Welcome to she persisted I'm your host Sadie Saxton a 19 year
old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of
Pennsylvania. She persisted is the Teen Mental
Health podcast made for teenagers by a team in each
episode. I'll bring you authentic
accessible and relatable conversations about every aspect
of mental Wellness. You can expect evidence-based,
Tina, proof resources, coping skills, including lots of DBT,
insights and education. In each piece of content, you
consume, she persisted Offers you a safe space to feel
validated and understood in your struggle.
While encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and
build your life worth living. So, let's dive in this week on.
She persisted, we can think of thoughts and urges and coping
skills. That a lot of the times are
things that really do impact, our mental health, in a very
direct way as habits. And every time, we engage in a
negative thought, or we engage in urge, that isn't an effective
coping skill, are we use a healthy way of coping to and
emotional situation. We are either building a habit
or breaking a habit and so you could be a building healthy have
it. You could be strengthening and
unhealthy habit, which means it's harder to move away from
having that thought or engaging in that urge, or using that
unhealthy coping scale, or you could be engaging in a healthy
habit. And at the same time, breaking
that reinforced unhealthy, coping skill, thought urge
excetera. Hello, hello, and welcome back
to. She persisted, I'm so excited
for today's episode. You guys voted on Instagram and
work. Excited to hear about today's
topic, which is mental health habits.
You've probably heard me say this before, but I really do
firmly believe that a lot of what goes into having good
mental health, or being successful.
And your mental health journey is preventative work and laying
a foundation and groundwork that allows you to be successful.
Keeps you on a positive trajectory and set you up for
Success. Even when your mental health is
at a lower point, I think, learning new skills.
Skills and mastering new coping skills and behaviors, and
habits, and ways of rewiring your thought patterns.
All of these things, we do to improve our mental.
Health are great things, but they are very challenging to
learn and Implement when you are in crisis mode.
And when you are actively struggling, if we can learn
these skills, when our mental health is in a better state, it
makes things easier on us and then we can Implement them when
we really do need them. So when our mental health is
struggling, we've really don't want to be learning mastering
and Thanks girls. At the same time, we want to
make things as easy for ourselves as possible.
Which means making mental health habits and good.
Mental health habits really second nature, so you can just
go into autopilot mode and do what, you know, Works to get
yourself out of a low point. And again, keep yourself on that
upwards trajectory with starting today's episode with some little
tidbits and pieces of wisdom from Atomic habits, which if you
haven't read before, I highly recommend, it's not necessarily
a mental health book. But it is a book, all about
mastering habits and behaviors and routines.
And I do feel like a lot of things related to mental, health
are related to shifting Behavior, shifting habits and
ways that we cope with things, a lot of the times our behaviors
and habits. So whether that is thought,
patterns, whether that is urges, whether that is the ways that we
respond in relationships, whether that is things like
self-harm, disordered eating, and even healthier habits that
we're trying to implement, like a good sleep schedule, or a
balanced diet or being connected, or Staying on top of
our self care. These things are all habits, and
so, the scientific principles in this book, apply there as well.
So your two quotes that I want to give you from this book, I'm
going to explain one principle that I think is super helpful to
know, and then explain a really brief summary, the ideas and
then that will be the atomic habits portion.
But I think it's a great Foundation to have in this
episode. So, the first quote that I love,
is that habits or the compound interest Of self-improvement.
So the idea here is that the more you invest in yourself, the
more you work on self-improvement the growth
compounds and it improves over time, and it truly just improves
exponentially. And this is both objectively
true with building a habit or mastering a skill, like running
a marathon and subjectively true and things like coping with
emotions that arise or challenging situations.
And so there's a real, this really amazing chart with an
atomic habits that breaks down. What would happen if You improve
one percent every single day. If you were to get one percent
better, every single day for a year, you would be at thirty
seven point seven, eight percent better because the compound
interest is there. But if you were to get 1% worse
every day for the entire year, you would be at 0.03%.
So the goal is to make these baby steps.
Make these tiny shifts and changes so that you are on that
upper trajectory and you are working towards the point that
you want. To be short term, long term, and
achieving your goals. So to summarize the book in
three sentences, I will link the article that I got this from
because while I have read this book, they summed this up so
nicely. So I wanted to give you this
little summary and I'll link The Source in the show notes.
So an atomic habit, is a regular practice of routine that is not
only small and easy to do, but it's also the source of
incredible power a component of the system of compound growth,
bad habits repeat themselves. Again and again, not because you
don't want to change, but because you have the wrong
system for change. I love that especially for
mental health. If you are feeling like you are
at an absolute rot with your ability to think differently
about situations and experience different emotions.
In response to challenges you're facing or use different skills.
