Mental Health Awareness Training Course - 1 Day

What is your understanding of the term, mental health?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines mental health as:
A state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to contribute to their community.

Our working definition is: Mental health is the state of being, whereby people feel the optimum emotional responses, that are appropriate to the circumstances that face them.

That means that people:

• Are happy when is it is appropriate to be happy.
• Are sad when it is appropriate to be sad.

They are confident when it is appropriate to be confident.

• They are not over-confident
• They are not too easy to anger
• They are not blindly optimistic
• They are not cynical, pessimistic and depressed
• They are fully functioning, well adapted, adaptable and happy
• They are evolving beings, perfectly poised to live life to the fullest, even though the future must remain forever uncertain

Mental health impacts on results because mental health is about building optimum responses. Poor or inappropriate mental habits creates inappropriate, or destructive emotional responses, which negatively impacts on results.

Here are a set of fifteen warning signs that a person may be in the danger zone:

1. Habitual feelings or expressions of anxiousness without clear single cause.
2. Habitual feelings or expressions of anger and or aggressiveness.
3. Habitual feelings of guilt or shame.
4. Chronic lack of optimism, self-confidence and happiness.
5. Inability to take valid criticism of personal performance.
6. Inability to handle setbacks and defeats. Lack of resilience.
7. Inability or refusal to accept the need to change.
8. Incessantly stressing over things over which they have no power to change.
9. Low levels of self-esteem and self-worth.
10. Irrationality. Inability to rationally interpret events: weird conspiracy theories, victim mentality.
11. Poor health habits. Misuse of food.
12. Over-use of alcohol: Dependence on alcohol.
13. Over-use of medication. Drug dependence.
14. Inability to relax and sleep.
15. Depression. Feeling that life’s problems are too much to bear.

Everything in the human world starts with a thought.

The question we need to answer is: Who controls your thoughts?
Simple answer: You control your thoughts, or at least you should.

Rule to remember:
“You do what you do and you feel what you feel, primarily because of the thoughts that you allow to dominate your mind.”

A positive mental state relies on your ability to control and direct your mind and your conversation:

1. Consistently.
2. For extended periods.
3. Irrespective of what others are doing.
4. Irrespective of what others are saying to you.

Methods to control the focus of your mind and conversation.

The self-image: The self-image is the sum of all your thoughts, feelings and beliefs about who you are, what you think your abilities are, what you think are your limitations, and how you fit in to your social setting.

Abilities. Limitations. What you could do. What you could not. Where you fit in. Where you don’t.

Here is a big question: Who are you? and How do you know?

• Some people have a strong self-image
• Some people have a weak self-image
• Most people have a functioning self-image (which has the occasional wobble)

If you want better mental health, then understand the importance of the self-image.

• You become what you think you are
• You feel what you think about

You can tell something about a person’s self-image, by finding out how they would complete the following half-sentence. "I am a ........ person."

It is important to remember that you are made up of two elements, mind and body.

• Your body is the material, solid part of you.
• Your mind is the immaterial, mental (and spiritual?) part of you.

A healthy body leads naturally to a healthy mind. If you’re not as happy as you would like to be, then look at your health habits.
If you are not happy, then check your levels of vitality. I suspect that a lack of vitality and low levels of health may be one of the causes.

Our emotions are affected four major categories of causes:

1. Our own mental state. What we think about and how we think about it.
2. The actions of others. What other people do to us.
3. The physical state of our body. Our level of health and energy.
4. The physical environment. Our surroundings.

We are all affected by the external environment:

1. Some environments are conducive to good mental health and productive efforts.
2. Other environments are NOT conducive to good mental health and productive efforts.
3. And some environments are destructive to good results and may even promote poor results.

In order to be productive your body needs certain things:

1. Air (Oxygen).
2. Water.
3. Light (preferably natural light).
4. Sound - not too loud.
5. And the opportunity for silence.
6. Temperature - comfortable.
7. Pressure - realistic work load.

For each of the following, please rate your working environment out of 10.

1. Good ventilation - Score higher for good ventilation.
2. Access to drinking water - Score higher for good access to water.
3. Good lighting, preferably natural light - Score higher for good lighting.
4. Sound, volume (loud or quiet) - Score higher for quieter.
5. Temperature (comfortable or not) - Score higher for comfortable.

What is the score out of 50? Double it to give a score out of 100.

What is the major weakness?
What could you do to improve on the current situation?

You are not what you think you are!
But what you think, YOU ARE.

Your personal experience is not one thing, it is composed of five subsets, see below.

Your personal experience of a situation is made up of five elements:

1. The objective facts of the situation.
2. What you were able to perceive of that situation: what you saw, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled.
3. Whether or not you identified the facts correctly. Or did you misidentify the facts?
4. How you evaluated the situation. Did you evaluate the facts logically?
5. How you respond to the situation. Did you respond in an adaptive, non-adaptive or maladaptive way?

The fact is not inherently good or bad.

• An event is not inherently good or bad. It depends on what you think of it and how you respond
• Winning the lottery is not inherently good or bad. It depends on how you think of it and how you respond

Shakespeare wrote:
“…. there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...... Nothing is really good or bad in itself—it's all what a person thinks about it.” -- Hamlet act 2 scene 2.

Summary and personal action planning