Mental Health is Just as Important
“When someone gets sick or has an injury, we wish people to ‘get well soon.’ But we don’t wish someone well when their mental state declines.”
What metrics do you think about when you consider someone to be healthy? Do you think about a person’s weight? Whether they have any illnesses? How physically fit they are?
What about mental health?
I’d bet that most people wouldn’t even consider what a healthy person’s mental health is like.
Today, mental health is not considered as important as physical health because it’s difficult to measure it. Even worse, it’s currently difficult to talk about it. As a result, most people neglect it. But when a person’s mental health deteriorates, the quality of their life does as well.
When it comes to physical health, we are advised to have annual checkups to ensure we are healthy. When someone gets sick or has an injury, we wish people to “get well soon.” When we sprain an ankle or break an arm, we immediately seek help to heal as quickly as possible. We believe that if we don’t heal our physical pains, we are unable to do certain physical activities. But have we ever considered that whatever occupies our brains can also affect us in these same activities?
When it comes to mental health, we aren’t usually advised to get annual checkups. We don’t necessarily wish someone well when their mental state declines. When we go through mental or emotional hardships, we don’t seek help right away because we might be seen as weak.
Stress and anxiety can come from school, work, and all other forms of life events, such as having money problems and making difficult career decisions. Grief from losing a loved one can definitely negatively impact the quality of not just our work, but it can affect our whole day. These stressors in our life can prevent us from doing the most simple tasks of getting out of bed, eating a meal, or interacting with people.
This view that "asking for help" makes us weak, especially when it comes to mental health, is toxic. Since mental health is not necessarily something we can visually see, it is difficult for people to understand that we are dealing with something real.
I believe it is our duty to break the stigma that seeking assistance with your mental health means we’re weak. Instead, I believe that it is a courageous act to be vulnerable and to ask for help. No issue is too small to seek help.
My Own Mental Health Was Deteriorating
“I decided to focus more on my mental health and remove anything that deteriorated it.”
As I publish this blog article, it has been one year since my cousin, Amy, passed away (July 2019). Looking back, I can’t believe I tried to avoid the pain that I was experiencing. I convinced myself that I was stronger than most and thought I had closure not long after her death. I only took one day off from work to cope with Amy’s death. I didn’t take more time to process my grief, and I tried distracting myself with work, video projects, and other activities.
What I didn’t realize was that I was bottling up my emotions. They manifested as physical pains such as neck pain, back pain, ear & jaw pains. I started having terrible headaches, my sleep quality deteriorated, and I began having anger outbursts over little things.
I lost all focus at work, continued to eat poorly, and tried to distract myself by staying busy. That was my version of a mental breakdown. Every day, it got worse. After much deliberation, I decided to take advantage of the Employee Assistance Program perk my employer at the time provided us. I was able to receive 6 free therapy sessions every calendar year.
After 8 sessions, my therapist and I concluded that I was still grieving months after her death and needed more time to process. I decided that taking time to process my grief would be a one-month unpaid leave-of-absence from work. It gave me time and an opportunity to work on sharing my story about mental health and suicide prevention.
Throughout the whole month of February 2020, I spent most of my time writing, filming, and editing one of the most vulnerable videos I had ever done. I described how I was burning out from work and was spreading myself too thin with all of the other responsibilities I had put on myself. I mentioned how poorly I reacted to my cousin’s death and how negatively it affected my mental health. But I also shared that going to therapy allowed me to grieve in a safe space. It led me to have a clearer vision of what I wanted to do.
Through therapy, I concluded that sharing my vulnerable journeys and the lessons I learned was more important to me than my full-time job. I decided to focus more on my mental health and remove anything that deteriorated it.
If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ll probably know what happens next. After taking my one-month leave-of-absence, I noticed my mental health getting better and realized that it was time for me to take a step away from my software engineering career and pursue something that is more fulfilling to me. I was already splitting my time between my full-time job and my YouTube channel, so I knew I had to make space to focus on the one activity that was providing me more joy.
I left my job in March of 2020 and created a path to start helping those searching for fulfillment and wanting to live a life based on their core values -- their intentional life.
Frequent Mental Health Checkups
“Tuning in to our emotions and understanding its origins can guide us to resolve what is bothering us and hindering us from living our lives.”
Mental Health is just as important as physical health. In fact, I’d argue that you cannot do anything successfully unless you're mentally healthy. When it comes to critical thinking, we’re unable to create quality results when we are stressed, anxious, or burnt out. We need to send “get well soon” messages and show our support when someone is not mentally healthy.
As for ourselves, we must understand how mental health can impact our life and what we can do to keep it healthy. Take action to continuously check up on your mental health and find ways to heal your mind. There are many opportunities and resources to help you get through whatever you’re going through.
