Langa Mabena
With the first month of the new year almost over, it’s probably a good time to pause and reflect on your overall health.
Maybe you’ve only been to the gym once and you’re not eating those greens. We’re here to listen and won’t judge. As you’re trying to figure things out and get into some sort of routine, have you said about your mental health and how important it is to prioritise it?
This year is 20-20-thrive. Thrive means to grow, flourish and develop. What this means is, many of us have set goals we want to achieve over the next 11 months and few days remaining this year. A goal to get that promotion. You’re probably aiming to get that degree or improve your financial situation by saving more or getting a side hustle.
You also have health goals, but do those include prioritising your mental health?
Clinical psychologist Sikander Kalla defines and breaks down mental health into three chambers.
“(Mental health) summarised in the context of emotional health which is mood-based and transient. So, there are different forms of moods. You can have a mood that is a bit more persistent and you can also have more transient feelings and find what is manifesting in those different ways of how we experience emotional health,” says Kalla.
“Then there’s the cognitive domain, the cognitive health part which is more said and we can have more maladaptive thoughts or more adaptive thoughts. Adaptive thoughts would be those in line with achieving the sort of positive things that we want out of life and the more maladaptive thoughts would be things like catastrophic thinking, worst-case scenarios and things that elicit more anxiety in anticipating untoward outcomes of life.
“The last domain is the behavioural health domain which is more action-based. Again, there we can also have more adaptive actions or more maladaptive actions. Actions that are more in line with optimal health overall. Whether that’s physical health, mental health and actions that are more detrimental to one’s overall health such as substance use, smoking, drinking and so forth.”
He says to prioritise one’s mental health, you should prioritise each of these domains.
Kalla says for one to begin prioritising their mental health, you need to be equipped with the knowledge of what is out there when it comes to mental health. He says inside acquisition also helps one start on a broader level.
“What is my relationship to mental health and what is my relationship to these concepts that I’ve learnt? How does it personally apply to me. . .”
What is more important is the insight because the insight of understanding things on a deeper level allows you to apply it across a broader array of challenges that you face in life. We need to think about instilling the value of insight acquisition rather than almost just purely a solution-focused approach,” Kalla says.
He says one can also look at more practical things that are a little easier to identify.
“If you look at neurovegetative symptoms such as sleep, appetite, energy, your social functioning. Are you socially withdrawing or socially isolating? These things can also be early warning signs just as why is my sleep so impaired? What am I struggling with? Why is my appetite so impaired. . .”
Kalla says to assess that your mental health is taking strain, one has to start with good goal setting. “Start with specific goals that one’s looking at, measurable goals, achievable, realistic in time. . .” (SowetanLIVE)
Online Reporter