When you are presented with a difficult moment, restructuring
how you approach that and being like, I don't want to change
enough which probably isn't the case, but you don't have the
system for change, don't have the toolbox and the support
system, and the knowledge to be able to make those shifts in a
way that is effective and sustainable.
And the third sentence is changes that seem small and
unimportant at first will compound into remarkable
results. If you're willing to stick with
them for years, I know you're probably like years.
Like, I know we're building habits, but that seems really
long term especially with regards to mental health.
And this is where I love to bring in the idea of thoughts.
And anyway, that you process through change the way that you
speak to yourself, if you can make small shifts in the way
that you think about yourself and your self-esteem, and the
way you go about things with you're approaching them from a
more emotion anxiety, fear, shame based perspective versus
more logical, problem, solving validating self-empowerment
perspective, if you can make tiny shifts in your thoughts,
Think about how much of an impact that will have years from
now, not only with how you speak to yourself and process through
things. But also your self-esteem, the
way you view yourself the way, you should open relationships
your confidence. All of these things that we want
to improve. So that is the book in three
sentences. There are five Big Ideas within
the book. The first habits are the
compound interest of self-improvement second.
If you want better results than forget about setting goals focus
on your system, third, the most effective way to change your It
is to focus not on what you want to achieve but who you wish to
become. So if your mental health goal
was to have less panic attacks, you would kind of reframe that
and be like I would like to be the kind of person who handles
my anxiety with confidence and a sense of Competency and I feel
capable of handling and processing through and
validating my emotions as they arise and not feeling like they
control me. Fourth, the four laws of
behavior change, our simple set rules we Can use to build better
habits. They are make it obvious, make
it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying.
So those have to be involved to make any great habitat will kind
of break doubt that down more, but those are essential in
creating a new habit. In fourth environment is the
Invisible Hand? That shapes human behavior.
So we'll talk a lot more about environment in this episode, but
I also like to add here, not only your physical environment,
like if your goal is to get in bed earlier, maybe you put your
phone in a different. Room and you make your batter
really amazing calming place and you put a book that you like to
read next to your beds. You're motivated to get into
bed. That's one example of an
environment, but we can also think of our mental environment
or emotional environment, or social media environments, all
of these things can also be defined as environment.
And you can use that to shape and turn your behavior.
So, the last kind of outside source that I want to mention as
context here of why habits are so important and what an impact
they can have on mental health, is a study that was done.
In, in 2020, in Sweden, they looked at the two different
covid-19 surges. And this is a little piece from
their apps track. They said - changes in lifestyle
habits and more time in a mentally passive State sitting
at home were associated with higher odds of mental ill,
health including health, anxiety, regarding one's own,
and relatives Health, generalized, anxiety, and
depression, symptoms, and concerns regarding employment
and economy, these results. Emphasize the need to support
healthy lifestyle habits, to strengthen the resilience.
Vulnerable groups. And I think that was really cool
to highlight. Obviously, this is a different
vulnerable population, people that are struggling with covid,
or more at risk. But I think if we think about
this from a mental health perspective, people that are at
risk for experiencing mental health issues, or have a history
of mental health issues or currently experiencing mental
health, challenges or an at-risk vulnerable group.
And so if we can use healthy habits and healthy lifestyle, to
decrease that vulnerability increase, that resilience, that
can be a really powerful shift to Make and a somewhat simple
one. So I have touched on this a
little bit, but I like to include thoughts or just and
coping skills as habits. I didn't episode talking about
suicidal ideation. And how every time you're
engaging in that thought or that urge, you were building that
habit and reinforcing the relationship of stress and kind
of like self-soothing yourself with that outlet.
So I think that's a very relevant and interesting
perspective to add into this episode, is that We can think of
thoughts, and urges, and coping skills.
That a lot of the times are things that really do impact,
our mental health, in a very direct way as habits.
And every time we engage in a negative thought or re-engage in
urge that isn't an effective coping skill.
Are we use a healthy way of coping to navigate an emotional
situation. We are either building a habit
or breaking a habit and so you could be building, healthy
habit, you could be strengthening and unhealthy
habit, which means it's harder to move away from having that
thought. Or engaging in that urge or
using that on healthy coping scale, or you could be engaging
in a healthy habit and at the same time, breaking that
reinforced unhealthy, coping skill, thought, urges, Etc, and
that is something that helps me with shifting behaviors when I'm
struggling the motivation. I think a good example here is
like exercise. If I, like don't want to go to
the gym, like I just don't want to.
It's a lot of work, it's a lot of energy.
There are two different ways to frame it that I found to be
effective. One is what we mentioned, which
is Thinking about the type of person you want to be instead of
thinking about the goal you want to pursue.
