mental health for vets
Hello so about 2 months ago I did a post about mental health in the veterinary profession and it seems that people like reading about that as its had quite a few views by quite a few I mean 20 but hey that's a lot for me. Anyway I thought that this week I would expand more on that topic and delve into it a bit more.
For me mental health is the most important thing we have to keep ticking over, it controls our physical health and how our brains are working. The definition of mental health is; a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. Now emotional well-being is important, say you were feeling down and depressed, I know for me if I feel like this all I want to do is eat comfort food and I get really tired. This isn't good for us as it means we aren't keeping active and keeping our bodies healthy, along with the fact that negative thinking and a decline in mental health is a downwards spiral so it's important to ensure that we don't get into the habit of these dips in mental health and we keep ourselves healthy.
I wanted to touch on how to combat these mental health problems. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do something called Headspace now this is an app which you pay for and it leads you through guided meditation sessions, they have so many different packs focusing on different things so recently I've done acceptance, generosity, kindness, analysis, depression and self-esteem. They all focus on a slightly different things and the way you meditate is a bit different for each one. Now I only do this for 10 mins every day however it has helped me so much with getting to sleep and also how I think about thing in day to day life it has changed my internal monologue so that I am more positive and events that happen during the day don't affect me as much as they used to. In my last post I mentioned how vets can become depressed about how much they get paid and I think that doing headspace like this can help with that and make you see things from a different perspective, as its not something your going to be able to change. I can't recommend this enough, I know that for some people it won't work but you don't know until you try for me I found that 10 mins is long enough though you can do 12 and 15 min sessions.
I also touched on last time sport. this for me is an integral part to keeping my mental health up, I try to do sport 5 times a week. Now I know for people with a full time job this will be hard but its important that you schedule time for physical activity into your weekly schedule. Doing physical activity releases endorphins these make you feel good and that is what we want, for me when I've just done a swim session or even a run ( I hate running) I feel good after and I know that for however long I've been doing that sport for my brain has been able to switch off from thinking about school and all of my many to do lists. An easy way of getting in that physical exercise each day is cycling or running into work. My mum does this and she drives her car into work on a Monday then if she needs her car during the day for visits ( she's a doctor) then she can use it but in the mornings and evenings she cycles too and from work.
Being humans means we are social animals, so out of work or studying arrange evenings to go out with friends, go to the cinema, grab a bite to eat or go to a coffee shop I don't know just make sure that you don't shut yourself off from the world this makes problems so much bigger, the likelihood is that someone you know is feeling exactly the same thing. I think we need to learn to express how we are feeling and tell people share with people just like Prince Harry did in the news this week about the death of his mother (RIP Princess Diana). It's so important to do this I understand that if you are having serious suicidal thoughts and you don't feel as though you can talk to anyone you know you can just call up a charity help line and they will listen and help you. But I do know that there is a saying like, a problem shared is a problem halved, so just share what your feeling and let people help you. I share things I really want to get off my chest with my dog, they are great listeners.
I'm not saying that this will solve all of your mental health problems but I hope that this made you think about things you could be doing to ensure your mental health stays in good tact along with your physical health. Thank you for reading hope you enjoyed please note I am no mental health professional. next week I think I'm going to write about something to do with genetics again because I've seen a lot of it in the news.
For me mental health is the most important thing we have to keep ticking over, it controls our physical health and how our brains are working. The definition of mental health is; a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. Now emotional well-being is important, say you were feeling down and depressed, I know for me if I feel like this all I want to do is eat comfort food and I get really tired. This isn't good for us as it means we aren't keeping active and keeping our bodies healthy, along with the fact that negative thinking and a decline in mental health is a downwards spiral so it's important to ensure that we don't get into the habit of these dips in mental health and we keep ourselves healthy.
I wanted to touch on how to combat these mental health problems. As I mentioned in my previous post, I do something called Headspace now this is an app which you pay for and it leads you through guided meditation sessions, they have so many different packs focusing on different things so recently I've done acceptance, generosity, kindness, analysis, depression and self-esteem. They all focus on a slightly different things and the way you meditate is a bit different for each one. Now I only do this for 10 mins every day however it has helped me so much with getting to sleep and also how I think about thing in day to day life it has changed my internal monologue so that I am more positive and events that happen during the day don't affect me as much as they used to. In my last post I mentioned how vets can become depressed about how much they get paid and I think that doing headspace like this can help with that and make you see things from a different perspective, as its not something your going to be able to change. I can't recommend this enough, I know that for some people it won't work but you don't know until you try for me I found that 10 mins is long enough though you can do 12 and 15 min sessions.
I also touched on last time sport. this for me is an integral part to keeping my mental health up, I try to do sport 5 times a week. Now I know for people with a full time job this will be hard but its important that you schedule time for physical activity into your weekly schedule. Doing physical activity releases endorphins these make you feel good and that is what we want, for me when I've just done a swim session or even a run ( I hate running) I feel good after and I know that for however long I've been doing that sport for my brain has been able to switch off from thinking about school and all of my many to do lists. An easy way of getting in that physical exercise each day is cycling or running into work. My mum does this and she drives her car into work on a Monday then if she needs her car during the day for visits ( she's a doctor) then she can use it but in the mornings and evenings she cycles too and from work.
Being humans means we are social animals, so out of work or studying arrange evenings to go out with friends, go to the cinema, grab a bite to eat or go to a coffee shop I don't know just make sure that you don't shut yourself off from the world this makes problems so much bigger, the likelihood is that someone you know is feeling exactly the same thing. I think we need to learn to express how we are feeling and tell people share with people just like Prince Harry did in the news this week about the death of his mother (RIP Princess Diana). It's so important to do this I understand that if you are having serious suicidal thoughts and you don't feel as though you can talk to anyone you know you can just call up a charity help line and they will listen and help you. But I do know that there is a saying like, a problem shared is a problem halved, so just share what your feeling and let people help you. I share things I really want to get off my chest with my dog, they are great listeners.
I'm not saying that this will solve all of your mental health problems but I hope that this made you think about things you could be doing to ensure your mental health stays in good tact along with your physical health. Thank you for reading hope you enjoyed please note I am no mental health professional. next week I think I'm going to write about something to do with genetics again because I've seen a lot of it in the news.
Comments
Post a Comment