There’s been a lot of talk about … talk in recent decades. Talk therapy has revolutionized the concept of healing from all kinds of trauma, and for good reason. It helps to discuss your issues and pain, and it’s encouraging to hear from others in similar situations. Still, the healing journey does not stop at talk therapy. Many more elements are involved in your path to feeling and doing better in life that can amplify your improvement.
1. Playing Outside
You’ll often hear about how play is critical to childhood, and it is, but it’s also essential to healthy adulthood as well. Indeed, part of the problem with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues is that adults don’t allow themselves to play. And when you do see a parent running around the playground with their kids or frolicking through a field of flowers, you’ll undoubtedly hear someone mumble that they should “grow up already.”
Play is a form of therapy. Playground structures and swing sets can help kids build motor skills, coordination, and balance. But this psychotherapy can also be used for both children and adults to work through emotional and mental issues. It can allow people of all ages and genders to work through difficult challenges and even aggression. The physical use of the body on a play structure goes hand in hand with making mental health progress.
2. Walking
Like with play structures, going for a walk, run, or hike allows you to move your body as you confront mental health issues. Particularly if the problems stem from or manifest as aggression, rage, or another emotion that makes you feel restless, sitting still while trying to talk about your issues can feel so intense that it gets painful. Many people who struggle with anxiety or anger issues find themselves vibrating with the need to move.
Instead of trying to make yourself sit or stand still, go ahead and move. Go for a walk or a jog outside, and keep going until you feel your body calm down. It doesn’t have to be a rapid-paced race, but running can help if you’re wound up. You can even look into walk-and-talk therapy, which involves having your counselor walk with you during a one-hour session instead of sitting in an office.
3. Spending Time in the Sun
YTimeay has heard that humans are complicated houseplants. You need water, sunlight, and a little love and attention. Sadly, too many people are locked indoors all day during the best possible Time to be out. Without enough sunshine, you may get sick more often due to a weakened immune system. In addition, your serotonin levels will likely dip, which can lead to depression.
If you’re already suffering from mental health issues, a lack of sunlight can make matters even worse. Sun therapy can be extremely helpful in boosting both your immune system and your serotonin levels (the happy chemical in your brain). If you don’t have access to sunlight because of your location or the Time of year, you get a sun lamp, which mimics the effects of the Sun. Just 5-30 minutes per day of sunlight can improve your mood.
4. Using Your Imagination
Another experience adults often cut out when they grow up is using their imaginations. You encourage it in kids; you’ve likely heard how beneficial it is for development and long-term learning. Yet many adults “put away childish things” when entering the workforce and paying bills. This results in so many people walking around with only the doom and gloom the news media throws at them all day and the mundane responsibilities of adulthood.
Your imagination is one of your most powerful tools, and encouraging it to grow and expand can have therapeutic effects. Allowing yourself to imagine positive outcomes, a happy future and a life free of mental health issues can be a pathway to achieving those goals. Your imagination can also help you overcome unmanageable fears. To begin this work, talk to your therapist or counselor about guided therapeutic imagery.
5. Meditation
Another powerful tool in the human mind is detaching from mental struggles and entering a calm space. Closely connected to imagination, meditation provides people with the opportunity to give their minds a break from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and more. In modern times, the human mind is overloaded, overwhelmed, and overstimulated by information and technology. Even if you don’t have mental health issues, this can be too much to take.
When you meditate daily, even for 10 or 15 minutes, you remind yourself to stay in the present. Meditation allows your brain to retrain itself from a frazzled, chaotic state to a calm and peaceful one. You can work with a therapist specializing in meditation or lie on your yoga mat and listen to a guided meditation. It’s a therapy that has been in place globally for millennia and is free.
While talk therapy has been shown to have tremendous benefits for those struggling with mental health issues, many people need more. Options like play, moving, using your imagination, and getting Time in the Sun aTimet altealternativestalk therapy; th trepanations. And meditation, while it seems like the opposite of speaking, is an opportunity to integrate what you’ve discussed. These therapies that go beyond talk are part of a recipe for success that you can try out to see which one, or more, works for you.