After ringing in the new year, consider the importance of your mental health in 2011. Here are some ways to improve your mental health in the upcoming year.
Ruth Jaffe, a psychoanalyst practicing psychotherapy in New York and Connecticut, suggested looking at your goals.
“They would have to consider their goals in life and see whether they are realistic in terms of being able to accomplish them in the new year,” Jaffe said. “It would certainly improve anyone’s mental health to be able to be clear about goals and reach them.”
It can also be important to monitor your mental health, which includes self-examination.
“[They] have to stop to smell the roses so to speak in terms of their own state of being,” Jaffe said. “They would have to ask themselves, ‘Where am I at?’ You’d be surprised how many people don’t do that.”
Society and culture can play a part in this lack of self-knowledge.
“We’re not trained in this culture to do that,” Jaffe said. “We’re trained to do all the time, to do do do and keep moving … but not to stand still and ask yourself that … there is very little stillness in life.”
It’s also a good idea to find out about your mental health from others, like family and friends.
Generally people don’t ask each other directly about their mental health, she said.
“We can gauge [our mental health] by our effect on others, the impact we have on others, and whether others are happy to be with us and seek us out,” Jaffe said. “There’s a social measure to it too.”
Women can feel better emotionally by being more realistic about their self-expectations as well.
“I think that most women are very self-demanding in our culture, that we expect a great deal from ourselves,” Jaffe said. “Most women are not completely realistic about these expectations of themselves, so they become unhappy, and beyond unhappy they could develop symptoms.”
This doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t have any expectations of themselves, but Jaffe suggests being “kinder to oneself.”
This can be difficult when considering all the magazines and TV shows and ads that suggest all women are not okay the way they are.
“Don’t listen to it, don’t read it,” Jaffe said. “It’s a bombardment … it’s part of the capitalistic system. It’s part of wanting to sell us something … because if you really analyze these messages, they always refer to something being sold.”
Some messages women should take seriously, like if a doctor tells a woman she is unhealthy and needs to lose weight by eating healthier. But listening to a spokeswoman for a beauty company saying you really need a beauty product is not very productive and untrue.
Women need to also realize that they have opportunities to accomplish more each year, and age is not a factor.
“A lot of people become depressed because they believe that by a certain age, they have to accomplish a certain fixed something or other,” Jaffe said. “Don’t expect it all to be there and clear immediately, because it isn’t. You learn as you go along … you have to be open to experience different kinds of things.”
Although it can all seem overwhelming at times, she said that it’s important to have faith.
“Have faith and work on yourself … faith that one can live the life that one sets out to live,” Jaffe said.
Physical health is vital for mental health too, she added.
Each woman will have individual and specific goals as well. These could range from being more positive this year to yourself and others, going to therapy, meditating, learning not to care what others think, being assertive and compassionate, laughing at yourself more, and learning to say “no” instead of “yes” to everything.
Remember to be more self-aware this year, and even keep up on the latest mental health news through EmpowHER and other news sites. Studies are always coming out with information that can be used to improve mental health, so just make sure to digest that information and use it to your benefit.
Whatever you think will improve your mental health, go for it this year. You’re worth it.