So it's like I want to be the kind of person that feels
healthy and happy and motivated and exercises and has a healthy
lifestyle. And then the other thing is
reminding myself. If I go to the gym, I'm building
this healthy habit of exercising, I'm breaking the
habit of not exercising or if I don't go to the gym and building
the habit and making it more difficult to in the future
exercise. So I like kind of think that is
Adding tallies to two different columns in my reinforcing a good
habit or my reinforcing a bad habit.
And either way, you were impacting.
Those trajectories I know that. So many of you guys are high
school and college students, you're probably in Peak midterm
season right now, which means you have to be as productive and
focused as possible to get the best use of your time because
your schedules are probably insane and I totally get it.
My biggest hack has been magic mind.
You might have heard me talk about them before, but it's
great because I can get the energy and focus.
That I need without having like, six cups of coffee, and being
overwhelmed with anxiety. It has a ton of natural
ingredients. My favorite is Masha.
I've never been able to get myself to drink matcha lattes.
I know they're better for you and in your body, absorbs much a
better than it does coffee. I know that adds less anxiety,
but I just cannot get over the taste and that's why I love
magic mind, because it's like a little Jew shot.
So, rather than drinking an entire giant cup of matcha, or
going through the whole process of making that every morning you
drink a magic mind shot. It with your normal cup of
coffee and you get the benefits of the added energy Focus
productivity without multiple cups or sources of caffeine.
So if you're looking for that boost of energy to help you get
through finals and midterms season and just all of the work
that we are all balancing, you should definitely check out
magic mind, you can go to magic mind Cosell, she persisted or
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Is with code. She persisted.
So from a DVT perspective and if you've never heard that before,
it stands for dialectical behavioral therapy and that is
the kind of therapy that I did. A lot of during my time in
treatment I found it super helpful and the biggest part of
DBT I would say is the skills education.
There's all these skills to help you navigate any.
And every challenge you could experience with regards to your
mental health. And so one of the habits and the
emotion regulation module is the police Cal and to boil it down.
Down. You are taking care of your mind
by taking care of your body and to take it a step further.
I think the police kill really works to decrease your emotional
vulnerability. And if you're not familiar with
emotional vulnerability, it's things like not sleeping well
and being really grumpy. It is being hangry.
It is things like having an argument with someone and then
trying to go into another interaction, it's already being
anxious or depressed or exhausted, and then trying to
show up to a situation. It's kind of like you're, you're
Passivity to navigate a situation and when we're not
sleeping. Well, when we're not eating,
what we're having relationship challenges.
When we ourselves are struggling with our mental health, our
emotional capacity is impacted. And therefore our emotional
vulnerability is increased, you're more vulnerable to
experiencing these intense emotions and having a more
difficult time, coping with them The please scale is an acronym
but it's not a perfect acronym. Like please be PL is physical
illness, it's not perfect, but it's a good acronym and the rest
of it is perfect. So if you're like, that was not
the correct number of letters that match up with the words,
that's the disclaimer there. So the first thing, treat
physical illness, you are taking your meds, you are going to the
doctor if you were sick, you are taking rest.
When you need to, you're not going and like pushing Ooh,
final season and studying like crazy when you're also sick and
like not at your best. The next part of the scale is
balanced eating, so this means that you are staying on a
balanced diet. You are getting all the
nutrients that you were need. You are eating regularly.
You are not restricting or overeating and you are avoiding
things like being angry, which could also impact your emotional
vulnerability. The a is avoiding, mood-altering
substances. Obviously we know that certain
substances impact our mood one that I like to remind people
Apple of here, which they don't always think of as caffeine
caffeine impacts our mood and especially for me very early on
in my mental health Journey. Whenever I would like have even
one cup of coffee would be so much more anxious, my thoughts
would be racing. It was difficult to kind of stay
on top of that anxiety. So being mindful of what
different substances, impact your mood and how they impact
your mood and how that might be impacting your emotional
vulnerability. For example, you have a really
big test that you're super anxious about and you know, that
it's a In the morning, maybe you won't have a double shot latte.
Maybe you won't have a latte with like double espresso
because you're going to be already anxious.
And then adding a huge amount of caffeine probably won't help
that you'll be super jittery and overwhelmed.
And again, anxious, the S is for sleep.
This means getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night and making sure
that you are sticking to your sleep hygiene protocol.
If you're not familiar with that, just a very fancy way.
Way of saying having good habits around in your sleep, so trying
to go to sleep around the same time every night, getting up the
same time every day within one or two hours of that that time
that you decide to get up. It means unplugging before bed,
which I have core struggle to do.
It means not napping for extensive amounts of time.
