10 Days for Mental Health Free Online Course - Day 4

Panic and anxiety can hit us at any time. It can be a frightening and sometimes life changing experience.

One way of taking some of that fear away is knowing how to deal with these feelings, and most importantly, having a set of tools in your armoury to cope with them whenever they arise.

Anchoring Technique

A useful technique that has been developed to help with these symptoms is 'Anchoring' which helps to deal with any stress-inducing elements.

First of all, click here for our special article on the Anchoring Technique and how it can help reduce panicky feelings. Then listen to the audio below to find out how to use it in your daily life to help reduce your anxiety.

Eating for Mental Health

What we eat has been scientifically proven to affect our mood. Sugar and junk food disrupts the levels of important hormones that keep us calm and happy and balance our stress levels. When we are not mindful about what we eat and we don’t treat our bodies kindly, then those hormone ratios can go out of whack which leads to irritability, anxiety and insomnia.

It’s also been proven that when we don’t look after ourselves, we end up killing off many of the good bacteria in our stomach which are vital not only for our immune system and our physical health, but which also help our mental health and especially our propensity to suffer from anxiety and depression. Just check out our blog post on How Gut Bacteria Affects Mental Health.

Today, we’d like you to look after yourself by eating well. We’re not asking for you to go on a diet and don’t worry if you don’t manage it entirely. Just have a go at trying to make at least one good healthy food choice that will nourish your body and mind. Check in to see how you feel when you eat something nourishing as opposed to eating something unhealthy.

Then take a listen to our podcast version of ‘How Diet Affects Mental Health” below and have a look at another of our blog articles: ‘The One Thing That Stopped My Binge Eating Disorder’ to find out how one food had a life-changing impact on emotions and mood.

Dealing with Insomnia

Not getting enough sleep can often exacerbate any symptoms of anxiety and panic. When you feel anxious or depressed it’s very difficult to get the kind of good night’s sleep that you need to start being able to face your problems.

Try this Neural Linguistic Programming technique in the audio below. If you have time in the day to take a little power nap, you can use it to help give you a rejuvenating rest which will then help you get on with your day. Otherwise use it just before bed to help nudge your body into a healing sleep.

Good luck for the techniques today – try and do them as much as you can - and we’ll see you tomorrow for Day 5.