Opinion: Promoting positive mental health
By Betsy Glass
According to California’s Mental Health Movement and the Centers for Disease Control, half of us will experience a mental health concern in our lifetime.
It is important to learn how to cope with these challenges. Wellness can be achieved when we implement activities to improve our mental and physical health. When we intentionally plant wellness seeds and nurture them with ingredients outlined below, our wellness and quality of life blossom.
Betsy Glass
Mood boosting strategies every person should try:
· Practice relaxation skills. Try progressive muscle relaxation, focused breathing, guided imagery, or meditation. Take a break each day from activities and people, and focus on yourself and what makes you happy.
· Socialize. Call a friend or family member, join a group or organization, volunteer, or offer a random act of kindness.
· Strive for growth. Follow your heart, and try activities or choose occupations which use your strengths and express your passions.
· Develop a balanced diet of foods which balance brain chemicals responsible for mood regulation, such as foods high in omega-3, vitamin B12, magnesium, vitamin D, and folic acid, including proteins, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
· Try something new and creative. Pick up a hobby, take a class, or explore a new area. Studies show changing your routine can boost your mood.
· Exercise regularly, particularly with others. Join a gym, community center, or gather friends and family for aerobics, walks, yoga, biking, or other activities.
· Practice gratitude. Identify something you’re grateful for each day. Demonstrate appreciation towards yourself, others, and for what you have. This improves physical and mental wellness.
· Aim for at least seven to eight hours of sleep. Develop an evening routine an hour before laying down. Reduce caffeine intake throughout the day, go to bed and wake up the same time each day, and avoid television or other visual electronics.
· Recognize when you evaluate yourself and others. Remember everything is as it should be and everything is as it is.
· Do one thing at a time with your undivided attention. Practice letting go of distraction, whether they are thoughts, feelings, or actions. Recognize the distraction without judging it and return to the task at hand.
· Surround yourself with nature. Place plants or flowers in your home or office, garden, hike, sightsee, or find a quiet place to sit outdoors while soaking in the sun.
Wellness screenings are effective for prevention and intervention. If you are concerned about your wellness for more than a few weeks and find it difficult to complete everyday tasks, consult your primary care provider to discuss treatment options.
If you or someone you know has thoughts of harming themselves or another person or has a sudden and unexplained change in mood or behavior, immediately call a national or local crisis hotline at 800.273.8255 or 800.929.1955, visit Barton Hospital’s Emergency Department, or call 911 and request a “welfare check.”
Betsy Glass provides counseling and social work services at Barton Community Health Center.
This “cheerleader, pep talk, just buck up and do it” article is a bunch of bunk and damaging to the truly clinically depressed person. It would appear that the author of this article has never experienced clinical depression (or likely any other type of mental illness) and has no clue of the utter blackness in the mind of a clinically depressed individual. Her “Mood boosting strategies every person should try” are impossible for a clinically depressed person because their illness/depression won’t allow them to do those things—if they could do all she suggests they wouldn’t be clinically depressed! The main narrative that replays constantly in the mind of an untreated clinically depressed individual is what a useless piece of excrement they are and that the world, their family, their pets, and everything else would be better off if they weren’t here anymore. Medication helps alleviate some depressive symptoms but every day is a struggle that requires acute awareness of how you’re feeling and reacting to other people to ensure your meds are still working. This article is completely offensive to the clinically depressed person who takes medication and it serves to make them feel even worse about their incapacities with which they struggle on a daily basis.
If all those local “do gooder, I’m jumping on the bandwagon because May is Mental Health Awareness Month, self-proclaimed experts” want to pontificate on what it’s like to live with depression then maybe they should try getting input from people who are forced to live it on a daily basis.
And is there even one psychiatrist in this town who understands and can diagnose mental illness and prescribe the appropriate psychotropic medications? Why don’t you “do-gooders” do something about that problem before another ill individual takes their own life because they just can’t stand being alive any longer?
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
I think this article is aimed at everyday people as opposed to those with clinical depression. If you feel that things are out of control in your life you should seek professional help-
thanks to Betsy for informing regular people about things that help us all to deal with the stresses of daily life-the thing I enjoy the most about ‘do-gooders’- like Betsy Glass- is that they do good
Tea Total,
While Ms. Glass’ intentions may have been completely altruistic in nature if this article was aimed at everyday people who feel an occasional “down mood” then perhaps she should have specified such. Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, the week of May 10th to 16th is Mental Health Awareness Week, and the article is entitled “Pay Attention to Mental Illness Warnings”, it’s not a big leap for me to believe that Ms. Glass, who is identified as an individual who provides counseling and social work at Barton Community Health Center, was discussing mental illness and not the occasional “down mood”.