During the day, not drinking caffeine super late at night,
having a night routine and a morning routine that kind of
help you get ready for bed and then wake up in the morning and
like signal to your body like okay, time to get up, this is
time to Be alert and energetic and not sleepy.
So that is sleep for me. This has been the most important
factor with regards to my emotional vulnerability, and my
sleep has been quite the journey.
I did a sleep study this summer. I'm just now kind of starting to
get to a point where I feeling really good about my sleep
routine for the first time in a couple of years.
And when I was in residential at three East, which is the DBT
program, I went to, I noticed an intense and seeing shift, when I
was not sleeping, Well, and napping, throughout the day and
staying up all night. Versus when I was using all of
my sleep hygiene protocol skills, doing as much as I
could, to fall asleep as early as possible waking up at the
same time every day and then avoiding napping.
It was like, I went from being suicidally, depressed, and
overwhelmed to then waking up in the morning and not immediately
being depressed, which was night and day.
It was a game-changer and it was all because of sleep and we know
that there are so many studies on sleep about Its impact with
mental health and emotional vulnerability.
And when you're sleep deprived for extended period of time to
develop different symptoms of mental illness, is and all of
these different things. It's very, very important.
And if there's anything that you're doing habit wise for your
mental health, sleep is a great place to start the E and the
police scale is getting exercise.
I like to aim for some kind of movement every day and that
probably most days while mean, walking am on my workout grind.
Recently, I've been doing like three days the gym a week which
was not an easy process to get to.
This has been a New Year's resolution that I'm still like
solidifying. But I'm very proud of that habit
that I'm building but trying to get in some movement, we know
that exercising releases endorphins, it'll make it easier
for you to sleep. It'll boost your mood so get
walking get outside work out. If you can make it fun going to
walk with a friend, but that's another thing that can help
improve your emotional vulnerability.
So, a lot of the parts of This Acronym can be maintained and
kind of put on autopilot. If you will through habits.
So if you have the same night routine every day, if you go to
bed at the same time, every day, if you wake up at the same time
every day, if you have the same morning routine, if you then
have the same cup of coffee and don't have too much caffeine
after that, if you do the same workout certain days of the week
and are walking other days of the week and you have a pretty
consistent diet and eating schedule that you stick to and
you are really great about taking care of your physical
health, and taking breaks when you can get like if all of those
are sustained habits that you are doing without a second
thought. Thought you were in a really
great place with your mental health Foundation, you're in a
really great place and maintaining and reducing your
emotional vulnerability. So I just want to flag that.
I want to say that if you are at a loss of like, okay, I want to
have a foundation of habit, I don't know where I'm currently
at. Look at the place scale where
you kind of, how are you showing up with regards to each of those
pillars? Physical illness, eating,
mood-altering, substances, sleep and exercise.
How can you improve that? And I truly do believe if you're
staying on Those things you're in a really good spot.
So now we're going to kind of talk about what has worked for
me. We're going to talk about
happens that I do every single day.
We're then going to talk about habits that I did in early
recovery. Like when I was still struggling
with depression, when I was still struggling with anxiety,
when I was just newly forming these habits and then we're
going to talk about habits to work to break to improve your
mental health, and we'll wrap up, but that's kind of the plan
from here. So, we have a lot of foundation
about why habits are important, what habits, you can focus on
how they impact, mental So health and emotional
vulnerability and then now we're going to talk about what's
worked for me. So when I think about the habits
that I do every single day, I tend to think about my morning
and night routine. When I wake up in the morning, I
probably snooze that would be a habit.
I should break because I know it's not good for my sleep, but
I just love snoozing, but I wake up, I get my alarm.
I make my bed which is a new habit of built this year.
I'm now a great bad maker every single day, my bed is made.
I'm so proud of that. So I make my bed, I put on my
slippers, I wash. My face, I brush my teeth and
then I will probably make my coffee.
And depending, on my class schedule, I will either make
breakfast or I will plan to eat breakfast right after my first
class. So after I make my breakfast I
come back into my room I opened my blinds to get sunlight is get
a little bit of vitamin D, I then go ahead and do my
skincare. I do my makeup.
Maybe I'm doing my hair for the day.
I'm getting dressed. I'm getting ready for class and
a lot of that routine. Is built around things that a
got me like up ready out of bed for the day.
So I'm not laying in bed all day sleeping be it's things that
help set me up to feel productive and in the mood to
get things done, like, getting dressed doing my makeup.
That means like, okay, I'm going to class, I'm going to get work
done. I'm going somewhere, I'm not
just sitting in my dorm room all day and it's also things that
are very enjoyable and calming and almost like self-soothing
for me. So I love doing my skincare, I
love doing my makeup. It's not something where I'm
like stressed and like I just Get this done something like
that. With be like a homework
assignment but no, I enjoy these things.
