May marks Mental Health Awareness Month, which offers us an opportunity to pause, check in with ourselves, with our teams, and evaluate wellness. Wellness encompasses not only our physical health but also our psychological, emotional, and spiritual health that can positively or negatively impact our work.
In today’s fast-paced world, prioritizing these areas has never been more critical. A component of wellness and well-being that is often overlooked is the health and role of our brain. Including brain health into conversations with mental health and well-being can offer us a different perspective of our decisions, relationships, goals and emotions.
The Interconnection Between Brain Health and Mental Health
Simply put – brain health and mental health work hand in hand. It is now understood by medicine and science that the condition of our brain directly impacts our mental state and vice versa, influencing how we feel, react, and manage stress.
If our brain is functioning well, we tend to function better, manage stress, navigating challenges, be more flexible. If we have brain struggles, sometimes we tend to struggle more, tend to sadder, less flexible, have more anxiety, make poorer decisions.
Consider this analogy:
Picture your brain as a dependable waiter in a busy restaurant, with your mental health as the quality of service this waiter provides. The waiter’s health and well-being are critical for dependable service.
When the waiter is well-rested and mentally alert, they can handle stress, manage a flurry of orders, navigate a crowded space, and stay cool under pressure. This high level of performance doesn’t mean the waiter is without challenges or struggles with their thoughts from time to time, but they are more resilient and flexible when things go awry.
Conversely, a waiter who is continually stressed, irritated, and burned out will likely not perform to their full potential. They may often forget orders, mix them up, become easily irritated, resentful, and struggle to keep up with the pace of the restaurant, thereby diminishing the quality of service—or in this analogy, mental health.
A healthy, well-supported “waiter” (our brain) ensures the delivery of high-quality “service” (mental health). By nurturing our brains with needed rest, nutrition, healthy thoughts, and effective stress management, we can better maintain our mental health, enhancing both our internal well-being and our day-to-day interactions.
Here are 5 strategies to help boost your well-being that benefit both your mental and brain health:
- Take Short Pauses.
In today’s ‘work hard, play hard’ culture, there’s often an expectation to keep going until all tasks are completed. However, this approach can wreak havoc on our body’s natural needs. Our energy levels naturally ebb and flow in cycles known as ultradian rhythms, which occur approximately every 90 to 120 minutes. During these cycles, our brains signal to our body when to take a break to flush out toxins, which takes about 20 minutes.
When we feel lower energy throughout the day, we typically ignore these signals and either push harder or grab another cup of coffee. Studies show that regularly ignoring these signals can lead to health and wellness challenges.
Rather than powering through when you feel a dip in energy, take time to listen to what your body needs. Perhaps it’s better sleep, or it may be asking for a necessary break. If you don’t have 20 minutes, take 10 or even 5 minutes. Something is better than nothing.
This means stepping away from your work, stretching, taking a nap or walk, listening to some fun music, or calling a friend. This will give your brain a chance to ‘breathe’. These small breaks or pauses not only align with our natural rhythms but also rejuvenate the brain, enhancing our health and productivity.
- Practice More Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is simply being aware and present in the moment with whatever is happening, without judgment. During our workday, we can find ourselves jumping from meeting to meeting. We often bring our emotions and overwhelm from one meeting to the next, preventing us from being fully present. This can impact how effective we are and how we communicate and make decisions. You may have even noticed how others may be physically present at a meeting but seem a million miles away.
One way to ensure we are fully present with someone or a group of people is to listen to a short 1-2 minute guided meditation before meeting. You can find short meditations on YouTube, including ‘box breathing’ mindfulness meditations.
There are many benefits of mindfulness and meditation; just a few minutes of meditation can prime the mind for increased focus and calmness. This can be especially beneficial before meetings that require your full attention and are more challenging. Meditation helps in settling the mind, reducing anxiety, and fostering a clear mental state.
- Create Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is the assurance that you can take on interpersonal risks without fear of judgment, humiliation, or dismissal. This is critical when you have ideas, questions, concerns, and when you make mistakes. In his book “The Four Stages of Psychological Safety,” Timothy Clark provides a framework that encourages organizations and individuals to be open about their thoughts and feelings without fearing negative repercussions.
Often people hold back from sharing their thoughts because they are afraid of being viewed a certain way. While this may stem from feelings of insecurity, it may also be that their environment doesn’t allow employees a psychologically safe space to share and be heard.
By fostering an environment where others feel accepted and are free to share, this openness not only promotes connection but also fosters a sense of belonging among team members.
Creating psychological safety in the workplace or any group setting goes beyond merely allowing open communication; it requires active encouragement and reinforcement from leaders and peers alike.
