Mental Health
Be Your Own Therapist in 10 Steps.
A supplementary self-therapy approach during challenging times can empower us for quick recovery and maintain mental health.
Being our own therapist can give us empowerment and control during challenging times. It can be valuable as a proactive health measure. Like many people, I used self-therapy to solve my problems and improve my mental health. I share my approach in this story with practical takeaways.
Most people lack access to formal therapy due to financial constraints, lack of therapists in their area, long waiting queues for qualified therapists in some regions, or stigma around seeking mental health treatment.
When we become our own therapists, we empower ourselves. This skill allows us to look inward to examine our thoughts and emotions and see issues with our behavior. This self-reflective approach can lead to greater self-awareness leading to personal growth.
This supplementary therapeutic approach allows us to set our development or healing schedule and work at our own pace. We can take as much time as we need to observe our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and process them for improvement or healing.
Being our therapist can be a powerful way to navigate tough times. When we intentionally perform self-therapy, we can work on our challenges consistently without depending on therapists. But critical situations always require professional support. So self-therapy is a supplementary regimen.
Taking care of our mental health and well-being is essential, especially when we face challenging situations. While seeking formal therapy is beneficial, unfortunately, not everyone can access or afford it.
However, as I will discuss and explain in this story, there are practical ways to perform self-therapy and navigate difficult times to maintain our sanity.
Without going into technical or scientific details, I share my thoughts, perspectives, and experiences in ten steps with brief explanations and practical tips for self-therapy during challenging times.
1 — Observe your thoughts and feelings and accept them.
Healing starts with awareness and acceptance. Observing and accepting our thoughts and feelings is an excellent start for addressing emotional issues and improving our mental health.
When stressed, our thoughts and feelings can easily go out of control. By observing our thoughts and feelings and accepting them without judgment, we can reduce the intensity of our stress response, empower our adrenal glands, and begin to address the underlying issues.
For example, most of us feel stressed when we have too much going on, putting us under pressure. By accepting this unpleasant feeling and exploring the underlying causes, we can make changes to help us manage our stress more effectively.
When we struggle with anxiety or depression, observing our thoughts and feelings can help us identify patterns of thinking or behaviors contributing to our anxiety which might lead to depression if not addressed timely.
For example, we may notice that we tend to catastrophize or focus on worst-case scenarios. By observing these patterns, we can begin to challenge them and work on developing realistic and balanced ways of thinking that can change our feelings favorably.
Depressive thoughts and feelings can cause isolating experiences and make us feel lonely. By observing our thoughts and feelings and accepting them without judgment, we can develop better self-care, self-compassion, self-love, and stronger connections with ourselves and others.
2 — Practice self-care.
It can be common to neglect self-care when feeling down or lonely. Self-care involves caring for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Prioritizing self-care activities, especially in difficult times, can be invaluable.
Fundamental self-care requirements are eating nutritious food, getting restorative sleep, moving the body joyfully, resting, having fun with loved ones, connecting with others, and doing what we enjoy.
When stressed and overwhelmed, taking a break to have a cup of a preferred drink, call a friend, or walk outside can help us feel better instantly.
Self-care is an essential part of maintaining our mental health. During difficult times, it’s imperative to prioritize self-care activities that make us feel good instantly and help us cope with stress, anxiety, and other unpleasant emotions effectively.
As we are habitual beings, developing a self-care routine can be helpful. For example, we can take time each day to do something that makes us feel good about ourselves. Developing hobbies is part of self-care.
Some helpful self-care routines could be reading an enjoyable book, meditating, watching a movie, listening to music, visiting a museum, gardening, walking in nature, swimming in a pool or sea, petting an animal, watching the sunrise or sunset, taking a cold shower or a warm bath with Epsom salts, or using a dry sauna, steam bath, or a hot spa.
3 — Act mindfully, breathe intentionally, and meditate.
As mindfulness involves being present at the moment without judging our thoughts and feelings, we can manage them better, no matter how unpleasant.
Getting caught up in memories and worries about the future is a common human trait and might create anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, or shame during tough times. Acting mindfully can help us stay grounded and calm.
Mindfulness practices like meditation, yoga, visualization, or working in a flow state can help us understand our thoughts and feelings, allowing us to respond better and more healthily.
A helpful way to practice mindfulness is to take a few deep breaths and focus on thoughts and the sensation of our breath moving in and out of our bodies when we feel tense. Many meditation techniques can calm the mind and energize the body afterward.
Intentional breathing exercises can activate the parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve. It can increase the blood flow and oxygenate the cells and neurons.
We can focus on breathing for a few minutes when stressed or anxious. We can close our eyes and take deep breaths in and out, focusing on the sensation of the breath moving in and out of our bodies.