Like I look forward to them. I finished my morning routine.
I'm like, great that was fun. I enjoyed that at certain times.
I've done the five-minute journal in the morning.
That's something that I really enjoyed doing.
Sometimes I listen to music or a podcast through a listen,
looking for a mini podcast at into your morning routine.
I love morning microdose by almost 30.
It's like many episodes from some of their favorite episodes
that they've released. You get so much amazing wisdom
and Insight and it's like 5-10 minute episodes.
I absolutely love those. But those what I mentioned
initially are the Bare Bones of my room morning routine.
It's like getting up. It's getting ready, getting
dressed. It's coffee, it's making my bed
and then it's going somewhere for the day whether that is
sitting at my desk. Most of the time, I'm going to
class, maybe I'm going in a walk, but it's really like
getting myself up to get ready to go somewhere and have that
sense of purpose. And that again was something in
early recovery. That was a big game changer was
having that shift from like okay I'm getting up but there's no
reason there's no purpose like maybe I was going to therapy or
going to a group but there wasn't really like I had
something to do with my day versus now and even in early
recovery also is like okay I'm getting up I have to be this
place is the things I have to do these.
This is the purpose and the function of my day.
So other habits. That are Incorporated throughout
my week, but not consistently every day or exercise, so trying
to get Jim. I've kind of assigned days,
which has been really helpful, so I say that days that I can
fit in a workout or Tuesdays. I can do Thursday, Friday,
Saturday Sunday, but I probably only do like two or three days
on the weekend. So, I am for three or four days,
but I know that those days, it's possible to fit into my
schedule, other things. Other habits that I incorporate
on a regular basis is going through my email.
You're like, well, okay, that's is not very Mental healthy, but
it's something that I make sure to stay on top of to avoid
stress long term to avoid, feeling overwhelmed all the
time. And I also am really great about
staying on top of my to-do list and my habit tracker.
So, we know that at some point every single day, most likely,
when I'm planning on my workload, I'll look at my to do
list. I'll see what I have to get done
and I'll also check off what habits I've done that day and be
habit. Tracking is another habit that I
built and finalized over. The that I have built and
mastered since I started my therapy journey and every single
month, I do a habit tracker and my bullet journal and I'll tell
you what, I'm tracking this month and these are things, I
would like to do every day. They're not going to happen
every day though. So I say read, probably before
bed. I'm aiming for 12,000 steps
every day, but I can tell you with a fact that is not
happening. If I get above 7.5, I'm content.
I said, meditating. I've done it 20 days this month,
but you know what? But we're always trying, it's
something that I would like to start doing but it's not a
solidified habit. Yet, I put on here audible, I've
been trying to listen to more audio books rather than just
like watching TV. So that's something I said, work
out, which again, I'm aiming for like three days a week, but I
like to track it because I love checking things off, that's very
reinforcing for me. So, we talked about a beginning,
making them attractive making them, satisfying checking things
off is very attractive and very satisfying for me.
So if I'm working out like I'm tracking it.
I'm checking off Might work out planner app.
I'm checking it out on my daily schedule.
It's being checked off on my have tracker.
Like I'm just getting myself all the credit for this.
I check off studying. I feel like it's helpful to kind
of know how many days a week looking back.
I'm studying and working on school work.
I have posting a tick tock or real because I'm always trying
to get content out there. But it's something I have to be
intentional about. It's not something that totally
comes. Naturally, I have on here work
again, just like I track how many days I'm studying?
I track. How many days I'm working?
Working on podcast type work. I put on here, I have in here
get into bed by 1:00 a.m. and be up by 10 a.m. those are like my
goal bedtime and wake-up times. I have tidy.
This is another thing where we talk about like small changes
over time. When I was really struggling
with anxiety and depression, I feel like it was very reflective
in my room. It was messy, it was clutter,
there's a lot of things on the floor.
I didn't really have like a motivation, or the energy, or
the desire, what? Average like put away laundry
after it was cleaned or like clean.
Like there's no desire whatsoever.
Now I kind of have built tiny micro cleaning into my daily
routine, so I like put something in the hamper.
If it's from, not using it anymore.
I'll make my bed every morning. I put my baked my makeup back,
and it's been after I use it that kind of stuff, so that it's
less overwhelming and less stressful.
And instead, I'm just kind of putting things away as I'm using
them. I put on here socializing.
Again, being intentional about connection, all of these things
that improve our emotional vulnerability, just making sure
that I'm checking all these boxes.
