How I Naturally Support My Mental Wellbeing | Slow Living | What I Eat on the Go!
So, how can you support your mental health naturally? What are some of the more unconventional things or the things that don’t often get talked about that can really make a difference in supporting your mental well-being? And what do you do when you have a bit of a mental health wobble and breakdown and struggle? Here’s a video with some of my three top tips and just a vulnerable input of what I have done to naturally support recent mental health blips. So, this is me just getting ready for a little adventure. And what I want to do in this video is just begin to talk about the ways that I support my own mental well-being. How do I really manage and support my levels of anxiety, my neurodeivergent brain, complex PTSD, and just as a human on the planet in this day and age, there’s so many things that impact our mental health. There’s stuff on the news that I’m deeply affected by awful things happening lands far away from me, awful things happening one mile down the road from me. Um, and how do we manage this? And I think it’s so important that we learn the tools that we find out what works for us. And I want this video just to show you when I’m not doing well in my mental health. These are some of the things I do. This isn’t the exact blueprint of every single thing because I’ve also done so much work in terms of nourishing my brain health and brain structure, making sure I have loads of nutrients on. FYI, if you’re wondering what’s on my head right now, I’ve started wearing frownies as a bit of like a natural Botox. They’re so good. If you want me to talk more about some of the natural skin care stuff I do, just put like I don’t know, a thumbs up in the comments and I will do a whole video. But I’m loving my natural Botox. Ever since I got rid of the fringe, I was like, “Huh, okay. I’m starting to get more wrinkly.” And there’s a whole discussion of whether I should be bothered by that or not, but I decided I was. And so anyway, these are my frownies. But that was a complete side note, but I wanted to just share with you what I do to help my mental well-being. And recently, I was on holiday or probably best not to say the word holiday, but I was away with my three kids camping for 2 weeks. and my mental health just took a total nose dive. I have done enough of the work to know and be able to have that awareness of what is going on there. But I knew after um being out of the immediate crisis of it being on holiday that I actually probably needed to do some real nourishing for my nervous system and just really support it. So, I decided to take a day out of my working week when I had child care and I actually had a massive to-do list. So much stuff to be done as always when you’re a mom and you work and you run a business and but I just have learned over the years that my mental health is one of these like key foundations that needs nourishing first. My well-being, my health in the fullest, most holistic sense of the word needs to be my number one priority because that is how I then pour love, time, goodness into my family, into my clients, into my kids. And so I don’t opt in for the martyrdom. I don’t opt in for that. I don’t have time. I don’t opt into any or I’m constantly opting out of these different beliefs we have that I’m so busy that I don’t have time that other things are more important that this is just part of being a mom. No, I feel like what I want to what I have been learning and what I want to teach my kids and how I want to live my life is actually where I show them what a well radiant woman looks like, not a haggarded martyed victim looks like. That’s not something I want to pass on to my children. So, I’ve just taken myself out on the most lovely hill walk. I had a day with no clients, no meetings, no nothing. And while I have a long a long to-do list of work for my business, my client practice and the mental health charity I work for. I taking some time to go out with nature and just be outside. We went on holiday recently for two weeks um with our three little kids and we went camping to France which had some really beautiful and really fun moments but there was also some really hard very unpleasant moments especially for my mental health definitely took a downturn and I while I can understand the triggers it kind of actually I’ve created enough kind of conscious awareness for one of the reasons to be able to zoom come out and see and be like, “Oh, this is what’s my brain’s doing. This is what’s triggered. This is all complex PTSD stuff. This is being a parent stuff.” It’s still still hard. Still something to work through. So, I knew in coming back from holiday, whilst my to-do list, I mean, you our to-do lists are never ending, right? As parents, there’s like a bajillion things to do in your workplace. Fly a million things. when you’re in a business, when you work for a global charity part-time and you’re trying to like spread the mission and help the research, it’s always lots. So, I was aware that I needed to make the space because it’s not just going to happen if I just let my nervous system run the show. I’ll just keep going, going, going, going, going. And for me, getting outside, I mean, how can you not be restored by this, it’s like impossible. So, made some space, got outside, walked it out. I also find things like walking, running long distances is so good for processing, I don’t know, stuff, emotions. I find repetitive physical things, running, walking, very therapeutic. Um, and to think for years I wasn’t aware as a neurode divergent. Bless past me. Um, it’s just beautiful. So, a