Then staying silent for 15 to 20 minutes can do wonders to lower stress and anxiety as this silence introspection can calm down the amygdala (alert system).
Meditating daily can strengthen the neocortex and calm the limbic system, especially the amygdala, as I explained in a recent story titled Lazy and Cheap Ways of Boosting the Brain Chemistry.
4 — Challenge negative thoughts and distortions with cognitive restructuring.
Our thoughts can have a significant impact on how we feel. We might get caught up in negative thinking patterns when we're going through difficult times. Challenging these thoughts and replacing them with more positive, optimistic, and realistic ones is important.
When feeling hopeless and thinking, we can challenge our thoughts by reminding ourselves of times when things have improved. It can be helpful to focus on small steps to make positive changes.
Cognitive restructuring involves identifying and challenging negative thoughts and beliefs contributing to your distress.
For example, when we feel anxious about a social situation, we might challenge the belief that we are not good enough by reminding ourselves of past successes and focusing on our positive qualities.
Cognitive distortions are inaccurate and irrational thoughts and beliefs. They can interfere with your perception of reality and influence your emotions, judgments, and behaviors.
These automatic thoughts come from our unconscious mind, coded as emotional memories. With strengthened neural pathways in your brain, these memories can evolve into habits and become unrecognizable. Therefore, it can be challenging to change them.
I introduced multiple cognitive distortions and provided practical tips to deal with them in an article titled Notice and Fix Your Cognitive Distortions to Live Healthier and Happier.
5 — Practice gratitude and appreciation.
Gratitude involves focusing on the things we appreciate in our lives. It can be easy to focus on the negative and forget the positive during tough times. Practicing gratitude can help us shift our focus to the good things in our lives.
Practicing gratitude involves intentionally focusing on the things we are thankful for, no matter how small they may seem. This can help shift our perspectives and cultivate a more positive attitude and growth mindset.
A practical tip for you is to list things you’re grateful for, such as your health, acts of kindness from family or friends, colleagues or community members who support you, and accomplishments you gained with your efforts.
Another tip is to write down a few things you’re grateful for, even small ones that happened during the day. I spend a few minutes reading what I write before going to bed. It helps me sleep better as it lowers stress.
For example, I usually write about my feelings for a supportive friend, my nutritious food, my barefoot walk on a beach on a sunny day, meeting friends, and talking with consequential strangers. After writing them, I feel a great sense of joy and calmness.
6 — Seek meaningful and accessible social support.
Being our own therapist does not mean we must go through difficult times alone. We must seek support from friends, family members, or other trusted people in our circles when we need it.
We can also contact support groups or seek written help from online communities. Writing an email to trusted people and connecting with them meaningfully can be a powerful way to cope with difficult times.
Talking to trusted people can help us feel supported and less alone. For example, whenever I feel down, I reach out to friends and some family members for emotional support. Even a brief chit-chat helps calm my mind and normalize my thoughts and feelings.
There are also free resources like a lifeline in many countries. For example, when I felt overwhelmed by a few sticky situations last year, I called a lifeline for the first time and gained tremendous relief after the talk.
7 — Focus on what you can control.
We might feel like everything is out of our control during difficult times. We tend to catastrophize by seeing things out of proportion. Focusing on what we can control can help us feel empowered and less overwhelmed.
Rather than worrying about things we can’t change or control, we must focus on what we can do to improve our situation. For example, we might identify actions to take within our control and change our behaviors.
We cannot change and control many things in life. They are constants and require acceptance. However, changing our perspectives and behaviors can somewhat influence these uncontrollable matters.
I introduced what we can and cannot control and discussed the details in an article titled Here’s What We Can and Can’t Control in Life. Let’s keep in mind that everything is figureoutable.
8 — Practice self-compassion and self-love and set healthy emotional boundaries.
Self-compassion involves treating ourselves with the same kindness, concern, and support we would offer to a good friend or a loved one.
Self-compassion and self-love require acknowledging our struggles and pain and treating ourselves with acceptance, kindness, empathy, and compassion. They help us prioritize our health and happiness.
Being gentle with ourselves and practicing self-compassion and self-love are paramount during difficult times. These therapeutic approaches can help us feel less lonely and more validated in our doubtful experiences. They don’t mean selfishness or egotistical.
The golden rule is to practice self-compassion and self-love by treating ourselves with the kindness and understanding we would offer to our loved ones or close friends. Forgiving our mistakes and wrongdoings of others is also an important part of self-compassion and self-love.
We must express and acknowledge unpleasant emotions like sadness, disappointment, anger, shame, guilt, and fear. Suppressing emotions can cause problems in the long term by creating traumatic memories, leading to physical and mental disorders.