That I know make me feel good. I have on here, make bad get
ready, which is my morning routine, use my skills and drink
water. The skills one, I love having
this on my habit. I love having this on my diary
card. I think I mentioned this in the
therapy episode, it's a freebie. We're always using scales.
You can always check it off. So I added to your diary card,
add it to your habit, tracker. Check it off every time it's
like a freebie on a bingo. So that is my habit tracker.
That's a habit. I've solidified which is
tracking these habits, but it's also a lot easier to stay on top
of all of those things, if you're reminded of them on a
daily basis, I feel like there is an endless list of habits
that I could give you with random things that I have to get
like done every week for work or podcast type things where I'm
like, I know this day, I have to post this story or this day.
I have to put this YouTube video up all these things that have
gotten done over time. But with regards to my mental
health, I feel like those are the ones that happen throughout
the week. And then at night, the night
routine, that's been really helpful for me, is that I shower
that is like my signal now, to my brain to my body that like,
I'm getting ready for bed and I feel fresh and clean.
I get into bed and it's time to relax.
I then do my skincare. I make sure to take my meds,
we're going to touch on why that is so important and really hard
habit to build. I brush my teeth and then I
watch a TV show or read a book right before bed.
And I love my night routine and look forward to it, it's
calming, it's relaxing, it's enjoyable.
It's a great way to end the day and I truly do.
Do feel like that Baseline framework of my morning routine.
Those things I do throughout the day and the night routine.
They keep me out of positive trajectory no matter what
happens throughout the day. Like I feel like those keep me
moving in the right direction, they helped me feel good, they
helped me start and end my day and a positive mood and feeling
good about myself and the day and life.
So have it's an early recovery. I feel like this is a whole
different challenge to navigate. It's one thing to maintain
habits, or introduce a small habit into your routine.
But at the beginning of recovery, you're probably
breaking a lot of bad habits, as well as trying to form brand new
ones at the same time. So things that come to mind that
I was trying to do in early recovery.
The first one was a meal plan was really struggling with not
eating balanced, whether it's over eating it sometimes
restricting just not eating in a healthy way.
So a meal plan was a really big one and how I Richard, this is
not a traditional advice, I'm just telling you what I wrote
down, when I was at residential, I worked the nutritionist and
therapist on. This is, I chose three meals for
breakfast that I liked that. It had nutrients chose three
meals for lunch, three meals for dinner and then three snack
options. And every single day, I would
choose from those three breakfast.
Three, lunches, three, dinners, three snacks and it was really
easy. I liked all the options.
I was excited about eating all those things.
I know, I had eaten breakfast, had eaten lunch and I had to eat
a dinner ahead of a snack, and the options were there.
There was no. Question like, oh, what should I
eat here? Like, I guess it's breakfast
time, but I don't know what to have.
So that was a tool. That was really helpful in
building that meal schedule habit.
And also, and also getting consistent with implementing
that the next habit that was so tough for me to work on was
medications. One of my parents biggest goals
for me leaving treatment was like she is managing her mental
health and part of that is taking your own meds.
And if you have ever been an intensive treatment before, You
know, that you are not in charge of taking her on meds.
You show up at the office every day, every morning, every night,
they give you a little medications in a cup.
I remember had an acne cream at one point.
And I would like have to go to the office to get my little
squirt of acne cream. It's like they're Controlled
Substances like an adult is handing them to you.
I'm so building the habit of taking my own medications
remembering that I had to take them building that into my
routine was really tough because someone else had been reminding
me to take my meds for a year and a half.
When I Was at residential and a therapeutic boarding school.
And if you have ever taken mental health medications, it's
really important that you take them every day.
Otherwise they don't work. And so this was something that I
struggled with her. Remember, going on home visits
and my God, I forgot to take my meds or I don't remember if I
taking them or not, I just couldn't remember, my parents
would be reminding me. It was a disaster.
It was really difficult to build this habit and mind you.
I was like 15, 16 like so I like, I'm like super old and
it's like, I can't master this thing.
But again, I was still teaching at this point.
I had No experience with this habit but it was pivotal that I
did this every single day. And so what I had found to be
very helpful since going through that journey is to get a little
pill organizer and I have a giant one from CVS, you can see
it. If you're watching this video on
YouTube I have a two-week schedulers but I only have to
refill my organizer every two weeks.
So it says morning and night. I take them all at night and
what I do is every two weeks, I put all of my meds in for those
two weeks. And every Single night, I open
up the little compartment. I take my meds and then if I'm
ever like, oh, did I take my meds or not?
I check just like a birth control pack where there's none
of this. Like, oh, did I take this today?
Did I not take this today? I can't remember, it's either
there or it's not there you either, taking it or you haven't
taken it, and it sits right on my desk.
