Mental Health Management – How I’m Approaching It

Managing The Whole Human

I’ve just returned from the gym. My membership app told me that I’ve been there 187 times in a year. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself. Then, in my head, I added another one hundred workouts to this number: outdoor running, cycling, and rucking. “Not bad for an old guy”, I reflected as I gathered my breath between bench press sets. I’m walking the talk when it comes to using exercise to live my best life. To not succumb to the health issues that many people of my age can suffer with. Now, how about my mental health management?

As I moved from the bench press to the warm-down area, I considered my mental health. I’m a strong proponent of a healthy body being a cornerstone of a healthy mind. In addition to the positive feeling of having good cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass, there’s the serotonin buzz from a good thrash on the road or in the gym. It helps my mood. I suffered from the various winter viruses for a whole month from mid-December and noted the lack of a decent workout added to the downbeat mood that a virus can bring.

Doing The Work

I reflected that in recent years, I have become as proactive in working on mental health management as my physical health. At stages in my life, having treatment for my mental health has been remedial when I’ve had periods of severe anxiety or depression. I’ve unconsciously shifted to mental health treatment as a positive element in my life.

For the last four years, I have seen a psychiatrist regularly. She helped me when I had an acute period of poor mental health. Over those years, she has worked diligently with me in many aspects, from medication to the introduction of other talking therapists into my mental health team. Initially, private healthcare picked up her cost, but I continued to pay from my pocket when that lapsed. And will continue to do so. I’m now on a low level of medication, which gives me no conscious side effects, and it’s always reassuring for me to know there’s an appointment in the diary every three months, and she is at hand if I were to drift into choppier waters.

Throughout the years, I have had several spells of talking therapy. Indeed, in the last five years, this has been central to my health. Straight psychotherapeutic psychotherapy has been supplemented by practices and techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing). I took a break for a while in the last months. But more recently, I felt the need for a little more support and discussed it with my psychiatrist, resulting in me meeting a new therapist earlier this month.

Adjusting And Improving

The new therapist is an early-forties Belgian guy who is very well-qualified and has a superbly empathetic listening style. He’s threatening me with some EMDR, too – most practitioners I work with believe I’m recovering from some early life trauma, and therefore, this method is appropriate. I took some convincing with EMDR; it sounds almost silly to a layperson like me that moving my eyes from side to side can improve mental health. But in fairness, my last stint of this method was hugely beneficial.

We also had a good discussion about what underlies my episodes of feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or hypervigilant, how I respond in the moment to these feelings, and how I see myself. I’ve had too many well-qualified professionals tell me it’s related to early-life trauma to mount much of an argument anymore, so I roll with the treatment and give it my best. As though I’m hammering out a set of deadlifts, I give my therapy the best shot, too.

My mental health has been a big load to carry for as long as I can remember, and it has affected too many people around me when I have been at my lowest. I owe it to myself and important people in my life to crack on. The therapist has identified that I have a strong tendency to see only the ‘bad’ version of myself and that I need to show myself some compassion. Game on. Let’s see where I go—being proactive with mental health management.

We discussed ruminating about the past and worrying about the future. He asked me to sit forward and mirrored me. He put both hands out and invited me to take his hands. We looked directly at each other, and he asked me, ‘Where are you now?’ My answer was, ‘Right here.’ It was unusual for a therapist to make physical contact, but what a powerful example to encourage thinking about the power of living in the now.

Get Over It?

I saw a newspaper story just this week suggesting that people are tending to label the ups and downs of life as a mental health issue. Here’s an excerpt: I can’t link to a paywall-protected article.

Why are so many people being prescribed NHS antidepressants, with a record high of 8.7 million patients in England, about 15 per cent of the population? According to a report from NHS England in 2023, 20 per cent of children aged eight to sixteen have a probable mental health disorder, up from 12.5 per cent in 2017. And is it connected to a rise in people self-diagnosing depression or anxiety when they may just be experiencing the cyclical human emotional weather of sadness or worry? There is now an increasingly hard pushback, but it goes in different directions.

These warring factions could be summarised as those who think we are “overdiagnosed”, “overmedicated” or — and this is more likely to be the budget-slashing politician — should “just get over ourselves”.

I can see that. But I thought it was potentially a damaging article. I feel life’s natural ups and downs, and I would be concerned if I didn’t. But if you have suffered severe mental health issues, then this rhetoric is dangerous territory. It’s tantamount to ‘man up and don’t be a snowflake’ stuff. If this kind of press keeps even one person from seeking help, that’s a tragedy. I use ‘tragedy’ after some thought and because of the number of people who commit suicide each year. This is trending in the wrong direction, with over 6,000 people taking their lives in 2023. Men are hardest hit, being three times more likely to end their life than women.

