A therapist toolkit for life’s most trying challenges.

Nobody is happy all the time, fluctuating moods are all the part of human experience. But sometimes when low mood is lasting or recurs very often we tend to think, it’s because of hard wiring in our brain and we don’t have any Influence over our painful emotions.

Dr. Julie smith, clinical psychologist and Social Media star tells us that we do have the influence over our emotions. Her book “Why is nobody told me this before” details strategies for managing our mental health in our daily lives. She shows us that we have more control over our mental health than most of us are taught to believe in. This book helps us in outlining some of the most important tasks today that will help us build resilience and grow better at managing our moods over time. As we all discover that our mental wellbeing is more within the reach than it can seem, we may just find yourself asking Why has nobody told me this before. In this book, we will learn how to keep anxiety from turning into panic. The key to building confidence and why one should never feel like a burden when anyone is down.

Key idea 1:

Lay the ground work for robust mental wellbeing by becoming aware of how your feelings are generated. When Dr. Julie worked with patients caught in an ongoing low mood, she noticed some common thought patterns. To her patient, it often felt like their low moods came out of nowhere or that their brain were simply faulty. It seemed like other people were born with the ability to be happy. But for them it was out of reach. These beliefs prevented them from taking their mental help into their own hands. But let’s take a closer look at how a bad mood might arise, say you have been working late, worried about a fast-approaching deadline, you finally make it to bed. But you are too tired to remember your usual glass of water before sleep. You spent the night tossing and turning worried about your deadline. You drift into a light restless sleep only to be jolted awake by your horribly loud alarm. You wake up irritated exhausted and with stress hormone shooting through your body. In short you are in a bad mood. It’s easy to see why, isn’t it? Your bad mood didn’t come out of nowhere, you are stressed, sleep deprived and dehydrated. Of course not all low moods arise due to a night of dehydrated tossing and turning. But what’s more important is that they are constructed by a variety  of factors, many of which we can influence.

If you are in a bad mood, it’s actually more likely that you are experiencing an unmet need and not a malfunctioning in your brain. So the first step in relieving an ongoing low mood is to reflect upon what those unmet needs might be. Dr. Julie helps her patients build this awareness  over time by asking question that help uncover what’s going on in their bodies and in their minds. Once Dr. Julie and her patient have started to break down the thoughts, behaviors and environmental stressors that contribute to the low mood, the patient can start addressing those unmet needs. Some of these questions are what exactly are we thinking when our low mood surfaces, when do these thoughts start to surface. What other physical sensations did we experience, what did we do in the week leading up to the low mood. These are the questions that we can ask too. Emotional hindsight is the skill that can be built outside of therapy context. Dr. Julie recommends keeping a journal that focusses on both positive and negative experiences and detailing the thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and circumstances leading up to those experiences. Gradually this will help us notice patterns over time and concrete factors that contribute to the certain mood.

Let’s say this practice of turning a bit more awareness onto our feelings helps us recognize an easily fixable source of low mood. We might notice that we regularly think ‘I am such a loser’ right after scrolling through media. This recognition gives us actionable clue of how to get away from that feeling simply by deleting certain apps or unfollowing people who generate bad feelings of comparison. Now, building this awareness of how feelings are generated won’t bring clarity or solutions to all painful emotions. Some problems are more complex and may require professional help, and that’s okay, and if that’s the case, increased awareness of your feelings and their origins will still help and therapist in the joint work of improving our low mood. Remember that feelings aren’t just in our head, but in our body, in our living conditions, your past and your present and influences we surround ourselves with. The more practiced we are at breaking down the factors interacting to create our emotions, the more easily we can see the changes that are within our power to make key idea to turn bad moods into better moods by focusing on good enough decisions.

One reason we can get stuck in an ongoing low  mood is that painful moods can keep us from making  good decisions. We are feeling down so we crave instant  relief which leads us to decisions that aren’t always helpful in the long run. It’s the urge to choose junk food over a nourishing meal or to call in sick because you are stressed only to push the workload onto your future self. If we heed that urge to take the easier decisions, we can often see berating ourselves for making the wrong choice that keep us stuck in a cycle of low mood. Why do we do this, when in most cases we know what right decision is. Well part of the reason is that the right decisions are often time easier said than done. It’s simply harder to get up and go to work than it is to hide under the covers, especially when we are in low moods.

The other problem is a tendency toward perfectionism and it isn’t at all helpful for healing. Perfectionism causes us to fixate on the perfect decisions and then beat ourselves up for not having done that already. In tackling a longstanding low mood, perfectionism stands in the way of real change. A way to work against both of these problems is to focus on making good enough decisions. The key here is to aim small Continual progress and not for grand gestures or huge overhauls of our life. For example- it’s well known that physical exercise can make a huge difference in our mental health but it can be so hard to commit to a vigorous exercise routine when we are not in the habit of doing it. Dr Julie’s advises not to worry about going from No exercise to an hour of cardio per day. The hour of cardio per day might look like right decision, but the good enough decision is to incorporate some light exercise in our day that we actually enjoy. Don’t go to gym for a joyless slog on treadmill, if it fills us with dread instead start with the activities we can see ourselves repeating like brisk walk around the neighborhood with a favorite podcast. If we are stuck in low mood and the long list of things you should do is overwhelming. Pick just one small action that you know is good for us and promise ourselves to do it everyday like that brisk walk around the neighborhood.

