the first thing they would see?

I asked my kids that question once,

And they said they know I'm shifting out of calm because the usual look on my face changes,

And I'm going to quote them here.

They say I get a straight line mouth.

It makes me chuckle when I say that now,

But boy did it ever help me with becoming more aware of how I held emotion in my body,

And when I felt my mouth going into a straight line,

I knew I needed to do something to take care of my stress level.

Take a moment now for yourself,

Pause this audio if you'd like,

And think about what your number is when you first start to activate up out of a calm place,

And what does that look like for you?

Alright,

Got it?

Great.

Knowing that number is important because it will become an indicator for you.

It's how you'll know when to take action.

Remember how those with diabetes check their blood sugar and if the number is representative of low blood sugar,

They take action?

I'm asking you to start applying a similar methodology to your mental health.

Not about your blood sugar,

But about emotion dysregulation.

You need to know what your earliest sign is that you've activated up,

And the number that goes with that.

If you check in and your number is over 4,

You've got to take some action to bring it back down.

Let's try one of those actions together now.

Take a deep breath in,

And exhale out.

One of the most effective ways to regulate emotion is based on our breath.

That's because our body cannot be in a state of physiological activation and have slow,

Deep breathing at the same time.

Give it another go with me now.

Start by noticing the connection of your feet on the floor where you are.

Check your posture,

And if you're sitting up,

Roll your shoulders slightly back and down.

Shift your body if you need to get a bit more comfortable.

Bringing your awareness to your breath and the sensation of air at your nostrils,

Breathe in through your nose,

And exhale out through your mouth.

Draw your breath in,

Noticing your abdomen expanding with that inhale,

And exhaling out through your mouth.

And one more time with me.

Inhaling in,

And exhaling out.

Good.

Deep breathing signals to the brain that we are safe,

And the brain then signals our nervous system to settle.

Once our nervous system settles,

Then our thoughts also begin to settle.

They get less rigid and return to a place of being able to see the situation for what it is,

Rather than through the lens of the past or anxiety or anger and so forth.

We're all breathing anyway,

So let's access this innate capacity of ours to calm our body and shift our emotional state.

In this recording,

I wanted to introduce you to a new way to think about your mental wellness.

One that helps you to attend to it with the same diligence and care you would to your physical health.

We talked about the check-in,

Identified your number,

That first sign that you're activating up and need to take action,

And for that action we practiced deep breathing.

Your mission,

Should you choose to accept,

Is to practice checking in with yourself a couple times a day.

Ask yourself,

What's my number?

And if you're over a four or the number that you selected as your indicator,

Take action by deepening and slowing your breath.

If you feel you won't remember to check in,

You could put a sticky note somewhere you tend to look often,

Like a bathroom mirror,

Or you could set an alarm on your smartphone to go off a couple times throughout the day.

You could even name the alarm,

What's my number?

It's easy to learn these strategies,

But if we don't have a way to remind ourselves to use them,

They'll forever be quite useless,

So set yourself up for success with a memory cue that fits your life.

And please remember,

When it comes to minding your mood and taking action to connect with calm,

There's no one size fits all.

When you find what works for you,

Connecting with calm can take practice,

Especially if you've had a habit of ignoring it.

If we practice,

We improve,

So be patient with yourself,

Have an open mind,

And stay curious.

And one last thing.

On that scale of one to ten where ten's the worst,

If you check in and notice your number is high and you take action,

Your goal might not be to bring it down to zero,

Which is neutral.

Your goal is to just move it down a few notches.

That's putting you back in the driver's seat of regulating emotion.

I hope this information has been helpful for you today.

Thank you for choosing me.