I help people establish a more balanced lifestyle for mental health. You may be struggling and be overwhelmed about what you have to do each week and are stressed.
As a clinical hypnotherapist (AHA), psychotherapist, registered mental health professional (PACFA), and naturopath (ANPA) I take a balanced lifestyle approach. You may get some healthfund rebates.
There is no one single solution like taking a pill. If what you have been doing is not making you well and happy then it’s time for change.
I look at each and every part of your life and teach you to manage all those aspects in a balanced way.
What is balanced lifestyle?
That depends on you as an individual and what is happening in your life today. Different people from different cultures live their lives in a wide range of ways.
It also depends on the demands on you as a person.
- Are you struggle with a big mortgage?
- Do you have mental illness issues?
- Do you procrastinate about what you need to do?
- Does your diet make you sick?
- Are there problems with your relationships?
- Not getting enough sleep?
Research tells us that humans need to work, rest and play in order to stay well and be happy. (1) Unfortunately, modern society and consumerism may have seduced you into living unhealthy lives.
The basic formular for good mental health begins with looking after your physical health. This means applying the formular of work, rest and play.
Financial stress and poor mental health
We’ve been led to believe by Hollywood, fiction, the media and advertising that we need bigger houses, faster cars, credit cards and more stuff to be happy.
This of course constantly requires more money, and you may live a large part of your life in debt. So, you must keep working when your tied, have no time to hang out with relatives and friends or take care of yourself.
It’s a trap that most people in the Western world have got themselves into and you don’t even know your imprisoned by this kind of lifestyle.
And when you can’t keep up with the Jone’s or Kardashians you feel you’re not good enough and a failure. (2)
Lack of balance effects mental illness
Most of us being diagnosed with having as mental illness today do not have one. (3) You are maladjusted to the world in which you are living, have’nt been educated to survive or aren’t equipped to survive and prosper, so you’re incredibly stressed.
The problems are that the doctors who make that diagnosis, for the vast majority of the time, have absolutely no training in lifestyle medicine.
For those of you who do have a genuine biological mental illness, creating balance in your life is an absolute essential to promote your well-being.
Your body is biomechanic you must water, feed and exercise it so your organs work at maximum efficiency. Medication alone will not make you well and happy.
Are you procrastinating about self-care?
One of the basic principles of a balanced lifestyle and good mental health is that you need to take care of yourself regularly, and daily. Not make excuse like:
“I’ll go to the gym tomorrow”
“I’ll eat better next week”
“I don’t have time for me”
“I have to put others first”
“I’ll go on holiday rather than paying my bills”
These are all excuses, not to be self-responsible. They are ducking out of reality and failure to take care of yourself and your life.
Maybe you weren’t trained to be self-responsible as a child and perhaps you parents didn’t know how to do that themselves. Perhaps you’re angry with the world and don’t see why you should be responsible for your own life.
Procrastination creates negative thoughts, feelings, anxiety, shame, guilt and depression. (4) The reality is nothing is free. So, you need to be disciplined and repetitious in your daily life to make it go well, it needs to be a habit.
Diet and mental illness
There is no food that does not create an effect in the body. It either helps your body and brain function well or it damages your ability to create wellness.
You’re probably eating what you think is foods but is actually process residue of what was once food. Or in the worst-case scenario never was food. But for the seller it’s highly profitable.
You may have allergies to foods that you have never been made aware of that cause inflammation in your brain, deranged thinking and acting. Your family doctor may also have only had no more than two hours of nutritional education during their training.
One of the first rules of medicine, devised by hypocrites over two and a half thousand years ago is, “Let medicine be your food and food by your medicine”. (5)
Relationships affect your mental health
Human beings are generally pack animals. We seek association with our own kind through partnerships, family, friends and being part of a group or society.
We like to talk, listen to others, communicate and sing. It helps us feel we belong and are part of something greater than ourselves. It excites us and raises our serotonin (happiness hormone) levels.
Of course, there are times when we want to be alone in our own company, which is perfectly natural. But being alone too much however leads us into ruminations, depression and anxiety.
So healthy connections with others is a kind of food that feeds our mental health. (6) It’s food for the soul.
Sleep and mental health
Genarally when you become anxious, stressed and experience mental dysfunction your sleep patterns are disturbed. You may have horrible nightmares or keep waking up in the night, so you get poor quality sleep.
In some cases of depression, you may sleep a great deal of the time or at least stay in bed, rather than getting up and engaging with the day. It’s a dissociation and withdrawal mechanism when you may be refusing to engage with the world.
Deep slept, when you enter the rapid eye movement (REM) cycle, is paramount so you are dreaming, which is essential for your mental health. (7) It’s when you’re processing material from the day before and working out the possibilities for your future.
Disturbed sleep may have a biological or psychological cause, so it is important that both are investigated and remedied.