There is a lot of attention and lip service being paid to mental illness in SLT at this time and health professionals and other individuals need to exercise caution in their glib suggestions because the clinically depressed individual that is not receiving treatment (or whose treatment is not working properly) is not capable of differentiating that those suggestions are directed to someone who is just a little ho-hum, and they think they’re being told by a professional that all they need to do is implement these wellness activities to improve their mental health, but since they aren’t capable of doing any of those things it makes them feel even more demoralized. Depression creates a distorted sense of self and affects feelings along with the entire way a person lives their life and persons with depressive disorder that are not being treated are incapable of “nurturing those wellness seeds” which is why I say that these types of articles have a damaging effect. Clinically depressed people already feel horrible about themselves and they don’t need well-meaning albeit unsuitable advice to make them feel even worse.
And for the record, I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 1995 and have been on medication ever since, with the exception of a two-week stint when I was off meds which landed me in a hospital psych ward. I did seek professional help and continue to do so, my life is not out of control, and I recognize that I do have very strong opinions on this topic due to my first-hand experience. Before I became ill I had a thriving career making great money for the best organization a person could ever hope to work for, and I was slated for ongoing executive advancement and a really satisfying professional future. Depression took all that away from me and even with the great treatment I’ve received things have never been the same as before I was ill. That is the reason I become irritated when people promoting themselves as mental health professionals but not really understanding this illness irresponsibly disseminate incorrect information as fact. My remarks are primarily intended to inform individuals in the health profession of the patients’ side of the mental illness issue.
Wishing you good mental and physical health.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
The original title of this May 11th opinion piece was “Pay Attention to Mental Illness Warnings”, which I specifically referenced in my critique of the article. Now, on May 12th the title has been changed to “Promoting positive mental health”, with no explanation by the author as to why that was changed.
If this was Ms. Glass’ or Barton Community Health Center’s way of trying to clean-up their uninformed mess while accepting no personal responsibility they were wholly unsuccessful and unprofessional. While everyone can screw-up, adults take responsibility for their actions, and this is what I would expect from a child, not from an adult or from a health-care organization. This after the fact action demonstrates an inability to instill trust, damages credibility, and diminishes integrity.
I would like Lake Tahoe News to restore the original title to this opinion piece.
The issue of headlines always falls with the publication. We believed the one on it now better reflects the story.
LTN staff
LTN Staff:
Thank you for your reply.
While you state that your new assigned title better reflects the story, it is not the original title of the article, and the original title had a direct bearing on my publicly submitted comments. This new title alters the perspective of the story and it distorts the conveyance of my comments.
This is the first time since I’ve been reading your publication that I’ve seen the title of a published article changed, however since this is your publication it is certainly within your purview to do as you wish.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
spouse-well stated first two responses. i share first hand experience with the condition of solipsism.
This article is one of many to build awareness and support mental wellness. Mental Health issues have different levels of severity and different levels of need. This article was not intended to solve all problems, but to support positive approaches to wellness. Thank you for shedding light on some mental health issues that may need greater attention.
-Molly Hucklebridge, Communications Specialist
fromform,
I’d not heard of solipsism syndrome and would like to thank you for helping me learn about something new today.
Be well.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
Molly Hucklebridge
Communications Specialist
Barton Health Administration
Thank you for your clarification regarding this article originally entitled “Pay Attention to Mental Illness Warnings”. Apparently I erred in thinking that “National Mental Health Awareness Month and Week” were intended to bring attention and support to “Mental Illness”. Perhaps next year the mental health organizations could assign the more applicable designation of “Mental Wellness Awareness Month and Week” so as not to confuse those individuals suffering from mental illness who might think that someone actually cares about helping them.
The sad truth is that a case of “the blues” will not prevent someone from going to work or cause them to consider taking their own life, but being mentally ill can prevent someone from being able to work and it just may cause them to take their own life. If this community and the newly formed Mental Health Coalition want to really do something about mental illness then they need to be realistic in how they go after this problem, and for god sake recruit at least one licensed psychiatrist to our community who understands powerful psychotropic medications and is skilled in the interaction of those meds with other types of meds.
Wishing you good mental health.
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc