It is getting harder to protect our mental health in a world where deteriorating economies, wars, migrations, attacks and political imbalances increase.
The first and most important way to protect our mental health is to establish healthy relationships. When we have healthy relationships, our brain produces many hormones that help us regulate ourselves, but the most important is oxytocin.
What does this oxytocin hormone do?
Oxytocin has numerous benefits. First, it gives a sense of security. Globally endangered by economic inconsistencies, growing racism and political inconsistencies is spreading. People are increasingly worried about the future. As the oxytocin hormone is secreted, our brain feels safe as we experience that there are a few people it can rely on, and at least it can erase irrational worries. A healthy sleep allows our brain to clear bad emotions. The hormone oxytocin facilitates the transition to sleep as it makes the person feel safe.
When we experience intense negative emotions, the amygdala, which we call the emotional brain, takes control and disables the part that produces solutions. When this happens, we become unable to take steps to get out of the current situation. It helps to reduce the impact of the traumas we experience on us. For example, it makes it easier for us to process negative emotions such as loneliness, exclusion, and helplessness. If a person has a few people with whom he has a deep bond, the rate of being affected by the bad events that happen to him decreases.
Another effect of the hormone oxytocin strengthens us physically. Our bodily wounds heal more easily. Lonely people get sick more quickly, both physically and mentally.
We need to improve our communication skills in order to establish healthy relationships. Communication is not just talking. It has subtleties. People with a healthy mental structure do not interrupt, fool around, distract, talk about the subject, do not hurt themselves, invade or attack the other party while communicating. If we want to strengthen our spiritual structure, we need to strengthen our communication skills.
The second way to protect our mental health is to find solutions. is to be focused. It is necessary to analyze the events that happen to us, cause and effect. However, after analyzing a few times, it is good for us to find solutions and take action. Too much analysis spoils the sense of the event and prevents us from taking responsibility. If we take steps to realize it after a while after producing a solution, we will develop spiritually. We both develop our ability to take responsibility and feel more free.
In relationships, we sometimes give, sometimes we take. People who have the ability to both receive and give are mentally healthy. Someone who only knows how to take, could not grow up, remained in the position of a child. Because the child is in need of an adult due to his position in life, he takes whatever comes from him. Parents give, children take. Engaging in a relationship as two adults strengthens our mental health.
In addition, children who were not given a voice as children, whose authority was suppressed by parents, whose boundaries were not respected, turn into adults who cannot say no. These adults don't know the difference between rejecting an idea and rejecting a person. He perceives leaving with the word no. For a healthy spiritual structure, one needs to develop the ability to say no to people. This is reciprocal. Similarly, he needs to give people the right to say no to him. People who cannot protect their boundaries and therefore ignore someone else's boundaries are those who repeat the cycles they experienced as children as adults. It will be useful to find and parse the links in between.
One of our main concerns is to be abandoned, to be alone. Since the first man, we owe our survival to acting as a group. We needed this to survive in the wild. Our primitive brains equate abandonment with death. Danger bells ring for us when we are out of the community. Therefore, when our fear of abandonment is triggered, our emotional brain, the amygdala, turns off our rational brain and we cannot make healthy decisions. However, in the present age, wolves do not catch it when we leave the herd. We don't die. It is necessary to update this information.
In addition, we know that the child needs the care of his parents in order to survive. Parental care during this period is conditional If it is a care, if the child receives care when he is a good child, and the care is interrupted when he behaves beyond the expectations of the parents, he turns into an adult whose sense of abandonment is triggered very quickly. May maintain toxic relationships to avoid abandonment. Inseparable. We need to have the ability to leave people from time to time, to give people the right to leave us. This is what will improve us spiritually.
Everything happens very quickly in this era. Therefore, we exchange many emotions, good or bad, every minute. Looking to the horizon helps our brain process all the emotions we have. Our brain's ability to work on emotions increases in two cases. While one is doing nothing (literally no cell phone, no reading, nothing) while the other sleeps. Practicing looking at the horizon halfway through each day will help you regulate negative emotions and increase positive emotions and your problem-solving skills. This is another way to keep our mental health on track.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of exercise on our mental health. Exercise has many benefits, not only for your physical health, but also for your mental health. Exercise stimulates mood-enhancing chemicals in our brain and parts of the brain responsible for memory and learning.
There are several studies in mice and humans that show that cardiovascular exercise creates new brain cells and improves overall brain performance. Not only that, but it also prevents cognitive decline and memory loss by strengthening the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning.
Exercise also has benefits for depression and anxiety. How? The endorphin hormone is called the feel-good hormone. It increases a lot when we do physical activity. Even if we exercise moderately throughout the week, we still exercise enough to reduce depression and anxiety and give us feelings of happiness and enthusiasm.
If you still feel unwell, I suggest you seek professional support.
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