It's right in my eye frame, when I'm doing my skincare routine.
I've gotten to the point now where I'm like, I can tell if I
haven't taken my melatonin, but I also know that it's a part of
my night routine. It's in my eyesight, it's easy.
It's accessible and Moses other second Factor?
What it's not left up to guessing if you took your meds
or not. Because you're pulling them out
of like a 30-day prescription bottle.
It's like, it's either taken out of that little compartment or
it's not that has been really helpful for me, if you're
struggling to take your meds, the third habit that I built
early on in treatment that I feel like I'm always working
towards, but especially then was my coping skills things like
asking for help things like radical acceptance, regulating
my emotions and opposite. Action were not things that came
easily. It was the exact opposite of
what I was used to doing. So I would never like before
treatment. I would never ask for help if I
was feeling depressed, or anxious, or having an urge, it
was like, I internally dealt with that or I internally felt
all those emotions are engaged in the urge.
Whereas in treatment, it was building that muscle building,
that habit of what I feel this emotion arise when I have this
urge come up. What?
I have this Behavior pop-up, I asked for help and I talked to
someone, right? L my parent, the today's A great
day and building that habit with that Q, which is the thought
Behavior, urge excetera, and the response which is asking for
help or utilizing a resource. You're like building that, that
neural connection of rather like I feel depressed.
I stay in bad, it's like I feel depressed.
I do the opposite of what I want to do, I get up, I go outside, I
go on a walk. I play with my dog, whatever it
is, you're really, you're really working those Pathways the other
skills that I mentioned, there were Radical acceptance.
This was something that That again, was a very big departure
from where I was at and initially I was very much in the
mindset and in the way of functioning of like, this is not
my fault, this is happening to me, this is other people's
problems. It's not fair.
This is just how it's supposed to be.
I'm going to struggle for ever and then trying to shift out and
be like, yes I am in a position that I wish I wasn't.
Which is that? I'm depressed.
I'm anxious, I'm struggling. I I have so many things to work
on and I'm not where I want to be and it's possible for things
to change like really true. Accepting where I was at
accepting my role in that accepting the power.
I had to make changes and accepting that no one was going
to do that work. Except for me emotion,
regulation is a whole module in DBT, but learning to regulate my
emotions rather than letting them kind of control me.
So rather than having an anxiety attack and then just being
completely overwhelmed for the rest of the day and going home
from school and not being able to show up to a therapy
appointment or whatever it is having anxiety, using my skills
regulating that emotion recovering.
Going from that emotional then and then being able to continue
on with what I'm doing. That was a scale that had to be
mastered. And then the last one is
opposite action, which is when you are struggling with things,
like, depression, anxiety, mental health struggles, a lot
of the time. If it's got to a point where you
need support and things aren't going.
Well, it's because you are doing what your emotions and your
urges are telling you to do. So I could have passed, you
isolate, you stay in bed, you don't engage in activities.
Like, that's what depression tells you to do, and when you do
those It worse, same thing with anxiety, anxiety tells you of to
avoid it. Tells you to run away, it tells
you to ruminate. If you don't ruminate if you
distract yourself, if you go towards the thing that's making
me anxious, if you expose yourself to it and small safe
healthy amounts, you are able to overcome that anxiety.
And if you get up, you go outside, you can act, you feel
less depressed. And so building that muscle,
building that habit of doing the opposite of what you feel like
doing is a game changer with regards to your mental health.
But it's also something that takes Practice and doesn't come
naturally. So my whole kind of synopsis for
that coping skills have it is like you are rewiring your
response to the emotional Q, whether that's a thought,
whether that's an urge, whether that's a behavior when you feel
anxious. When you feel depressed, when
you have the thought that, I'm so hopeless.
I'm so alone, I'm so isolated, I don't know what to do.
I there's no solution, that's the cue.
How are you going to respond? And rather than engaging in an
unhealthy coping mechanism rather than isolating rather
than withdraw? Rather than ruminating about
your everything that's not going well for you.
Are you distracting yourself or you asking for help?
Are you spending time with a friend?
Are you going on a walk shifting that q and response to a more
effective way to cope? Okay, the last thing which I'm
just gonna like, very briefly touch on because I already
walked you through lots of sleep, hygiene and morning night
routine. Things, but sleep, was the
biggest habit that I shifted in early recovery.
I saw that insane shift from feeling suicidally depressed and
Hopeless and depressed, every single minute of every single
day to waking up and not feeling depressed, first thing in the
morning, that was so foreign, and unheard-of and empowering
for me to be like, oh my God, like, the day is at like a
neutral point, rather than like a today already sucks.
