Mental Health Month Meets Pandemic
If I had written about May's Mental Health Awareness last week, you would have found that I stuffed my emotions. If I had written this post on Saturday, after my daughter's birthday, you would have had a fairly optimistic read. If I had written this yesterday, you would have found exasperation and exhaustion within my voice as I barely could get myself off of the couch. But instead, I'm writing today, where a mush of thoughts and emotions collide. I'm dizzy from watching my mental health swing through anxiety, depression, or everything is gonna be alright. Cue Bob Marley. Sometimes those feelings are separated by days. Sometime by hours. Even by minutes. I’m questioning my sanity as I see it so easily dissolve.
Then I remember that we’re living through a worldwide freaking pandemic. Something that not one of us have ever experienced before. For some, it's quite real. We've either gotten sick or have known people who have died. For others, it's become so dissociated that we question if there is some kind of conspiracy behind it all. I sit and listen to all my friends with their extremely varying beliefs. I feel my mental health fade as judgment rules the day. Then I wake up, grab my phone before I'm even out of my bed, and read Lisa Miller in The New Yorker say,
“Judgment is really just grief… and grief isn't pretty or rational or kind.”
All the feels flood through for each one of us as we grieve the life we used to live. The easy friendship gatherings and the work that put bread on our tables.
So mental health, what are you to us these days? Even though the dictionary describes you as “emotional, psychological, and social well-being.” It all seems more complicated than that and you feel different than before. Shifting at faster speeds than we've ever been used to.
Learn what Mental Health Looks Like
Picture your mental health as a boat on a river. That river represents life. At times, your boat becomes stuck on one side of the bank where anxiety resides. Your heart rate picks up as the water turns into rapids and spins you out of control. Other times your mental health get's stuck on the opposite side of the bank. This bank is murky and shallow. This is where depression loves to brood. As you spend more and more time on the water, you start to figure out how to use the paddles in the boat. Those paddles are mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical tools. They guide you back towards the center, where you most easily float. Some days, it seems manageable to stay centered and other days it's not. The remarkable part is that you now have some kind of skill to center you when off.
Do you feel that our river has gotten just a little too narrow? This pandemic has you paddling from one side just to land worn out on the other? I'm exhausted and grieving the ease of the wider river we used to paddle on. I find myself questioning how long I'll be paddling along this narrow river, questioning how much more I can endure.
So yes, our mental health looks very inconsistent these days. With a narrow river, maybe the hope is that we're now closer to each other? It's easier to yell out for support and comradeship as our whole world navigates this. There's a quote from Debasish Mridha that I read, "Desperation is often more powerful than inspiration." Just maybe, when we're out of the narrows, we can look back and realize how strong our desperate paddling through mental health has made us. So what are some ways to paddle through the physical aspects of mental health?
2. Know What Side of the River You’re On:
Depression is when your nervous system doesn’t feel safe and chooses to deactivate or shut-down. Since it is a response of the nervous system there are very real physical symptoms that tell us when we’re experiencing this. (These symptoms are taken and adapted from Sundara Yoga Therapy)
Memory loss
Feeling detached from your emotions
Low energy
Low Heart Rate
Shallow Breathing
Slumped posture
Eyelids are down
Anxiety is when your nervous system is triggered and chooses to activate your fight or flight response. Here are the physical symptoms you may experience. (These symptoms are taken and adapted from Sundara Yoga Therapy)
Fast Heart Rate
Quick Breathing Rate
Wide-Eyes
Tight muscles in your back. As if you’re bracing to run or to fight something.
Clenched fist. We’re ready to fight!
Clenched jaw
Tight Abdomen
Desire to bolt (ahem…just remembering that we’re on about day eleven thousand and twenty of this whole thing makes me feel this!)
3. Match Your Mood or Side of the River
Depression will need very slow and small movements. Your body will be too exhausted to think of starting big projects or movements.
If you're in bed, breathe in and out 5 times. Then maybe you just try sitting up. If you’re sitting up, then stand up. Take a few steps. Think one foot in front of the other type of movement.
What does this look like with yoga? Try rolling out your mat and simply move into a child’s pose. 1 single pose. That’s it!
If your body feels up for more than a child’s pose, Yoga with Adrienne has a 30 day series called Home on Youtube. Her 15-20 minute classes approach your body with such grace that it makes me feel like I can come back for the next day.
Thinking in ten-minute increments has become my new mantra. Emily Freeman said in her podcast, "Do the next right thing for the next 10 minutes." It's just enough time for exhaustion to not feel overwhelming and just enough time to accomplish something that helps encourage a little energy. The best part is that I had told my husband this approach and now when I forget it, he reminds me of it, because yes memory loss is a real thing during this time.
Forgiving my depression. Say what? There's something about the exhaustion of depression that makes you want to shame yourself into energy. To find the opposite of your low mood and get a whole list of tasks done. But… the list just seems too overwhelming so you blame yourself for staying bed. Consider coming up with a simple phrases like “It’s just my body telling me I need some nourishment. I’ll let myself rest for 30 minutes, then I’ll try a little movement”
Anxiety will crave calm waters when you’re trying to fight “rapids”. Instead of going straight to lavender and baths, TRY MATCHING THE ENERGY.
Move quickly to get your nervous energy out. Take a walk. Jump up and down. Vacuum. Have a dance party. Practice the Shake It Off method. Link to this blog post here.
After you’ve taken control of your heart rate and quick breathing by…well, making it quick yourself you can add in more calming approaches to slow it down.
Breath-work is found to be one of the most effective mood-boosting tools there are.
Stair Stepping Breath:
Wherever you are, exhale the air out of your lungs.
Imagine hiking up a mountain with your breath. Inhale 4 sips of air in with each step.
Imagine being at the top of the mountain and taking in a beautiful view while holding the air in your lungs.
As you exhale you get to picture sliding down the mountain, letting the slide take longer than your inhale.
Weighted Belly Breath
Add a yoga sandbag to your abdomen. Instructions here to make your own!
Exhale letting the sand bag drop towards your spine.
Inhale, pushing the sandbag up towards the ceiling.
5-10 cycles of breath as you begin practicing this technique.
As I get to the end of writing this version of my mental health awareness post, I hope that you don’t feel so alone. We’re all left a little dizzy at the speed of anxiety vs depression vs everything is ok. Comment below with what’s helping you. Reach out to professionals if it all feels too much. Possibly remember that judgment we pronounce on our own mental health could be grief for the stability of a life we miss.