How to create a Mental Health Plan

I've noticed a little bit of a theme emerging from talking to a few of the folks that attend my soundbaths and that is that some of them use the sessions as part of their own plan to maintain and improve their mental health. I've built a collection of my own techniques and practices over the years but I've come to the conclusion that I needed something a little bit more structured.

A few months ago, I was diagnosed with an uncommon condition called FND (Functional Neurological Disorder). It's something that affects about 60,000 people in the UK and it's changed my perspective on a few things and it's taught me the importance of not taking my health for granted. I've managed to keep the symptoms of it at bay for over a decade without any kind of clinical therapies or medication. All of my little practices over time have bailed me out, but when a series of events came together, the effects of the disorder kicked in and it's taken me a while to get back to some kind of normality.

That's when I had a bit of a revelation; "Feeling better isn't a destination, it's an ongoing process."

A man walkign through woodland consciously noting the sights, sounds and sensations as he walks to ground him in the present moment (AI generated image).

When we get physically ill, we tend to make a plan to get better. We plan to exercise more or improve our diet in some way, take vitamin supplements etc. But when we experience a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression, we rarely take actual meaningful action to change our beliefs, behaviours or environment. Crack on and things will settle down. And when it comes to emotional health, we simply rely on time or block out what we consider negative emotions entirely rather than process the emotions we're feeling.

I did a lot of soul-searching and an awful lot of reading. I asked myself questions that I haven't asked myself in a really long time. What's come out of that is a plan for myself that is slowing changing the dial on things. A lot of this is, in fact 98% of it is stuff I've been doing for a while; I just didn't have a structure to refer back to and to keep me aligned with the rules I was setting for myself.

Now I have to caveat at this point that if you've concerned that your mental health is deteriorating, you should speak to your GP. However, let's be honest; the wait times in this country (UK) for help with mental health issues are pretty terrible. What I mention below might help you come up with something on your own while you're on a waiting list or just give you a way of seeing how you can make a few tweaks on your own. At the very least, I hope it highlights that wherever we are in life, it doesn't hurt to know how to maximise our mental health so we don't just live longer but live better for longer too.

Here are the main parts I consider are crucial to forming a Mental Health Plan.

Writing out a plan might help clarify the things that hold you back and crystallise the ways you want to manage your health, as well as giving a point of reference if you have trouble sticking to something (AI generated image)

Triggers

Knowing your triggers for what exacerbates or initiates your anxiety is probably for me the hardest part. It's learning to recognise what has preceded a bout of anxiety or depression (or PTSD flashbacks, panic attacks etc). What has been the belief from that trigger and then how did this affect your thoughts or actions afterwards.

Listing your triggers helped me accept where I needed more help or focus.

Warnings Signs

The brain tends to work through 4 main states when it comes to stress: Fawn, Fight, Flight & Freeze.

Fawning is where your nervous system is trying pacify a perceived threat. It might involve people-pleasing or becoming more anxious around people.

Fight is where your nervous system takes on a more immediate role. You might become more irritability or have difficulty regulating your emotions. Or maybe you're ruminating more and finding it hard to get to sleep as you work through different scenarios. You don't have to be physically fighting in this state- you're fighting with your emotions, thoughts and sensations.

Flight is where you're overwhelmed by the threat and take evasive action. It could be avoiding situations and people.

Freeze is the most primal response and play dead. In this state, your nervous system is so overwhelmed, you can't even run away and are unable to function at all. It could be a burnout. It could be a PTSD flashback. It could be a breakdown of sorts. In my case, FND means I can collapse and end up paralysed for minutes or hours at a time; like a kill switch has been triggered. It will manifest in different ways for each of us.

If you can work back from a low point in your life to recognise when there was a change in your physical health (e.g. had a persistent rash, allergy or high blood-pressure), or your behaviour (e.g. irritability), then it can help you prevent a future burnout/freeze. Particularly, if you look at your symptoms and where they sit in this scale of Fawn - Fight - Flight - Freeze, it might help you better assess how severe you're being pushed and what kind of response you feel you need to take.

Resets can be something simple like a visualisation, an affirmation, breath practice or just getting up to move and have a cup of tea. It should be something that helps you ground you to the present moment or process an experience.

