What’s the single most important skill set to improve your mental health?

Start with the evidence

In a mega review of more than 54, 000 scientific studies, one single set of skills was found to be far more commonly effective than anything else in improving people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing. More important than self-esteem, support from friends and family, or whether you have negative thoughts. 

So, what’s the skill set?

The most important skills to learn if you want better mental health and emotional wellbeing are those that build your psychological flexibility. Regardless of whether you are suffering from anxiety, depression, substance abuse, or any other type of mental distress, psychological flexibility helps you deal with these issues more effectively and moves your life in a meaningful direction. 

What does that look like?

The review revealed three distinct areas of skills to increase your psychological flexibility: 

• Feeling and thinking in an open way

• Attending to what you’re experiencing in the present moment

• Taking action to move your life in directions that are important to you. 

These skills might seem like common sense, but when life throws challenges at us, we all do things that don’t really serve our best interests. In fact, our brains are wired to do this to an extent. There are countless examples, from things such as eating too much cake after bad days at work, to longer-term patterns of behaviour such as not doing the things you’d love to do because you’re terrified of having a panic attack.

What’s working against you?

To make it worse, our culture often encourages us to do things that hold us back from creating the kind of life we want. We are told to take a problem-solving approach to avoid uncomfortable feelings, as if it were as simple as turning on the air-con when we feel hot. We are told to simply feel better, to be happy all the time (or at least appear that way on our socials), to avoid anything that makes us uncomfortable. While that sometimes gives us temporary relief, longer-term it simply doesn’t work.     

How do I create a life I want?

What’s exciting about the research is that, for the first time we know why psychotherapy works. Until recently, psychological research has been good at studying what methods help with which mental health disorders, but it hasn’t looked at why those things work. 

Deep inside, we all have the wisdom to know how to healthily rise to life’s challenges. But putting them into practice can be very difficult. 

The good news is that the science also shows that these skills can be learned. Like learning any other new skill, this takes persistence and practice. Psychotherapy can now specifically target the right skills for you at the right time to help you move into the kind of life you want, to find freedom from stress, depression, anxiety. 

Liberation?

I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds like true liberation. Liberation from the thoughts and feelings that hold you back from creating a life that’s rich and full. 

To make a start on this together, call 0436 804714. Let’s get on with it…   

For useful snippets, join us on Facebook