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How can I help myself?
Self-care techniques and general lifestyle changes can help manage the symptoms of many mental health problems. They may also help prevent some problems from developing or getting worse. Here are some tips for looking after yourself that you might find helpful.
If these work well for you then you may find you don’t need any formal treatment. However, it’s important to remember that there is unlikely to be an instant solution. Recovering from a mental health problem is likely to take time, energy and effort.
Below is a list of resources that have been designed to help you to find ways that you can help yourself.
5 Ways to Wellbeing
Evidence suggests that small changes can help to improve your emotional wellbeing and mental health. If you give them a try you may feel happier, more positive and able to get the most out of each day.
Loneliness
A different way to react to negative thoughts or thoughts that may cause you to feel angry, sad or worried. Remember Don’t believe everything you think! Thoughts are not necessarily facts. Follow the link to find out more.
Helicopter View
The ‘Helicopter View’ shows you how to take a step back from what’s happening so that you can see the bigger picture and look at things in a different way.
Inner Critic
The inner critic helps you recognise when you are being unnecessarily hard on yourself and encourages you to look at yourself more positively.
Supporting others
It can be really rewarding to know we are helping someone we love. Caring for a friend or family member could help us feel closer to them.
Mindfulness
Here is an introduction to ‘mindfulness’. Mindfulness encourages you to pay more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts, feelings and to the world around you. It can also help improve your mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Positive Affirmations
Sometimes we can get into unhelpful thinking habits and think negatively about ourselves and situations. Using positive statements can help us to develop a new way of thinking about ourselves and our situations.
Stress Bucket
Imagine you have a bucket inside your body which collects all of your stress. Events and day-to-day things, such as work, home life, illness or finances, add stress into the bucket. Sometimes the bucket might feel relatively empty, and other times it might feel quite full.
Sleep
This self-help sheet offers some useful and easy to follow advice that may help improve your sleep. This can lead to more positive mental health and emotional well-being.
STOPP
This is a technique that allows us to gain some distance between distressing thoughts and feelings, reduce the physical reaction of emotion/adrenaline at times of high stress, and helps us to find some calm to help us think more logically and rationally.
Understanding Anger
A closer look at the thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations you may experience when you feel angry and a different way to react and think about these feelings. Follow the link to find out more.
Worry Tree
The ‘Worry Tree’ helps you recognise the things that you are worrying about and then work out how to reach a place where you can let go of your worries.