I hate everything. So, get your sleep, get your
seven to nine hours, avoid naps, if you can't, I know, it's so
hard. I still struggle with that, and
really do your best to get up in the morning and go somewhere
during the day, having that sense of purpose does wonders
for depression, especially Okay, habits to break that are
probably not helping your mental health, but are probably very
solidified in your lifestyle. First one is negative thought,
patterns, especially if you struggle with your mental
health, whether it's self esteem, whether it's the way you
view yourself in relationships, whether it is the way you view
your mental health. Those thought patterns are
habits, they've been reinforced over time and shifting them, can
have really profound results for me.
The thought patterns, that brought me the most suffering if
you will was that I didn't believe I was.
Deserving of love from anyone. I didn't think that.
I was good enough for my parents, which made it very
difficult. To tell them what I needed help
and be vulnerable and talk about what I was experiencing.
And I truly believe that I would be depressed and anxious for the
rest of my life and that nothing was ever going to change.
And so those thought patterns had been solidified and
reinforced for years and it took a long time to rewire those.
But as a broke, those habits of going into any interaction and
being like, I'm not deserving of this friendship or this
relationship or I love for my family and friends and then
being like, no. But I am a person that is
deserving of love and care and respect and support just because
I am a person and knowing that my parents loved and cared about
me and supported me and I could be vulnerable.
I could ask for help when I need it, they were resource.
I could utilize. And that things would shift with
regards to mental health, it was possible.
I was capable of making those shifts and it was fully
realistic for me to feel happy and fulfilled and not hopeless
and depressed and and A loss for how to proceed.
So that's one hat. That's the first habit negative
thought patterns, whether it's relating to your self-esteem,
confidence, body image, relationships, any and
everything. That probably is not helping
your mental health. The second is how you approach
emotionally challenging situations.
There is a whole Spectrum here, but whatever your go-to is,
whether it's avoiding whether it is over sharing, whether it is
self-sabotaging. We did an amazing episode on
that with dr. Judy ho, whatever.
Whatever it is, that you. You are doing an emotionally
challenging situation that's probably like if it's unhealthy
it's probably too little or too much.
So you're either probably like ruining to an extreme amount or
you are like completely avoiding suppressing emotions, whatever
you're doing recognize that that has been a reinforced pattern
and how can you start to slowly reverse that and experience your
emotions and healthy way process through them in a way that
allows them to be resolved and felt and not bottle up over time
or just consume everything. If you're ruminating a lot,
social media, we It's bad for our mental health.
I'm not telling you not to be on social media, but your habits
with how you use social media can be shifted, what time of the
day are you using techtalk? Are you going on at first thing
in the morning and schooling for two hours or you scrolling for
three hours, instead of sleeping at night, when you are on
Instagram or Tick, Tock, whatever it is, what emotions
are coming up? Are you comparing yourself?
Or if you feeling worse about yourself, are you feeling
overwhelmed? Are you using it?
As a way to self-soothe and cope with emotions and avoid your
problems? So shifting that relationship
and Stead, when you have those cues to use these things to
distract or avoid or are use it in a healthy way, shifting to
other coping skills and then using social media and moments,
where you're not trying to cope with an emotion, or or avoid
something that you're supposed to be doing all of that kind of
stuff. And another way to do that,
which next week's episode. All up is all about which is
creating a healthy social media environment.
Following people that make you feel good.
Following me. People that make you feel
empowered and motivated and not having social media, be such a
Negative experience. It's one, we're scrolling.
And lastly you guys have heard me say it so many times this
episode sleep, if you are staying up, crazy late, if you
are sleeping crazy, late and napping all the time.
If you are not sleeping at all, or not sleeping enough, that
breaking that habit and breaking those sleep cycles and getting
into a healthy routine, will do wonders for your mental health.
I promise. It's not an easy thing.
I totally get that it's difficult because I'm constantly
trying to improve your my sleep, but it is something your body
needs to do. Your body is wired to sleep.
Every night. And so, it's something that can
feel kind of natural to get back on track.
It's a simpler step to take with regards to your mental health
journey and it has profound results.
So, that is all of my thoughts on mental health habits.
I hope this episode was helpful. I know.
It was kind of all over the place, but I really do hope that
there are a couple of habits and approaches and different ways of
thinking about things that you can Implement and use in your
own life to improve your mental health.
If you liked this episode has always Make sure to leave a
review. Subscribe, share with a friend
or family member. It helps so much and it really
does mean the world to me. And I'm always looking for more
ideas from you guys for what you want to hear for so long
episode. So, feel free to DM me, send me
an e-mail, any of the things. Let me know what you want to
hear on. She persisted.
So with that. See you on Tuesday, thank you so
much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted.
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