I realized, even though one year has passed since her death, I still grieve. There are random moments when it just hits me and I start to get emotional. I now handle my grievances differently by not bottling my emotions up anymore and just let them run its course. Stress, anxiety, and grief don’t go away forever. They can return any time, sparking from different experiences and events. It sometimes will generate different and unusual emotions.
This is why constant mental checkups, understanding, and healing is required. Tuning in to our emotions and understanding its origins can guide us to resolve what is bothering us and hindering us from living our lives.
Utilize Multiple Resources to Stay Mentally Healthy
“Your worth as a person is not any less for admitting you need to temporarily step away from whatever is causing you stress at the time.
Once I left my job, I continued to see a therapist. But due to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place, I switched to Betterhelp, an online therapy platform to connect with therapists.
After being matched with a therapist, I can connect with her through chat on their website or on the mobile application. She typically responds within 1 day, which is great for when I have questions or issues I’d like to get help on outside of our weekly video chat sessions. During these video calls, she creates a safe space for me to talk about what has been bothering me, my feelings, and whatever else is on my mind. She and I create goals that we track on Betterhelp’s platform and she can even send me relevant worksheets to fill out.
I also use Headspace (a meditation mobile application) and journaling to complement these therapy sessions. Although I was skeptical about meditation for a long time, Headspace does a great job of easing you in with guided meditations. As for journaling, writing (or typing) my thoughts down on paper is another type of therapy for me as I try to express my feelings in words. These two things help me clear out the worries and thoughts in my head and help prevent emotions from being bottled up again.
Lastly, there are times when, no matter what I try, I am still overwhelmed with stress, anxiety, sadness, and other types of emotions. I remind myself to take breaks and long vacations. And I urge you to do the same. Your worth as a person is not any less for admitting you need to temporarily step away from whatever is causing you stress at the time.
Ways to Help Your Mental Health
Reflection and action exercise
Understand that mental health can affect the quality of your work, interactions with others, happiness, sleep, and everything else in life. Consistently remind yourself to check on your and other people’s mental health.
Have you checked on your mental health today?
Note that I am not a therapist or a professional, but I at least wanted to share the resources and actions that have helped me check in and prioritize my mental health. I hope these can help you as well:
Meditation 🧘♀️ - There are a ton of benefits when clearing your mind and being more present. If you’re new to meditation, try Headspace or Calm. They provide guided meditations to ease you into it.
Journaling 📓 - Keep track of your days, thoughts, feelings, desires, fears, and more. Use a physical notebook or a digital one like Evernote.
Chris Baca, a co-owner of Cat & Cloud Coffee wrote an article on taking frequent “emotional inventory” with yourself to help you find fulfillment and happiness in your life.
Walking out in the sun/nature ☀️🌳 - Studies show walking under the sun and around nature naturally increases people’s mood. [1][2][3]
Take breaks/vacations to recharge 🏖 - Whether it’s taking a quick shower or traveling to another country, these breaks can clear your mind and allow you to think about your problem from a different perspective.
Social Media Detox 📱 - The 21st century brought us social media platforms to connect with people all over the world. But it also has caused a lot of mental health issues. Take small (1 day or 1 week) or large (1 month) breaks from social media and focus on being more present with what is physically around you. You honestly won’t miss out on much on social media. [4]
Interacting with Loved Ones ❤️ - Interacting with close friends, family, or a community can always be a great way for you to discuss your issues and receive support. Find and stay connected to those people.
Seek Professional Help 🧑🏽💼 - There are a ton of professionals such as therapists, counselors, and social workers whose job is to help you.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) - Potentially named differently, this benefit is typically sponsored by your employer for you to receive mental health resources.
Betterhelp/Talkspace/Ginger - Digital platforms that allow you to connect with a professional right from your phone. Click Here to receive a 2-Week Free Trial through my link on Betterhelp. (Note: This is not an affiliate link. I do not receive any reward for referring this offer to you.)
Don’t forget that your mental health always changes due to various life events. Take a closer look at your mental health and to take care of yourself with these or other resources. At the same time, we as a community should reach out to each other, support each other, and remind each other to take care of themselves, not just physically, but also mentally.
Which resource have you tried to help with your mental health? Which one will you try? What did I miss? Email me your thoughts!
The Importance of Mental Health for an Intentional Life
This article on mental health is not a one-off topic outside of my typical theme of Intentional living. Living intentionally means thriving in a life that you desire. It means finding fulfillment and happiness. Mental health keeps you in check on what brings you joy and what takes your energy away. It will be the reason whether you provide quality work and interactions or not. You cannot successfully live with intention if you don’t intend to prioritize your mental health.
This blog article is dedicated to my cousin, Amy Lie, who passed away from suicide. Rest in Peace. We love and miss you greatly! ❤️