Why Am I Telling You This?

I want to tell you why I’m writing this deeply personal stuff. Why would I put myself out there with the reputational risk that might come with that? My mental health has been a serious challenge, and I’m at the manageable end of the spectrum. I know people with much more serious mental illnesses and with no realistic hope of recovery. Therefore, the first reason for telling you all this is to say that it is only in the recent handful of years that talking about mental health has been remotely acceptable. It still verges on taboo in some circles. We have to normalise talking about mental health. We have normalised talking about cancer and other serious illnesses, and we have to make it okay to talk about mental health.

The second reason to say all of this is to highlight that we can be proactive about our mental health management. I look at my whole being when thinking about my health and well-being. An embarrassingly high gym membership fee is deducted from my bank each month. Deliveries of creatine, protein, hydration powders, vitamins, and minerals arrive at my door. I find any excuse to order the new Hoka running shoes on launch day. So why is me paying for a session with a psychiatrist every three months any different? I pay for a professional sounding board to unpack and help me make sense of my emotions and advise on improving my mental well-being.Is this any different than a personal trainer session at the gym?

Let’s Seek To Improve

I hope we continue to embrace the conversation about mental health as a society. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, I encourage you to talk to someone about it. Just giving a voice to your challenge can be a huge help. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about my approach. I invest in my physical health, as I don’t want to be a frail older man. However, I have realised that health is a much broader subject and have started to proactively invest in my mental health management as well as my physical health.

I don’t believe people show up to a personal training or CrossFit session feeling somehow broken. But I do know—and I’ve been there in the past—that it’s all too easy to turn up at a therapist’s door feeling faulty, broken, and with low self-esteem. I flipped that in my head some time ago. I turn up for a session with a mental health professional, feeling positive and wondering how I can use it to deal with my anxieties, asking myself what I can learn today.

There’s an old gym rat saying, ‘The only workout I’ve ever regretted is the one I didn’t do.’ That is me and my therapist sessions these days; I don’t remember walking out thinking it was a negative experience. I can walk out with high emotions and a headful of thoughts to process, but that’s good. That’s the work that needs doing. The gym leaves me with many muscle fibres to repair; the therapy session leaves me with many thoughts to process.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness meditation has been a major part of my mental health management over the years. I hit a streak of over 1,100 days up to May 2023, when I lapsed during a stay in hospital. It’s good to form positive habits, but without care, they can lapse quickly too.

There is a lot of scientific proof showing the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and as little as ten minutes a day can have a profoundly positive effect. I have picked up the habit of using my Calm app at night; a great way to have the mind sort through the noise of the day. And I’ve gone further by exploring the work of Sam Harris and his Waking Up app. As well as guided meditation, there is a lot of fascinating material to explore, as Harris blends science and spirituality.

Journaling is highly recommended and has scientific support, and my new therapist has nudged me to pick up the pen once more. My journal sits on a side table looking at me balefully most of the time. My introvert mind stores stuff up and then lets a flood of it go after an extended period. Especially in the medium of writing. I always feel better when I scrawl three to six pages of indecipherable spider trails on a page. I just need to develop a stronger habit.

Men’s Groups

Let me briefly tell you about my latest mental and emotional health workout. I joined a men’s group late last year. Six to eight of us meet monthly and talk for two and a half hours. At my first session, I was nervous as hell, but I found the group open, accepting, and enabling. An excellent facilitator, Kenny Mammarella-D’Cruz, keeps the conversation moving and encourages all to speak for as short or long as needed. I surprised myself by disclosing much more than I expected for someone who has trained himself to be socially closed and cautious. I stress that it’s not therapy. And it’s not some caricature of men whinging about all that isn’t good about life – the country, women, youth, the government, and all that. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that is grounded in collective life experiences. And it’s definitely not a petri dish of toxic masculinity.

It’s another blade on the Swiss Army Knife of my general wellness. It quickly became an essential element of my mental health management strategy. I need to remain curious and open to new ways to improve my 5k run time, and the same goes for my mental health. I think my monthly discussion with a bunch of guys is both cathartic and grounding.

Not A Victim

I don’t write this so anyone can say, ‘Poor you’ or ‘That’s brave.’ I’m no victim. I’m not seeking sympathy. I write this because this is how we move on: discussing mental health and exchanging ideas, enacting empathy with each other, and embracing our human frailty. Perhaps there is a way to see mental health management in the same light as physical health, where we can proactively improve.

If these few paragraphs make you want to say more or ask me a question, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You will be heard.