Opinion: Take care of your mental health needs, as well as your physical health - Sophie Mei Lan

I didn’t know what I was making until the end of the session and my wonky knife sculpture was laid to dry next to my “box of feelings.”

While I had experienced trauma as a youngster, I was lucky to have an open-minded and proactive family who encouraged me to try a range of therapies from art to reiki to complement the mainstream treatment I had been receiving.

But regardless of traumatic experiences, we all have mental health that needs to be taken care of. Eat 5 a day, exercise 3-5 times a week, get a good night’s sleep, are often the health messages drilled into us from childhood, but how about a routine to look after our minds?

It is a relief that our conversation about mental health is so much more open these days but we’re at risk of forgetting that we all need to incorporate time for our mind into our daily lives. Self-care such as meditating, being creative, being active or talking, whatever is right for you. While ‘still’ meditation, as in lying down and practicing mindfulness, isn’t right for me at the moment, I have found my own way to meditate through exercise, dancing or walking and sometimes talking. It’s finding what’s right for you to take care of your own mental health and also when supporting others.

I have experienced severe anxiety and depression since childhood and most of the healthcare system involved medication, talking therapies in a gloomy room and more medication. But after trialling a range of therapy over the years and into my adulthood I have found what works for me.

I now feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to try so many techniques and treatments as I am more resilient than most when it comes to managing my mental health.

It’s important to understand what feeds our energy and what depletes it. I am naturally an introvert so I know I need time on my own at home to restore to either write, make video diaries or to do exercise. If I need to de-stress or I feel overwhelmed, however, I find outdoors helps me to have some perspective on life especially as I work so much online - it can feel very isolating.

Over the past few weeks, when I have had personal challenges, I booked in activities like swinging through the trees at Go Ape! Temple Newsam and challenging myself to do Yorkshire Three Peaks. I continue to take medication and have talking therapies as well, but I now have my therapy session while on a walk because I open up better that way.

Explore what works for you and when supporting a loved one with their mental health, allow them to to try a range of activities, crafts, exercise and therapy because there’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to looking after our mental health.

Incorporating time for our minds into our daily routines, like you may already do with food, exercise and sleep, is one of the best habits we can form and after all, rituals equal results. Self-care and expressing ourselves, in our own way, is how we can take our power back.

Sophie’s book Eat. Sleep. Control. Repeat. Documents her journey from self-harm to self-love, available on Amazon and hallgoodbooks.com. She also runs Squats and Sparkles - Women’ Health Club, a free group on Facebook.