- Manage Your Reactions
When our anxiety is high, it’s harder to manage our emotions and reactions. If we haven’t intentionally created a plan to address intense situations, we typically default to reactions we may later regret.
If we go back to our waiter and restaurant analogy—let’s say a guest is angry because their food is taking too long, and they take their frustration out on the waiter. If the waiter is more resilient and flexible, and understanding, instead of reacting, they remain calm in their communication and proactive in helping.
If they are stressed-out and exhausted and they’ve had no breaks that day, they may react by taking things personally, get irritated, and aren’t able to mentally step back to look at the bigger picture to be more intentional with their response.
When our emotions are revved up, or we’re feeling disconnected and exhausted, it’s easier to react rather than take a step back to be more intentional with a response.
The good news is which your brain is very complex, it loves an easy plan! A simple plan to use is the H.A.L.T. Method, which some counselors use with their clients. It stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Whenever any of these are happening, it’s usually a sign that your blood sugar or blood flow has been impacted (either too high or too low).
Next time you find yourself in a challenging situation, if you’re…
Hungry – Halt! Go get some protein or stabilize your blood sugar.
Angry – Halt! Go take some deep breaths.
Lonely – Halt! Go text a friend or encourage someone.
Tired – Halt! Go to bed 30 minutes earlier each night.
You’ll likely not say or do something you’ll later regret, and others will thank you too.
- Prioritize Social Connections
Having and maintaining healthy relationships is essential for emotional and psychological well-being. It also plays a significant role in preserving brain health. Engaging regularly with a supportive social network can create a buffer against the psychological stressors that might lead to depression and anxiety, which are known to negatively impact cognitive functions such as memory and decision-making.
Positive social interactions can help build our brain reserve, which is our brain’s resilience against neurological damage due to aging, trauma, negative thinking, and other factors. Furthermore, strong social bonds have been linked to numerous health benefits, including better immune response, lower levels of stress hormones, and reduced cardiovascular risks.
Social connections enrich our lives, not just by enhancing our day-to-day emotional well-being but also by providing concrete health benefits.
As you look to improve your own wellness, you’ll find that boosting your well-being isn’t linear but involves a holistic approach that includes nurturing both your brain, your mind, and your emotional health. By integrating more regular pauses, mindfulness, feelings of psychological safety, managing reactions, and healthier social connections, you can significantly support your overall well-being.
Recommended Resources
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
Your Brain is Always Listening by Dr. Daniel Amen, MD
The Four Stages of Psychological Safety by Timothy Clark
References
Fiaz, S., & Muhammad Fahim, S. (2023). The influence of high-quality workplace relational systems and mindfulness on employee work engagement at the time of crises. Heliyon, 9(4), e15523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15523
Goldberg, S. B., Riordan, K. M., Sun, S., & Davidson, R. J. (2022). The Empirical Status of Mindfulness-Based Interventions: A Systematic Review of 44 Meta-Analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials. Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 17(1), 108–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620968771
Kalafatakis, K., Russell, G. M., Ferguson, S. G., Grabski, M., Harmer, C. J., Munafò, M. R., Marchant, N., Wilson, A., Brooks, J. C., Thakrar, J., Murphy, P., Thai, N. J., & Lightman, S. L. (2021). Glucocorticoid ultradian rhythmicity differentially regulates mood and resting state networks in the human brain: A randomised controlled clinical trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 124, 105096. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.105096
Vonk, J. M. J., Ghaznawi, R., Zwartbol, M. H. T., Stern, Y., Geerlings, M. I., & UCC-SMART-Study Group (2022). The role of cognitive and brain reserve in memory decline and atrophy rate in mid and late-life: The SMART-MR study. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 148, 204–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.11.022
Ward, E. J., Fragala, M. S., Birse, C. E., Hawrilenko, M., Smolka, C., Ambwani, G., Brown, M., Krystal, J. H., Corlett, P. R., & Chekroud, A. (2023). Assessing the impact of a comprehensive mental health program on frontline health service workers. PloS one, 18(11), e0294414. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294414
About Barbara
Barbara Gustavson, owner of Discover Next Step, is a mental and brain health advocate and leadership facilitator, provides stress management and burnout prevention training for mental health workers and community leaders.
She utilizes a strengths-based approach to support resilience initiatives in communities and is author of “Permission to be BOLD”. As Head Facilitator at Amen University for Dr. Daniel Amen’s certification programs, she oversees approximately 8,000 clinicians, coaches and educators who are applying Amen Clinic’s methods in over 50 countries.
Barbara is on a mission to include brain health into mental health conversations so people can have better success and outcomes in their life. She is a graduate of Leadership Fredericksburg through our Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and is currently getting her Master’s degree in Positive Psychology at Arizona State University.