Working and mental health
Is work something you enjoy or are you just collecting a paycheck? There is no right or wrong answer to this question because everyone’s circumstances are different.
If you’re lucky enough to enjoy what you do to earn money and pay your bills, you are more likely to be happy because work is fulfilling for you?
On the other hand, if you’re just working to get paid, that too can be good, because everyone needs money to survive in society. And being able to pay your bills, have a home and feed your family is a really good feeling.
However, the workplace needs to be a place where you feel safe, not bullied and respected so you develop a sense or workplace dignity (WPD). (8)
Work however needs to be only part of your life, not the whole of your preoccupation, because that would mean you’re neglecting self-care.
Rest and mental health
Rest means more than just sleep. It’s when you’re letting your body catch up with itself. Sometimes we just need to be still.
The body works on a series of biological cycles:
- Annual four seasons
- 28-day lunar cycle
- Seven-day (quarter moon) cycle
- Circadian rhythm cycles every 24 hours
- Ultradian rhythm that last around 90 minutes
These are biorhythms when it’s time for you to have busts of energy and times when you need to rest. (9) They include lunar holidays, a day of rest each week, time to relax each day, sleep and rests throughout the day.
If you ignore these rest periods you become physical and mentally sick, deranged, your immune system breaks down, and in the extreme, you begin to hallucinate.
Rest can mean time to be peaceful and alone or time to spend with others, whatever you need at the time.
Playing and mental health
We are apes, primates, hairless up right walking apes. Watch chimpanzees or bonobos or any ape – and they play. They play, fool around and laugh.
It’s a sign we’re having a good time and a communication that we want to keep doing that good experience. It raises serotonin and endorphins (our natural opioid type of pain killers), and reduced cortisol, the stress hormone. (10)
Play creates oxytocin the connection hormone, so it brings us closer together, helps us bond, attach to others, form friendships and renew love.
What play also does in reinvent our skills and helps us learn new skill sets. So, it’s also a kind of rehearsal for life in the future. Without it, we fail to adapt to an ever-changing world and get stressed
Our spiritual selves and mental health
Whilst I’ve talked about the physical, mental and social aspect of good mental health there is also an area that is less researched.
When you practice a religion, meditate, do a martial art or have a hobby to which you are dedicated, it becomes your heighten spiritual experience.
During a spiritual experience we become flooded with all the happiness and comfort hormones. It’s a peek experience when we forget the stresses of the world and immerse ourselves in a sense of well-being.
It’s as essential for our well-being just as much as anything else we do or experience. It motivates us to continue living and enjoy our daily experiences.
So, the balance of mind, body and spirit and work, rest and play helps us create and maintain our maximum level of mental well-being.
Dr Tracie O’Keefe, BHSc, ND clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist, Naturopath & Medical Nutritionist and Orthomolecular Practitioner, PACFA Registered Mental Health Professional. You can visit the clinic or connect by zoom anywhere in the world. Telephone 0403 398808
(1) Haggett, A. (2016). On balance: Lifestyle, mental health and wellbeing. Palgrave Communications, 2, Article 16075. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.75
(2) Lloyd, A., & Horsley, M. (2021). Consumer culture, precarious incomes and mass indebtedness: Borrowing from uncertain futures, consuming in precarious times. Journal of Sociology, 168(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136211053421
(3) Zeng, B.-S., Tseng, P.-T., & Liang, C.-S. (2024). Over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. The Lancet, 403(10435), 1446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01692-6
(4) Jochmann, A., Gusy, B., Lesener, T., & Wolter, C. (2024). Procrastination, depression and anxiety symptoms in university students: A three-wave longitudinal study on the mediating role of perceived stress. BMC Psychology, 12, Article 276. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01761-2
(5) Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. (n.d.). Food and mood: Eating plants to fight the blues. https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/food-and-mood
(6) Martino, J., Pegg, J., & Frates, E. P. (2018). The connection prescription: Using the power of social interactions and the deep desire for connectedness to empower health and wellness. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 12(4), 333-335. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827618775071
(7) Peever, J., & Fuller, P. M. (2017). The biology of REM sleep. Current Biology, 27(17), R1035-R1050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.07.006
(8) Kostera, P., & Kostera, M. (2019). Dignity at the workplace: Evolution of the construct and development of workplace dignity scale. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 2581. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02581
(9) Montaruli, A., Castelli, L., Mulè, A., Scurati, R., Esposito, F., Galasso, L., & Roveda, E. (2021). Biological rhythm and chronotype: New perspectives in health. Frontiers in Physiology, 12, Article 806393. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.806393
(10) Akimbekova, N. S., & Razzaque, M. S. (2021). Laughter therapy: A humor-induced hormonal intervention to reduce stress and anxiety. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10(19), 4478. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10194478
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