In your positive data log, you can list the benefits of operating under your new belief, including all the ways in which your fears about doing so have been disproved.
For example, Sly might record the following observations:
His staff members still seem to generally like being managed by him, despite the fact that he disciplines them when needed.
Being less gregarious at parties doesn't stop others from having a good time or from engaging with him.
His anxiety and panic about the possibility of being disliked have reduced in response to his belief change.
Your positive data log can not only remind you of the good results you've reaped from changing your unhealthy beliefs to healthy ones, but also help you be compassionate with yourself when you relapse to your unhealthy beliefs and corresponding behaviours. Use your positive data log to chart your progress, so when you do fall back you can assure yourself that your setback need be only temporary. After all, practice makes imperfect.
Many people add to their positive data log for months or even years. Keeping the log provides them with a useful antidote to the natural tendency to be overly self-critical.
Be sure to refer to your positive data log often, even daily, or several times each day when you're bedding down new beliefs. Keep it in your desk or handbag or wherever you're most likely to be able to access it during the day. As a general rule, you can't look at your positive data log too often!
Chapter 18: Heading for a Healthier and Happier Life
In This Chapter
Discovering and choosing healthy activities
Taking care of yourself, your life and your relationships
Communicating effectively
Evaluating and adhering to your values
The way that you think influences the way that you feel and behave. How you behave also influences the way you end up feeling and thinking . . . and round and round the cycle goes.
So, how you live from day to day has an effect on your overall mood. In this chapter, we look at what makes a lifestyle healthy. Developing a healthy lifestyle can contribute enormously to keeping you in tip-top physical and psychological condition.
We use the term ‘healthy' to mean looking after your physical self, which includes exercise, sleep, sex, your eating habits, and keeping your living environment a pleasant place to be. Psychological health is about doing things that give you a sense of enjoyment and achievement, holding helpful and balanced attitudes toward life, and building satisfying relationships.
Being in tip-top psychological and emotional health also involves revisiting your values. Taking a thorough look at what is really most important to you, and making time in your busy schedule to reflect your values through regular action, greatly contributes to an overall sense of well-being.
Make looking after yourself a priority rather than an afterthought. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
Planning to Prevent Relapse
Once you start to recover from your problems, your next step is to devise a plan to prevent a resurgence of symptoms - to ensure that you don't suffer a relapse. A relapse basically means that you return to your original state of mind. An important part of your relapse prevention plan is nurturing yourself and guarding against falling back into old, unhelpful lifestyle habits, such as working too late, eating unhealthily, drinking too much caffeine and alcohol, or isolating yourself. Chapter 20 deals with relapse prevention in depth. The following sections in this chapter provide some pointers on how you can make your life fuller and how to take better care of yourself.
Filling In the Gaps
When you start to recover from some types of emotional problem, such as depression, anxiety or obsessions, you may find that you have a considerable amount of spare time available to you, which previously your symptoms took up. Indeed, you may be astounded to find out just how much energy, attention and time common psychological difficulties can actually consume.
Finding constructive and enjoyable things to do to fill in the gaps where your symptoms once were is important. Keeping yourself occupied with pursuits that are meaningful to you (and reflect your core values and priorities) gives you a sense of well-being and leaves less opportunity for your symptoms to re-emerge.
Choosing absorbing activities
Activities that you used to enjoy may take a back seat while you wrestle with your problems. However, maybe you can think of some new activities that interest you and that you may like to try. The following are a few pointers to help you generate ideas about what activities and hobbies you can begin building into your life:
Make a list of things you used to do and would like to start doing again.
Make a separate list of new activities that you'd like to try.
Try to create a balance between activities that do and don't involve physical exercise.
Include everyday activities like cooking, reading, DIY and keeping up social contacts. These activities are often neglected when you're overwhelmed by symptoms.
Choose to focus on around five activities to revive or pursue, depending on how full your life is with work and family commitments.
In case you're still at a loss as to what you want to do, here's some ideas - but remember that this list is by no means exhaustive: antiques, art appreciation, astronomy, baking, chess, dance, drama, dressmaking, enamelling, fishing, football, gardening, golf, interior decorating, kick boxing, languages, motoring, painting, pets Rhena has a cat called Jack, who's transformed her life! And since the first publication of this book she's also acquired a West Highland terrier called Powder Puff, who's the most adorable and consuming creature . . . everyone agrees . . . possibly even Jack), quizzes, tennis, voluntary work, wine-tasting, writing . . .