We may tell ourselves that feeling this way is normal and that we deserve kindness and support despite disturbing thoughts and emotions. Reminding ourselves that it is okay to struggle and that we are doing our best to deal with them.
Manipulation is a human trait and part of our nature. They are inevitable. Even though manipulation sounds negative and hostile, some people use it for good reasons. For example, philanthropists might need to manipulate people’s emotions to invest in charitable causes.
Generally, psychological manipulations can adversely affect our emotional life, impacting our physical and mental health. No one enjoys being manipulated and playing with their emotions.
Therefore, we need a robust emotional self-defense mechanism against psychological manipulations. One of the viable solutions for emotional self-defense is setting boundaries.
9 — Write about your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Writing about our thoughts, feelings, and experiences can help us process confusing thoughts, unpleasant emotions, and challenging experiences. It can also help us gain insight into our inner and outer world, adding clarity to confusing situations.
Journaling is a powerful therapeutic tool allowing self-reflection and introspection safely. We may write down our thoughts and feelings without judgment and fear of others.
This daily practice can be an excellent opportunity to explore our inner world more intensely and identify psychological patterns. We can also use our diary to set goals and track our progress for healing or growth.
Scheduling a specific time each day to write in a journal can make us our own therapists. We can do expressive writing and write about our thoughts, feelings, observations, and challenges in our life. This can also boost our creativity and might even make us prolific writers.
Combining expressive and dexterous writing with self-talk can activate multiple brain regions, leading to better responses from the subconscious mind. I will cover self-talk in the next section.
10 — Talk to yourself intimately and creatively.
Talking to oneself may seem crazy. But it is far from it.
Self-talk is a normal, healthy, and therapeutic habit to gain emotional maturity and creativity. Self-talk is a valuable practice for our mental health that can make us our own therapists.
Our emotions are complex. Some entangled emotions can be challenging to comprehend. Our autonomous nervous system triggers emotions in different languages, making it difficult to understand. However, self-conversations can help us gain insights and give us hope.
Self-talk allows us to observe and understand our thoughts and feelings better, which can lead to stress reduction, mental clarity, and boosting our moods. It can also increase cognitive reserves, which might reduce the adverse effects of mental conditions such as dementia as we age.
Self-talk can increase creativity, help us deal with boredom, give us excitement by improving our imagination, and improve self-acceptance and self-love, leading to healing and growth.
Recording and analyzing our voice using voice-to-text conversation software can help us understand our emotions better, see patterns, and monitor our emotional and cognitive health proactively.
Although it may initially seem unnatural and scary, regular practice can make self-talk effortless. It’s an effective way to gain emotional maturity, creativity, and proactive cognitive enhancement. I provided some interesting self-talk examples in a previous story.
Conclusions
I introduced ten steps to perform self-therapy. However, we also need to focus on the fundamental needs of the body and mind. Nutritious food, restorative sleep, regular exercise, rest, fun, and meaningful social connections are non-negotiable requirements for sustainable health.
Therefore, intentionally choosing healthy lifestyle habits is vital to protect our physical and mental health. For example, as a critical organ, the brain needs special attention for physical and mental stimulation and rest regularly.
We need to create healthy habits to support the brain and the mind. Self-therapy is only supplementary when we have no access to professional therapy. It can solve immediate problems and lower the effects of mild disturbances. However, for grave issues, we need professional support.
Consulting with qualified healthcare professionals is crucial for serious and life-threatening situations like clinical depression, anxiety disorders, anhedonia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health issues that can adversely impact our lives and disturb our loved ones.
The key takeaway of this story is to use self-therapy as a daily activity as a proactive and precautionary measure for better health and get professional support when needed to solve complicated issues that cannot be solved with self-therapy.
When we create self-therapy habits and practice them regularly, we can increase BDNF, breathe better, and see everything around us brighter. We might taste more joy and even experience euphoric moments.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
Petechiae, ALS, Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorders, Anemia, Dysautonomia, cardiac output, and urinary track disorders.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients.
Disclaimer: My posts do not include professional or health advice. I only document my reviews, observations, experiences, and perspectives to provide information and create awareness.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Finally, After Burning Her House, Georgia Found Enlightenment
Hilarious Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Keep the Gray Matter Giggling
8 Psychological Points I Had to Unlearn and Relearn the Opposite
Based on my writing experience and observations, I documented findings and strategies that might help you amplify your voice, engage your audience, and achieve your desired outcomes in your writing journey.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on cellular, mitochondrial, metabolic, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 22K writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.
As a writer, blogger, content developer, and reader, you might join Medium, Vocal Media, NewsBreak, Medium Writing Superstars, Writing Paychecks, WordPress, Cliqly, and Thinkers360 with my referral links. These affiliate links will not cost you extra to join the services.
