A Healthy Mind: Stress Management

It’s amazing how the literature insists on two issues as being an integral part of a healthy mind: stress management and self-esteem.

In contemporary behavior therapy, we studied that anxiety, not depression, is the number one mental illness in the United States. To fend it off, the literature recommends a nutritious diet, an exercise routine, and plenty of restful sleep. As I’ve discussed in a previous blog entry, I’m currently doing a diabetic diet, because it allows me to eat a good range of food in moderation. I’m also going to the gym on the doctor-recommended dosage of at least three times a week for at least 30 minutes. The gym also offers me the added benefit of making new friends. I’m also being very mindful of my sleep hygiene. I’m taking a warm bath 90 minutes before bed, and then I do something relaxing (e.g.: color in a coloring book or breathing deeply). I bought a sunrise alarm clock with a built-in white noise machine, too. I used to be too busy for this, but I now understand that I’ll reap the benefits in the long-run with improved stamina (i.e., a lower medical bill).

If there is something in particular that gets you anxious, you might want to try systematic desensitization. The first thing you have to do is to find a competing response; you can’t be anxious and relaxed at the same time. Some competing responses include positive thoughts and laughter. Usually, people adopt deep muscle relaxation as their competing response. To practice deep muscle relaxation, all you have to do is to tense up different body parts progressively, and then relax them. The second thing you have to do is to create an anxiety hierarchy. Basically, write down all the things you can think of that make you anxious (within a same topic) and rearrange them from least anxiety-provoking to most. Let's say that you are afraid of spiders. On your hierarchy, you would put things ranging from looking at a picture of a spider to having a spider crawl all over you. The last step in systematic desensitization is to visualize an anxiety-provoking scenario and to practice muscle relaxation.

Self-love is also important in maintaining psychological well-being. I was impressed to read that there is therapy for psychoses based on self-esteem. In class, we are going to study this some more, so I’ll go into more detail at a later date. What I can say now is that this goes along with what the Master Healer told us to do. It is my understanding that the pivotal difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that Jesus completed the Law by stating that “We should love others as we love ourselves.” In other words, if we didn’t have a healthy ration of love for ourselves, how could we love others as fruitfully as God loves us?

(to be continued…)