In honor of Mental Health Month, Mental Health America is launching the Live Your Life Well Campaign!
Some people think that only people with mental illnesses have to pay attention to their mental health. But the truth is that your emotions, thoughts and attitudes affect your energy, productivity and overall health. Good mental health strengthens your ability to cope with everyday hassles and more serious crises and challenges. Good mental health is essential to creating the life you want. Just as you brush your teeth or get a flu shot, you can take steps to promote your mental health. A great way to start is by learning to deal with stress.

Stress can eat away at your well-being like acid eating away at your stomach. Actually, stress can contribute to stomach pains and lots of other problems, like: headaches, insomnia, overeating, back pain, high blood pressure, irritability, and vulnerability to infection. Stress also can lead to serious mental health problems, like depression and anxiety disorders. If you think you have such a problem, you can get help.

Of course you can't magically zap all sources of stress. But you can learn to deal with them in a way that promotes the well-being you want and deserve. The research shows that how good you feel is, to a fairly large extent, up to you. No matter how stressful your situation, you can take steps to promote your well-being. We're not talking about huge changes to your lifestyle, either. We're talking about reasonable steps that if used consistently can increase your comfort and boost your ability to build a rewarding life.

The 10 Tools. These proven tools can help you feel stronger and more hopeful.

Connect With Others
Stay Positive
Get Physically Active
Help Others
Get Enough Sleep
Create Joy and Satisfaction
Eat Well
Take Care of your Spirit
Deal Better with Hard Times
Get Professional Help when Necessary

For more information on how to implement The 10 Tools into your life, visit www.liveyourlifewell.org.
Source: www.nmha.org

I was recently watching an episode of The Office, one of my favorite TV shows. I love the quirky characters, funny writing, and unexpected subject matters. This particular episode, however, I did not find to be so cute and funny. In this episode, Michael, the boss of the office, wants to train his staff about danger and safety in the workplace. He decides that the main safety and health risk they face is depression and suicide. In order to educate his staff, he stages a suicide attempt. He stands on the top of the office building and says, “the stress of my modern office has caused me to go into a depression” while his co-workers look on, rolling their eyes and not taking him seriously. I have several issues with this.

First of all, suicide is a very serious issue. It should not be a part of a joke, taken lightly, or used as a “demonstration” of danger, although many of us do it. Think about a time when you had to do something that was boring or that you didn’t want to do. How many of us make a gesture pretending to put a gun to our own head or slit our own wrists, suggesting that these actions would be a better alternative to sitting through a boring meeting or lecture? How many times have we said “Ugh, I’m going to kill myself” in response to having to do something we don’t want to? When a person feels hopeless enough to take their own life, it is not funny. As a society, we trivialize and stigmatize these feelings by making light of them.

In the specific case of the episode of The Office, the characters take a very real, possible situation and make a joke out of it. Work, unemployment, and the economy are issues we are all dealing with today. It is logical, if not expected, for people to experience depression as a result of these issues. Popular culture’s use of these circumstances as fodder for our entertainment downplays their seriousness. I realize that we’re talking about The Office, not an afterschool special. And I do not expect to learn about mental illness while watching a 30 minute sitcom. However, when a show steps into the arena of depression and suicide, and only serves to make a joke out of them, it has taken one step too many. We shouldn’t stop watching the shows that make us laugh.

But when we watch them, it should be with an informed eye, and a heart full of awareness and compassion for the people dealing with these issues on a daily basis.

Did you have a mother or grandmother who repeatedly cautioned you to, “mind your p’s and q’s”? I was reminded of that old-fashioned idiom last week when my psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Kezlarian concluded our medication review to give me his homily on the “power of the f’s and g’s.” Turns out that this short parable was, in fact, his philosophy for a happy life. And although I had no steno pad handy, I knew these were universal truths that I wanted to share with you this month.

Some of us have already figured out that the secret to a contented, happy life isn’t how rich, thin, beautiful or successful we are. It is about the quality, and perhaps also the quantity, of our close relationships. And by the way, for me, this means my relationship with God at the top of the list.

It is quite fitting that the ‘f’s’ and the ‘g’s’ are both practical and spiritual principles for living. The first is forgiveness. This one, Dr. Kezlarian says is critical in relationships because if we are close to someone, sooner or later, they are going to let us down, disappoint us, make big mistakes, hurt our feelings, act selfishly, break trust and often worse. How we handle this inevitable situation is one of the cornerstones of our contentment. The power of forgiveness is related to the weight of our every resentment. You don’t need to be a medical doctor to know that unresolved resentments will sap your energy as surely as a spreading cancer.

And what about the ‘g’s’? “G,” in Dr. Kezlarian’s secret formula for happiness, is an attitude of gratitude. This healthy habit is related specifically, I think, to acceptance of what is; contentment with what we have, as opposed to constant complaining and focus on what we don’t have. It is the clichéd “glass half full vs. glass half empty” perspective on life. This habit creates a much more serene mental landscape than the self-inflicted “poor me” mind set that can be a rude intruder on our relationships.

As I was listening to my psychiatrist’s life lesson, I was privately grading myself in the 95th percentile regarding the ‘f’ and ‘g’ quotient. After all, I carry almost no resentments and I am a Pollyanna when it comes to looking on the bright side of life. I even make a mental gratitude list almost every day. Then, in the midst of my self-congratulatory report card, I had an honest moment. I realized that I have imposed a litany of my health complaints, post surgery details, daily pain level, recovery, and operations yet to come on just about everyone who greets me with, “How are you doing?” How boring!

In spite of my difficulties, I must remind myself that I am indeed grateful beyond words that an accident in 2007 only shattered my heel; the fall could have made me a quadriplegic. I have had incredibly supportive family and friends, skilled surgeons, effective pain relievers, excellent health insurance, and miniscule prescription co-pays.

Dr. K says God is like a happy father who sees the joy on his children’s’ faces as they unwrap their presents at Christmas. May each of us remind ourselves to be grateful for the gift of breath each day of our lives.

Jacqueline Castine, B.A., is a Community Education Specialist at the Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority. She is the author of I Wish I Could Fix It, But … (Phoenix Publishers, 2005). She can be reached at castinej@occmha.org

Jeffrey Kezlarian, M.D. is a psychiatrist with a private practice in Troy, Michigan.