275 - Don't take Your Mental Health Personally
The Truth About Mental Health by Paula Sweet at Absolute Mind
Paula Sweet
4.3 • 586 Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2023
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of 'Your Absolute Mind', I'm your host, Paula Sweet, and we had a chat about how having too many choices and trying to personalise everything could be messing with our mental health.
We live in a world full of options, right? From our clothes to our coffee orders, everything is about what suits me'. This extends to our mental health too, and while it's great that we're acknowledging our personal battles, there's a downside - we start stressing about making the 'perfect' choice.
Now, here's a thought: what if we need a bit more standardisation rather than personalisation? It sounds weird, I know. But just like a daily routine can provide some structure to our lives, maybe it could do the same for our mental health.
Simple stuff like exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, or practising mindfulness can act as a safety net for our mental health. Looking beyond mental health, think about how successful organisations like the military or big corporations have used standardisation to thrive. They've cut down the choices to increase efficiency and reduce stress.
It's like Apple, for example, offering a limited range of products but still being a major hit. So, coming back to mental health, maybe it's time we stop overthinking and start focusing on what we know works.
Things like working out regularly, eating balanced meals, getting plenty of sleep, practising mindfulness, and keeping in touch with our friends and family. Now, before we wrapped up the episode, I shared what I consider the non-negotiables for mental health: sleep, meditation, staying hydrated, and moving around. These are simple but super effective.
The goal here is not to personalise everything, but to keep it simple and consistent. After all, it's the small, everyday actions that lead to big changes. So let's chill on the personalisation a bit and focus on the basics. Remember, looking after our mental health doesn't need to be complicated or fancy. Stick to the basics, keep it simple, and stay consistent.
Thanks for tuning into 'Your Absolute Mind', and catch you next time.
Take care and stay strong!
Remember, if you're ready to look after your mental health in a simple way each day, check out https://www.absolutemind.app
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Your Absolute Mind, the podcast where we dive |
| 0:05.4 | into the intricate world of mental health and explore what it takes to become mentally resilient |
| 0:10.0 | in today's fast-paced world. My aim is to help you navigate the often overwhelming world of |
| 0:16.5 | mental health and come out the other side with a positive mindset. Now in today's episode, |
| 0:22.0 | we're going to be discussing a topic that touches the core of our life, the concept of options, |
| 0:28.0 | personalisation and the intriguing intersection of these within our mental health. Think about |
| 0:34.1 | this for a moment. We live in an era of abundant choice. We're encouraged to seek |
| 0:41.4 | uniqueness to personalise everything from our clothes to our coffee orders. It's common now to be |
| 0:49.0 | standing behind someone in a coffee shop and they ask for an extra hot, doubled shot latte with soy milk and a shot of hazelnut |
| 0:58.6 | and make it caffeine free too. Now this choice tends to spill over into how we talk about |
| 1:04.8 | our mental health as well. People speak of my anxiety, my depression, as though these challenges are something uniquely theirs, |
| 1:13.6 | a tailored suite of personal experiences. |
| 1:16.6 | Now, on one hand, this personalisation helps us to claim our individual experiences. |
| 1:21.6 | It allows us to express and to communicate the specific symptoms that we're grappling with. |
| 1:26.6 | It makes us feel heard, makes us feel understood and validated. |
| 1:31.3 | However, on the flip side, there's a darker aspect to this, which is option anxiety. |
| 1:38.3 | We are constantly under pressure to make the perfect choice from a vast array of options. This stress of making |
| 1:45.4 | the right choice can lead to decision paralysis, even in the context of our mental health. And that |
| 1:50.8 | is not a place that anyone wants to be in. So we find ourselves in a paradox. While personalisation |
| 1:58.3 | seems appealing, it might be causing more harm than good. |
| 2:03.3 | So could the solution then be standardisation? |
| 2:07.2 | I know it sounds counterintuitive. |
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