question for you. When was the last time you made space for something that brought you joy and pleasure, that really supported your well-being, but was completely unproductive? This is a completely unproductive use of my day. It’s quite a long drive. It’s walking. I can’t really do much when I’m walking other than listen to music, talk to a camera. But that’s kind of part of the magic. The lie of our culture and society is that we need to be productive all the time. And that oh just contributes to making us sick in the long run. Oh, look what I’m coming across. Really pretty bridge. I’ll show you. So, I was so tempted to swim in this, but I did forget my swimming costume. So, I’d have had to have skinny dipped. And this was a relatively popular picturesque bridge, so I just imagined like a whole family or a whole busload of tourists coming off while I was just trying to sit there naked. Also, it was a bit of a torrent, so you know, safety first when when hiking alone. But you can see it’s just really hard when you’re surrounded by nature to not be nourished by it. And I’m not saying that being out in nature is going to solve every single mental health diagnosis and problem that you have, but I know for me it definitely helps. It definitely fills up something, some bucket, some nourishment, and it’s also really clear in the research. So, when it comes to natural ways that I really support my mental well-being, time in nature is one for me. And I knew this that I just needed to get outside. Ideally time in nature with some movement. I really think movement is a really underrated mental health medicine. We for some reason reduce movement to some calorie burning activity. But moving your body be it dance, running, walking, cycling, swimming, whatever it is, is so helpful for nourishing your brain. And I think that’s something that I get annoyed about. I feel like we’ve been robbed of the power of movement because of diet and culture. But if you are struggling with anxiety, with specific mental health issues, again, movement isn’t necessarily going to fix everything in your life. But it is really going to help. I got into running in a really um deep pit of depression that I was in. And I that is how I really got introduced to exercise because I would run and then my mind and my mental health would feel completely different afterwards. And I know it can be difficult if you’re really in if you’re really struggling sometimes with your mental health, the motivation, the executive function to actually go and do start something can be really difficult. And that’s why I think of these natural ways as more preventative. If I’m in a really really bad place with my natur with my mental health, then sometimes I’m just focusing on survival basics. But what I try to do is actually really try and have a preventative approach. which I nourish my brain with nourishments, food, nutrients, vitamins, spending time in nature. Also, I think it goes it would be a miss to not talk about my career and my job. So, I created a flexible job that I could do this kind of thing. I I decide that I take this day off for my mental health. And I know that’s a privilege, but it’s also a choice. said, “I’ve been very intentional in the last 15 years, probably because I knew the way my brain is, the way I am made, is that I need that flexibility and um to be able to nourish myself in in that way.” And so, I think having a job that’s flexible, having a job that is supportive of your mental well-being, that’s a really important environmental input. I think we often want to work on our health and fix these symptoms or get rid of anxiety, but we’re unwilling sometimes to look at some of these really important environmental factors. If you’re in a really stressful job where you feel underappreciated under fluorescent lighting in a horrible, smelly office, you know, that’s not set up for your success, it’s not set up for you to thrive, then that can be something to address. And it doesn’t necessarily change overnight, but what could you do about it now? And I know for me having a career or having a job that actually really um nourishes my energy. It does cost my energy as well, but it is really nourishing. It’s really flexible and I can make it work around what I need and I it’s a job as a holistic nutritionist. So it’s not no surprise here. It’s a job that works around my health. I decided that my health was a priority that in order to serve and love people, in order to have an impact on the world, I needed to be well myself and that impacted career choices of what I did. So have your job, your environment, having a flexible job, having a nourishing job is really important. This is me after my walk and I’ve got into the car. I’ve had a swim. I’m totally starving. So I just have literally eat an entire thing of bilong. And then I stopped at a coffee shop and got a matcher. I got this from co-op. I was actually really hungry and I didn’t bring any lunch. So, I did a whole co-op run. What could I eat that is gonna fill me up and not totally rubbish. And I went with natural yogurt, a bar, some strawberries, a matcha latte, and a bunch of bilton. Slightly weird, but you know. And then this is dinner, which was some sweet corn and corette fritters, which looked disgusting and I was expecting to be not that nice, but were actually really delicious. And I really mounted up on the vegetables because I’d barely eaten any vegetables like all day at this point. So I think being out in nature is something that massively supports my mental health, my career, how I spend my days, that flexibility, that nourishment, that creativity. um