TIP TWENTY – CREATING A DIVERSIFIED WELLBEING PLAN ☀️
Treating mental health challenges isn’t all medication and therapy, it is important to remember there are many other things that can help to accelerate this healing journey and keep us mentally fit. Putting all of our eggs into one basket and solely relying on one thing to ‘heal’ us or keep us well will often lead to disappointment. So if we are looking to get well and/or prevent ourselves from getting unwell, it might pay to diversify our wellbeing plan. Having a toolkit will always be more effective in the long run because different situations will likely require different tools.
Here’s what a “diversified” wellbeing plan can look like:
Attending therapy to
- Talk through your current struggles and feel heard, validated and supported in them
- Learn new coping tools and cognitive strategies to challenge unhelpful patterns (thoughts, behaviour…)
- Address underlying contributing factors e.g. past trauma, unhealthy living environments/relationships
- Engage in inner child work
- etc…
Practising self-care outside of the therapy room and
- Improving your sleep hygiene
- Checking in with yourself each day and asking “what do I need?”
- Making sure you stay hydrated & eat three nutritious meals a day
- Putting boundaries in place when you need to (e.g. when at risk of burnout)
- Continuing to challenge that pesky inner critic
- Moving your body each day for 20-30 minutes in a way that feels right for you
- etc…
Collaborating with your GP to
- Access funding and other treatment options
- Try/monitor medication
- Rule out any other underlying contributing factors
- etc…
Committing daily to cultivating self-compassion and forgiveness for
- Your mistakes
- Your blindspots (human-ness)
- What you did in the past/when you were in “survival mode”
- etc…
Building a network of social/community support and
- Engaging in peer support
- Attending community support groups
- Trying out new hobbies and/or social groups
- Reaching out and scheduling in time with those you love
- Investing/reinvesting in old/new friendships
- etc…
Planning for setbacks (healing is not linear) and
- Making a coping toolbox
- Writing out what steps you will take/strategies you can use if [insert problem] comes back
- etc…
Just like we cannot expect one person to meet every single one of our needs, we can’t expect one wellbeing tool to keep us mentally fit and healthy. When you have a large repertoire of strategies for boosting your wellbeing, there will always be at least one that feels doable and is effective. You deserve to be well. You deserve to set yourself up to successfully keep it that way.
It was a combination of different tools that helped me when I was struggling and it is a combination of tools that is keeping me mentally fit now. Maybe it will be the same for you.
Jess x