Pets are great companions. But they also require some considerable work and commitment (especially dogs, no matter how small). Before you decide to get a pet, do some research to determine the best pet for your living environment, work routine and financial situation. Otherwise you may find yourself lumbered with an animal that's far more high maintenance than you initially expected.
Don't just think about it! Decide when you're going to begin doing your chosen activities. If you don't give yourself a concrete start date, forgetting about things or putting them off can be all too easy.
Matchmaking your pursuits
You know yourself better than anyone else, so you're the best person to judge which hobbies can bring you the most satisfaction. Try to match your recreational pursuits to your character. If you know that you love paying attention to detail, you may enjoy needlework or making jewellery. Extreme sports may appeal to you if you've always been good at physical activities and like adrenalin rushes. Conversely, if you've never been very musical, taking up an instrument may not be the best choice for you.
We recommend that you stretch yourself by trying things that you haven't done before. Who knows - you may end up really liking the new activities. However, if you choose pursuits that are too far removed from your fundamental personality or natural abilities, you might lose heart and abandon them.
Putting personal pampering into practice
Oh, the joys of a good massage, a hot foamy bath or a trip to the opera (okay, we understand that not everyone feels the same about opera). You can't overcome your problems without a significant degree of personal effort. Congratulate yourself for your hard work, and treat yourself to a few nice things.
Take care of yourself on a day-to-day basis, and look out for times when you deserve a few extra special treats. Friday nights are a good time to regularly treat yourself after a long week at work.
Your treats don't have to be expensive. You can do many small things - such as putting some cut flowers in a vase, making your living space smell nice, playing pleasant music, watching a favourite film or television programme - which are free or inexpensive.
Consider pampering yourself as part of your relapse-prevention plan (see Chapter 20 for more on relapse p
revention). Even doing little things like using nice bath oils or eating a special meal once a week can remind you to value yourself and to treat yourself with loving care.
Overhauling Your Lifestyle
We suggest that you take a close look at the way you currently live and decide on the things that are good and the things that are not so good for you. Be sure to consider the following key areas:
Regular and healthy eating. The principle is relatively simple: have three meals and a couple of healthy snacks a day, with plenty of fruit, vegetables and wholegrain foods. Minimise your consumption of sugar and simple carbohydrates, like white bread, and don't overdo the saturated fat. Have what you fancy in moderation. If you think you need extra help with healthy eating, talk to your doctor, who can refer you to a dietician.
Try keeping a record of everything you eat, for a week. Identify where you can make positive changes towards eating more regularly and more healthily. If you find that your actions don't match with your good intentions, use the Tic-Toc technique (which we discuss in Chapter 19) to tackle the thoughts and attitudes that can get in the way of healthy eating.
Regular exercise. Ample evidence suggests that exercise is very beneficial for both your mental and physical health. Aim for at least three sessions of physical exercise, lasting 20-30 minutes each, per week (five sessions is ideal, but you may need to build up to it). Consult your doctor if you haven't exercised regularly for some time.
Leisure pursuits. Include activities that bring you pleasure or satisfaction and aren't attached to your job or home life. Remind yourself of what you used to do and of what you've been meaning to do, when choosing activities and hobbies.
Social contact. Get to know new people or reinvigorate your existing relationships. Sometimes relationships suffer as a result of psychological illness. See the ‘Getting intimate' section later in this chapter which talks about intimacy and communication.
Vitally-absorbing interests. Get involved with causes you feel are important, such as recycling or animal rights campaigns. Even small, everyday actions like smiling at a shopkeeper, holding the door for a stranger, forgiving an indiscretion or picking up a bit of litter can help you recognise that you're contributing to the kind of world you'd like to live in.
Resource management. This catch-all may involve you drawing up a budget, getting an accountant, developing a system to deal with your household bills efficiently, renegotiating your working hours, earmarking time for relaxation, arranging some babysitting or hiring a cleaner.
Ideally, you can create a nice balance between the different aspects of your life so that none is neglected.
Everyone needs delineated time for the replenishment of psychological and physical energy as well as for getting things done. Be aware of both - because you can't have one without the other.
Look at the things you do on a daily or weekly basis, and decide what you're doing too much of, such as drinking in the pub, working late or eating fast food. Try to replace some of these activities with others that you're doing too little of, such as getting exercise, spending time with your family, cooking tasty, healthy meals or studying.