is also I think I think a lot of the time these this kind of content doesn’t really address that like what your job is how you are financially providing for yourself and that has a huge part and a huge role to play in your mental well-being in your entire well-being and that often gets missed. I also would say another thing that’s really helpful for my mental health and I see this a lot working as a holistic nutrition and working with a lot of people um about in terms of their relationship with food is having a balanced and healthy relationship with food. So this day of walking in the hills could have been ruined by me needing to eat perfectly by me worrying about food. Oh, I shouldn’t have that gluten-free roll that’s got additives in that aren’t very good. and I should maybe have this much protein and I maybe haven’t had enough carbs and oh my goodness, I haven’t had any vegetables. Like you throughout the day of my eating, I think I I had some fruit, but I didn’t really have any vegetables until dinner. I could have really used that to fuel my anxiety and mental health and be like, “Oh my goodness, I’m not eating. I’m getting lunch at co-op. Oh, it’s not very nourishing. Oh, how much fat is in this yogurt?” Well, or I can actually focus on having a really nourishing and healthy relationship with food. And I do notice that for a lot of people sometimes their relationship with food, this getting healthier actually can contribute to a more out of balance mental state. And that is not the point of what I do as a holistic nutritionist. Not what I want to do with my clients at all. Yes, the food that you eat is powerful medicine. If you are not giving your brain the abundance of nutrients that it needs in order to function, there’s a problem there, right? Your brain is a really hardworking organ and it needs not wants it needs needs specific nutrients, fats, minerals in order to function. It needs energy from glucose or from ketones. It needs specific ingredients to create new neural pathways. It needs certain things. So, we do want to look at our food. We don’t just want to ignore it. And that is one of my my beefs with the mental health space and with the therapeutic space, having done lots of therapy myself, and I will continue to do therapy and I love it. It’s so helpful. But just constantly doing um let’s say talking based therapy or CBT based therapy without ever looking at how are we nourishing and supporting the brain feels really mismatched to me. It feels really illogical and not of best service to the actual people and clients themselves. So for me it’s so important that we actually look at mental health, mental well-being from a place of practical nourishment. How well am I nourishing my brain? Is it getting enough omega-3 fatty acids? Is there enough B12 in there? Is there enough zinc to help my dopamine? Am I have I got healthy blood glucose levels? Am I eating too much sugar? Is there too much caffeine and adrenaline affecting it? We really do want to look at that because food is medicine. And from an anxiety perspective and my own mental health, the food I eat really does matter. So, I just want to clarify that. But also we want our relationship with food to be one of empowerment, of logic, of um intention, but not of anxiety and fear. And so I think that is something that I’ve not especially if you’re watching this channel, you probably have an interest in nutrition. So check in with that. Check in with that. Does the food you eat create anxiety or is there a healthy curiosity about it? So that is one of the big things that I think makes a difference is and it’s not black and white and I get that that’s hard to maybe navigate yourself like but I want to create change but I don’t want to for create more anxiety or get really stressed about getting healthy. So anyway, that’s the third thing, balancing your relationship with food. And I find for me that when I am struggling with my mental health, being in nature, doing work that is really nourishing and having an environment. So with the work part, it might not if you don’t have a air quotes career or are employed, it’s really looking at your environment. What is is your environment helping you thrive and succeed or is it adding stress? And then really also looking at okay, what’s your relationship with food like? Where where on the spectrum do you fit? Could you make some changes to food to better nourish your brain or do you need to actually focus on your relationship with food? Sorry, I’ve realized I’ve got you can tell I had beetroot for uh for lunch in a salad. It’s an old massacre. It’s beetroot. Do you need to actually really work on your relationship with food? But I hope this has been helpful. There’s lots lots more I could say about supporting your mental well-being, about dealing with anxiety, neurody divergence, mental health, um complex PTSD, but I just wanted to do a real candid I’ve been struggling with my mental health. This is one of the things I did. I hope it helps you. It definitely helps me. Thank you for being here. Let me know any questions that you have or any other videos you would love me to cover in the comments below. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week. Bye.
How do I sort out my mental wellbeing (when it all goes south) – naturally? When you are recovering from a low point, what can help? And the three natural things that help me to find my calm and balance again – two of which are often never discussed or mentioned!
Plus what does a holistic nutritionist eat on the go? What do I grab and go when it comes to easy meals?
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