GLO Mental Health Strategy Workshop: Coping During Crisis
This past weekend I had the pleasure of co-hosting the GLO Mental Health Strategy Workshop: Coping During Crisis with Dr. Caroline Lee. This was the first virtual event that I had planned and simultaneously the first event working with a doctor.
Planning, marketing, and facilitating the event placed me outside of my comfort zone. I enjoyed it. As humans we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, it is only through growth that we can progress. Getting outside of your comfort zone allows you to develop your skills: event moderation, clear communication, public speaking, and digital marketing to name a few. Things will never go 100% as planned and it’s adapting to these variations where we learn and grow. I strongly encourage you to find a way to get out of your comfort zone and grow.
This mental health strategy workshop was designed to educate and empower participants with evidence based coping skills for mental illness. Even as a consumer of positive psychology, mindset, and mindfulness literature I was still fascinated with new mental frameworks and strategies. No matter how much you think you know, you can always go deeper into understanding.
The three main takeaways that I took from this event include:
- 3 C’s Analysis on social media.
- The importance of breathing.
- The structure of the emotional regulation system.
My first takeaway for mental health coping strategies are the 3 C’s of social media analysis include:
- Consumption — what type of content are you intaking?
- Connection — who are you connecting with?
- Creation — what type of content are you creating?
This self analysis provided a framework and strategy for how you interact with social media. I challenge you to reflect on your past week’s social media activity and measure yourself on consumption, connection, and creation. In my case I rate myself: 70% consumption, 20% connection, and 10% creation. Observing this distribution of time spent, I am challenging myself to redistribute my time on social media to be: 30% consumption, 30% connection, and 60% creation. My personal goal is to provide knowledge, value, and inspiration for others through authentic content creation.
In addition to considering distribution of time spent on social media, it’s imperative to reflect on where your attention is being spent. Are you engaging with positive or negative content? Are you consuming educational or entertainment media? By reflecting on the type of media you engage with you can shift your mindset toward positivity and happiness. In my case, I have been spending the past couple of weeks educating myself of the racial injustices/inequality present in American society. I noticed that consuming media highlighting police brutality and witnessing racial inequality/injustice early in the morning created a cloud of despair over my mind throughout the day. Watching acts of violence and inequality early in the day placed those images in my subconscious, resulting in a negative mindset throughout the day. Looking toward this new week, I plan to be conscious of the content that I consume and limiting the negativity. I’ve also found that exercising and working out to be a wonderful way to release endorphins (happy chemicals for our brain) and bring optimism and clarity for the remainder of the day.
The second mental health takeaway that I received was the importance of breathing on regulating our body and mood. Dr. Caroline Lee took the audience through a quick breathing exercise asking us to take a deep breath in and long breath out. While taking these deep breaths we were asked to identify the source of our breathing: was it from the stomach or the chest? About 80% of the participants indicated their breathing was from their chest, while 20% reported that their breath originated in their stomach. After the group reflected on the source of their breathing, Dr. Caroline Lee dispelled the following research:
“As babies we learn to breathe from our stomach, and as we age our breathing shifts to our chest. When breathing from the chest it can induce anxiety because it activates our sympathetic nervous system. Meanwhile stomach originating breathing (from the diaphragm) activates the parasympathetic nervous system which induces a state of calm and aids in digestion.”
While participating in this exercise I noted that my breathing seemed to stem from my chest and not my stomach. Reflecting on my emotional state throughout the week I recalled periods of high anxiety and moments of heavy acute breathing from my chest. As a result, I am challenging myself to be more mindful of my breathing during the week and focusing on originating my breathing from my stomach.
The last key mental health takeaway from this workshop was the structure of the emotional regulation system (Paul Gilbert PhD). The human body has an intricate emotional regulation system that is responsible for ensuring we don’t get overwhelmed. This emotional regulation system is broken into three subsystems:
- Drive System — to motivate us toward achieving resources, goals, and tasks.
- Soothing System — to manage distress and promote bonding.
- Threat System — to identify threat detection and protection.
Most of us spend the majority of our time in the threat and drive systems, which can lead to an imbalance in emotions and distress. It’s important to practice mindfulness (observing our emotional state with non-judgement) and identify where we lie within our emotional regulation system on a daily basis.
Overall, I am satisfied and enthusiastic to have spent the past couple of weeks planning and attending this event. I was able to develop new skills, new relationships, gain knowledge, and provide empowerment for a portion of the GLO community. I strongly encourage you to take some time to evaluate your mental health and challenge you to practice one of these strategies during the next week. Search out for opportunities and virtual events to attend that peak your interest and provide a platform to better yourself. I guarantee you’ll never regret it :)
For more mental health resources check out:
Grief Support: Kara — Grief Support — Palo Alto, CA
Free & Low Fee Therapy for Essential Workers:
