Category: Mental Health

When experiencing psychological distress, people first use self-soothing techniques and social support.

It is commonly believed that people in mental distress fail to use healthy coping strategies and are not resilient.

In other words, people with mental health problems are thought ‘weak’.

This is a myth.

New research reveals that many people experiencing mental health problems are resilient and already use many healthy strategies like distraction and meditation.

Indeed, these healthy strategies work up to a point — it is just that their levels of distress are too great.

The conclusions come from a survey of 509 young people who were asked about their mental health and any strategies they used to cope with it.

Professor Helen Stallman, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“We found that the majority of extremely distressed people already used healthy coping methods such as mindfulness techniques before turning to unhealthy methods to feel better such as emotional eating, aggression, alcohol, drugs and self-harm, social withdrawal and suicidality.”

When experiencing psychological distress, people started by using self-soothing techniques and social support.

When these did not work to alleviate mental pain, some moved on to seek professional support.

Once people were experiencing very high levels of distress, they tended to use more unhealthy ways of coping like drink, drugs, social withdrawal and worse.

Professor Helen Stallman, the study’s first author, said:

“What we have found busts the myth that mental health services and workers should encourage extremely distressed people to build resilience or learn healthy coping strategies like relaxing or distracting activities.

Support should not focus on ‘fixing’ the person who is suffering, it should focus on other ways to help reduce their overwhelming distress.

While we may consider people in mental distress to be lacking in resilience, they are the most resilient people but have too much to cope with.”

Professor Stallman advocates a model called “Care, Collaborate, Connect.”

She explains:

“‘Care’ is the initial intervention when someone is upset, so listening without interrupting and validating their experience.

‘Collaborate’ starts with asking how they are coping and ‘connect’ involves suggesting they talk to a health professional, like their GP, if things keep getting them down.”

• Now try these 10 mindfulness exercises.

The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports (Stallman et al., 2020).

Certain types of gardening provide the biggest boost to happiness.

Gardening is one of the most rewarding daily activities that people can pursue, new research finds.

It makes people at least as happy as other activities commonly linked to high well-being, such as exercise and eating out.

Both home gardeners and community gardeners find it remarkably meaningful, which likely contributes to the mental health boost it provides.

Vegetable gardening, though, provides a bigger boost to happiness compared to ornamental gardening — perhaps because of the extra satisfaction that comes from growing one’s own produce.

Mr Graham Ambrose, the study’s first author, said:

“The high levels of meaningfulness that respondents reported while gardening might be associated with producing one’s own food.

The boost to emotional well-being is comparable to other leisure activities that currently get the lion’s share of infrastructure investment.”

The study included 370 people in the US who reported their emotional well-being during 15 different daily activities.

The results showed that gardening was in the top four happiest activities, along with eating out, walking and biking.

Professor Anu Ramaswami, study co-author, said:

“Many more people garden than we think and it appears that it associates with higher levels of happiness similar to walking and biking.

In the movement to make cities more livable, gardening might be a big part of improving quality-of-life.”

Women and people with lower incomes find gardening particularly pleasurable, the researchers found.

Professor Ramaswami said:

“This has implications for equity in food action planning considering that people with lower incomes tend to have less access to healthy food options.

Gardening could provide the health benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables, promote physical activity, and support emotional well-being, which can reinforce this healthy behavior.”

The study was published in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning (Ambrose et al., 2020).

It can help improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce anxiety.

Even modest reminders of nature can help boost mental health during lockdown, research finds.

Nature can be experienced on a walk close to home, in the back yard or even indoors.

All have been shown to improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce anxiety.

Experiencing nature mindfully can help increase its effect, as can sharing memories of nature, thinking back to natural places that induce calm and sharing these stories with others.

Nature can help stop rumination — thinking about the causes and consequences of depressing events — a process common in depression.

Dr Kathleen Wolf, an expert on the health benefits of nature, said:

“Studies have proven that even the smallest bit of nature—a single tree, a small patch of flowers, a house plant—can generate health benefits.

Look closely in your neighborhood, and the bit of nature you may have taken for granted up until now may become the focus of your attention and help you feel better.”

Over the years, thousands of studies have shown the positive effect of nature on mental health.

As little as 20-minutes of nature can help to reduce stress, one study has found.

Gardens and backyards provide some with access to grass, bird song, leaves and flowers.

For those stuck indoors, though, potted plants or even photos or videos of nature can provide the necessary reminder.

Being mindful is key to getting the most out of nature, said Dr Wolf:

“It’s important to be mindful, commit to the activity and think about your observations while looking at these materials or elements of nature.

That means not merely scrolling through on your computer, but looking at photos or video streams with more intention.

It’s essentially nature-oriented meditation.”

Sharing experiences of nature with others is also powerful, said Dr Wolf:

“Even though we are physically distancing, it’s really important to our health to maintain our social connections.

There is evidence that people who are lonely or who are socially isolated can be prone to poorer health.

Nature might be a means, either by being outside a safe distance from others or by sharing stories with each other, of staying socially connected.”

Exposure to nature helps to stop people ruminating, a process of continuously worrying about the past and the future linked to mental health problems.

Professor Peter Kahn, an expert on environmental sciences, explained:

“In these times, I think our minds can be a little out of control.

Part of the effect of nature is that it can soften negative conditioned mental patterns.

If you can find nature, engage with it and get your heart rate down, then your mind begins to settle.

When your mind isn’t ruminating, it can then open to a wider world, where there’s great beauty and healing.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Hunter et al., 2019).