Walking the walk
The best-laid plans of mice and men are apt to go astray. And how.
You're really serious about making positive changes to your lifestyle; however, just thinking about it and setting out plans aren't enough - although they are a great first step. The next step is to do it! Actions speak louder than words, so act on your intentions sooner rather than later.
Keeping your body moving
We cannot emphasise enough the multiple benefits of you taking regular exercise. It's so good for you, in so many ways. If you don't believe us, try it out! Exercise a few times each week and see if you don't end up feeling better - we defy you to contradict us.
You can exercise in ways that don't involve going to the gym. Gardening, walking, cycling, dancing and housework all give your body a workout. Find out which activities suit your interests, schedule and current level of fitness - and do them!
Be careful that you're exercising for the right reasons, such as to enjoy yourself, de-stress and keep physically and mentally healthy. Check that you're not exercising obsessively. The following are unhealthy motivations for taking exercise:
To keep your weight lower than is medically recommended. People who suffer from eating disorders often exercise fanatically.
To improve your looks. People with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) sometimes use exercise to compensate for imagined defects in their physical appearance (Chapter 13 has more about this psychological problem). Also, if you have a very poor body image or an eating disorder (see Chapter 11), you may exercise in an attempt to make yourself more physically acceptable to yourself and others.
To punish yourself. People with feelings of shame and low self-worth may exercise to excess as a means of self-harming.
Ask your physician to work out your body mass index or ‘BMI', which gives you a weight range that is normal for your age and height.
Using your head
Perhaps your emotional problems get in the way of your work or study. Maybe your difficulties interfere with you making progress in your career or changing jobs - after all, many people with psychological problems also experience work and education difficulties.
Start to set goals for how you'd like your work or academic life to develop. Build a realistic plan of action for reaching your professional or educational goals by following these steps:
1. Start your plan by considering where you'd like to be and what you need to do in terms of study and training to get there.
2. Break your ultimate goal down into smaller, bite-sized chunks. You may need to gather references, build a portfolio, write a CV or apply for a loan or grant to fund your studies.
3. Investigate facilities for learning. Use the Internet to look for specific courses, contact universities and colleges for a prospectus, see a careers advisor or visit an employment agency.
4. Build your study or training plan into your life with a view to keeping a balance between study, work, social and leisure activities.
5. Set a realistic timeframe to achieve your goal. Pushing yourself to get there too fast is likely to cause you stress, impair your enjoyment of the journey to your goal, or even lead you to abandon your goal all together.
Go out and study just for the sake of it. Developing a new skill or exploring a new subject area can be highly rewarding for you, whether or not the studying is applicable directly to your work. Adult education classes and intensive workshops can be a great way for you to explore new topics - and for you to meet new people, which can be beneficial if your social life has suffered during your illness.
Getting involved
Think about the kind of world you want to live in and how you can contribute towards creating it. You can get involved with anti-litter campaigns, local building-restoration projects, charities, or whatever you feel is important. You can usually choose how much time to devote to these pursuits.
Becoming spiritual
Sometimes people with specific disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or extreme guilt, can find that their religion or spiritual beliefs get mixed up with their problems. Re-establishing a healthy understanding of your faith can be an important aspect of your recovery. Resuming your usual manner of worship - be it meditation, attending mass or going to a synagogue - can help you to reintegrate with your religious beliefs or your community. You might also find that discussing your recent problems with a religious leader or a member of your congregation is helpful.
Talking the talk
Emotional problems can have a detrimental effect on your personal relationships. Sometimes, your symptoms can be so all-consuming that you have little space to show interest in what others around you are feeling and doing. Therefore, you may need to do some work to rebuild your existing relationships when you feel better.
When your symptoms subside, you may wa
nt to give more of your attention to the other people in your life. This may involve playing with your kids, talking to your partner about how your problems have affected your relationship (without blaming yourself, of course) or renewing contact with friends and extended family.
People in your life are likely to be aware of how troubled you've been and they may notice recent positive changes in you. Let them talk about the changes they've noticed within you. Listening to other people's experiences of your problems can help to reinforce the idea that the other people in your life care about you. Improving your relationships and simply spending time in the company of other people can help you keep your symptoms at bay. You can also involve others in your relapse-prevention plan, if appropriate.
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