Reset

Something that has kept me sane over the last decade or so are having little reset points throughout the day. A reset is something that helps you feel calm or process an experience. It could be as simple as going for a cup of tea, a short walk around the block or a short meditation or breath practice. The point is that it's something that lasts up to 15 minutes and can be used as a way to reset from the day and bring you back to the present moment.

You could have different resets for different situations or environments. It's very hard to get up and go for a walk when you're working a shift in a hospital, but you could do a short breath practice instead.

What resets aren't, are distractions. Checking your phone isn't a reset; it's a cry for dopamine. There's nothing there that's processing how you feel or bringing yourself to the present moment.

I used to work in a really busy office with lots of colleagues and every so often when one of us got through a big piece of work or came off a tough call, they'd ask who wants a tea and they'd always be someone who would go with them. We didn't regard it as a reset but it was, because that person would get whatever was on their mind, out in the open.

Replenish

If you think of yourself as a cup of water and throughout the day you're drinking from it. Resets are how you stop drinking from the cup. Replenish is how you fill it back up. What makes you happy? What activity or people or environment puts you in "the zone" where your mind doesn't wander; it just flows?

It could be going to the gym. It could be going to a yoga class or soundbath. It could be playing an instrument, creating a piece of artwork or dancing. It could be travelling; a day trip, long weekend or a couple of weeks away.

Sometimes it can be things that you used to enjoy but you don't have time or don't enjoy it as much. Gardening sometimes can turn into just a list of jobs to the point that it just turns into more stuff for a To Do list rather than an activity that is nurturing something else for the sake of seeing it grow. Activities like that need reclaiming. Instead of them being a list of jobs, try thinking of them as an hour of activity (for example). You thing you complete is the hour of time, not everything you wanted to get done. There will always be gardening, or housework or things to create and music to master; you're just spending some time in that activity and whatever gets done is more than what would've happened if you didn't try.

Replenishing varies in length and you'll need something you can do weekly to top yourself back up, something more intensive that's every 6-8 weeks apart and then a longer activity every 4-6 months.

The focus here is recognising which activities really make you happy and prioritising them. You only have a finite amount of time and energy to give each week. Life is too short not to do something you really love at least once a week.

Restore

Firstly, a restore can be about repairing yourself and knowing your steps that you need to go to if you experience another low. Of course, none of us ever want to get there but knowing who you turn to, what steps you would take I think can be helpful to know it's not an abyss if you have a setback- you have a backup plan and a way to restore yourself to a factory reset, if you like. It's not about doom and gloom; it's about knowing where the lifeboat is if life serves you something that just knocks you for six.

Secondly, a restore is about maintenance. It's about periodically reviewing what habits/situations/environments work for you and which ones no longer do. It's about making sure your mental health plan evolves as you do and as life changes to keep it relevant. Maybe it's something you review twice a year, or a short time after you know a change is coming like a birth or moving house.

AI Generated image of a set of headphones available in an emergency

Break Glass Technique

If you experience panic attacks, flashbacks or other kinds of meltdowns or shutdowns, you need to have technique or practice which can bring you round. It could be a breath practice, a visualisation, affirmation or simply listening to a song which reminds you of being safe and calm. It could be a combination of any of those things I've listed, whichever combination you have the most confidence in. You first need to use it when you feel okay. Notice how good it makes you feel, because consciously pointing this out to yourself is also consciously pointing it out to your nervous system. Every time the you consciously recognise the positive effect it has on you, the stronger the connection you're making it with your nervous system.

Then, when you feel a panic attack, meltdown, shutdown or flashback is beginning to take hold; repeat it. For me, I like the safe song approach because it's recorded and all I have to do is hit play. Then when it's playing, I recite an affirmation to myself and then focus on my breath. The song has a video, which is doubly helpful so that I can then just watch it; there's less for me to think about consciously and there is another sensory stimulation to hold me in the present moment. I've used that technique for over a decade and it works every single time. It took a fair bit of practice at first to make sure that I had properly encoded the reaction I wanted my nervous system to adopt, but it's given me confidence that in effect, I have the mental equivalent of an epi-pen in an extreme event.

I hope this helps gives you some inspiration for your own plan. If you have any techniques which help you, I would love to hear from you.

(Only the images have been generated with AI. All the content is from my head, research and years of practice.)