We might not see a stark uptick in our mood immediately. But we are doing something more important. We are actually laying the foundation for new pathways in our brain that make exercise second nature. We are reminding yourself that we can still develop good habits and once we sustain good habits, they in turn sustain good mental health. So what if we actually build up a good healthy habit but then our commitment slackens over time and we fall out of it. Let’s try not to criticize ourselves, it happens, be compassionate and encouraging towards ourselves. As if we and our friend going through a rough time. We can try again tomorrow. It’ll be easier next time around because we have done it before.

Key Idea 2:

Learning how to manage our anxiety will open up our life. Choosing healthy behavior step by step is also the effective way to deal with anxiety. If we struggle with anxiety, we know it’s not fun, at best it’s uncomfortable and worst it can completely take over our life. Because anxiety is something we all experience. It’s no surprise that one of a Dr. Julie most common asked question is how to make it go away. Managing anxiety is about facing fears the most tempting way to deal with fear is to run away by avoiding the situation that flare it up. But here is the thing about fear, the more we avoid it the more we feed it in long run. And what’s worse if we let fear dictate our choices our lives become smaller and smaller. Let’s say that during the pandemic you started to become anxious in crowded places, so you start to avoid busy areas, then you found yourself feeling uncomfortable in public transport and in supermarkets too. So you decided to avoid those as well. After sometime you became unwilling to spend time with people you didn’t know well. Eventually your anxiety has created a situation where you are barely able to leave the house. So how do you get your life back? The key is to go easy on yourself and not to reintroduce every anxiety inducing situation  at once , that will likely overwhelm your brain and  cause you to give up. Pick one that feels more manageable and start there. Step back into a supermarket, sit with the fear , step out and give yourself time to recover. Do it again the next day and watch your confidence grow gradually over time. As long as we don’t flood yourself with anxiety. We’ll be able to take back our life layer by layer. This same approach of incrementally facing fears works for building our confidence. Even if we are especially anxious but want to become more daring, our confidence will grow over time. If we find courage to face the things that make us feel squeamish as long as we do it gradually and with repetition with ample recovery time and we don’t put ourselves in the situation that will cause us to panic. Remember that courage precedes confidence. We have to face our fear in order to overcome them. Fear is any new situation we find ourselves in, any creative risk we take and all learning experiences so if we want to live a life with creativity, risk and growth, facing fear is essential. These are all good in theory but what happens if we try and stretch our confidence, but find ourselves in a situation where our anxiety is constantly rising. First don’t worry you are not alone, many of Dr. Julie’s patients were facing these kinds of flare up when they first step into her office. So one of the technique she teaches her patients is called “square breathing”. The best part is that we can do it anywhere and nobody will even know we are doing it. Here is how it works, find something that is square, fix your eye on bottom left corner and count to four while moving you eye to top left corner, hold your breath for 4 seconds and move your eyes to next corner, exhale as you move to next corner, hold your breath again for 4 seconds and move your eyes back to starting point. That’s it, breathing deeply will calm your anxiety and following the square will ensure you do it long enough for the benefits to kick in.

Key idea 3:

Ask for the help when you need it and learn to give it in return. It’s hard to ask for help, cultural taboos, expensive therapies and lack of availability are all barriers in seeking professional mental health services but sometimes it can be hard to ask for help from the people we already know. That’s because sadly depression makes people push away when we need them most. It’s very common to believe that showing people that you are struggling is burdensome. You then withdraw yourself believing that sharing will bring other people down. But here is something powerful you should remember when you feel that way , the positive effect of social help goes both ways. Studies showed that when people provide other people even low social support, it effects their brain chemistry in such a way that they also experience  positive  emotions like courage and hope, it helps is dealing with harmful effects of trauma and chronic stress. Knowing this don’t hesitate to call your loved ones when you are feeling down. Human interaction is the powerful tool we have for maintaining our mental relationship and social isolation only makes depression worse. It might be hard at first, you might feel like you don’t have much to say or anything at all. That’s okay share whatever thought you can manage or just be with people. At some point in your life you will find yourself in opposite situation caring someone who is having hard time , you might feel you are inadequate for them, but remember being there for someone is a way to heal ourselves too.

So here are few pointers to make you feel more confident in the supporting role.

• First don’t forget the power of being with someone who is simply depressed. Checking in and showing you care can go a long way.

• Help them with practical matters. Someone in mental pain might feel completely overwhelmed by simple tasks. Quietly helping them in small task can provide them significant relief.

• Listen to your loved one with compassion and openness and try not to give advice unless they ask for it.

Human connection is the most powerful defenses we have against low moods. Studies show that quality relationship protects our physical and emotional well being throughout our lives. When it comes to make us happy, relationships are far more important than money, fame, social class, genes and all the markers of status we are taught to strive for. And if you don’t have anyone in your life to call at the moment you need them, it’s never too late to make meaningful connections.

Final summary:

In this book, we have explored how we can improve our overall mental wellbeing by looking for the unmet needs that cause the emotional pain by focusing on good enough decisions to gradually get us to where we would like to be. By facing our fears, we build our confidence and keep anxiety at bay and by nurturing our relationships and caring for each other when we are feeling down.