Foundations of Mental Health

We often look at mental health as being a brain thing rather than a body thing but of course our brain is part of our body, it's an organ that needs looking after like every other organ does.

Transcript

Richard: 0:00

Another Friday and another little bonus episode for you. Now, we often look at mental health as being a brain thing rather than a body thing, but of course our brain is part of our body. It's an organ that needs looking after, just like every other organ does. It's just that because our brain is the seat of our consciousness, who we are as a human, when things aren't working well in it it's our personality that changes. And much as I spend a lot of time thinking about mental health as being all about thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. There is more to us than that, and I think we all realise this, deep down. Most of you would've heard about Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, and if you haven't, or you need a quick refresher on it, I'll lay it out for you briefly. So back in the early forties, Maslow promoted the idea that to be fully content with our life, we have to go through certain layers of our needs. With the foundations being the very basic physiological ones, moving up through safety aspects, then relationships, then self-esteem. At the very top being what he called self-actualisation. Where you are happy with who you are and what you bring to the world. His idea was that you can't get to that top point unless you go one by one through those four deficiency needs and in that order as well.'cause if our focus is on the third level of building relationships, friendships, intimacy, then we are likely to still feel that we are missing something. Because we don't even have anything to drink and a toilet. So that's what Abraham Maslow was on about. Start with the basics. Food, water, shelter, get those needs met before anything else. But the thing is, it's too easy to get outta touch with what our body actually needs, isn't it? We don't always notice that we are thirsty, for example. That's a really common one. And of course there's a right knock-on effect everywhere else in our body, including our brain as anybody with a hangover can testify to.'cause our body needs water and not Diet Coke or Monster Energy drink either. Water. We all know it. We're not daft, but a lot of people forget it. Or ignore the truth. So our body compensates so that it doesn't shrivel up. And before we know it, our poos are so dry. It's like squeezing out a melted string of Maltesers once a week, and we wander around everywhere with this bloated and uncomfortable feeling everywhere we go, making us tetchy and frustrated. And all we needed to do was eat a bit more fruit and veg and drink plenty of water. Now I know that I'm oversimplifying it as any nutritional therapist listening could well be saying.'cause there's quite a bit more to it than that, I'm sure there is. But maybe that's where we start, like Maslow said, food, water, sleep. Are you satisfying those needs in a way that allows us to move up to the next level? If it's not, that's gonna make things really, really hard. And I know sleep is a tricky thing. If you see the podcast charts, it's full of sleep, relaxation stuff and insomnia help. And maybe it's because we're all focusing our efforts too far up on Maslow's Pyramid. We're trying to get self-esteem. And the respect of others at level four, but we haven't got a sense of belonging and a connection with our friends at level three, causing us to spoil level two, which is about stability, safety, and security, which then causes a difficulty in relaxing, and insomnia. Ruining the very bottom level of these hierarchy of needs.'cause we then overcompensate the next day with way too much coffee to help us focus in the morning and alcohol to switch off at night. None of which help and our bodies screaming and before long so is the rest of us.'cause the screams have become real. And I do believe that this applies to not just what we eat and what we drink, but actually everything that we consume. Everything that we take on.'cause we don't just consume food and water, we also consume information. And the people we surround ourselves with, whether that's in person or through the media, it's got a big part to play. But we don't always have a choice who's around us and what they do and say, do we? But what we do have control over is how we dilute that down with better content, with nicer, kinder words. Now one way of doing that might be to become a patron of mine on patreon.com to support the podcast.'cause as a thank you, I'll create a full episode for you every Monday morning and a nice relaxing hypnotherapy track as well. So do please hop on board even if it's just for a couple of months, although you do get two months, free if you pay annually and there's even a free trial for a week as well. Maybe see you there.