Creating

health...

What is health?

I was pretty healthy when I started studying nursing in 2016. I guess there's a few elements that created the why of this. It might have started because of a need to look after my "mental health".

"Mental health", they are the words here in Australia that get used a lot, (I hope!), (in workplaces we even have the term 'taking a mental health day', and I think in some places this is even a new concept, a foreign concept, and maybe even frowned upon but I think most likely misunderstood) for me the term mental health doesn't really capture or create something that we can envisage as to what "mental health" really means. It is not a mental thing, I repeat, it is not a mental thing. It is just health, just health, well being, a level of joy and calm and peace in our life, a level of well-being so that we might say, life is okay.

What picture do the words mental health create for you? How would you describe it?

From here forth I won't be using the term (although it might slip in), I will be using words like creating happiness, creating a feeling of safety, (for when we do things that activate our parasympathetic nervous system and take the edge off [we hope] our sympathetic nervous system, this reduces the level of fear in the system and hence we feel safe or maybe safer than we did before.

Other words like well-being also work for me. So mental health is not just a mental thing, it is a whole body, whole being thing, it is our body, our physical, our heart, (hmm our heart that is probably even more challenging to put words to), our feelings, our emotions, our past, our present, really it is the all of us the whole shebang. Lock, stock, and smoking barrel. Okay! I think I will call it health. I will try and stick with that. Okay so we have our health. Our health can sit on a line and be low or high? Yes?

What impacts our health? What do you think? What impacts your health?

Our circumstances? Our world? You might be like me (human) and have or had stressful circumstances that were making an impact. This goes back to what I started with at the top of this page. I needed to look after my health because I noticed I was stressed, I had circumstances impacting me. Looking back I notice it was really hard, really challenging to change those circumstances, I tried, I struggled, and it went on and on, eventually easing, but even now the impact lingers. Years later I have had really hard, really challenging circumstances again, that went on and on, actually went on and on until I was a beaten pulp. Not literally beaten. Actually there might be a theme there because from a very very young age I had horrific circumstances that went on and on. When those circumstances ended, it didn't register for me fully. I thought it was still going on. As if there was a ghost hanging around keeping those circumstances alive. Whispers of the past still messing with my 'mind' well-being. So that is 3 periods of challenging circumstances, one lasted 10years, another also around 10years, and well the latest one has been ticking along for 10years come next year (here's hoping the theme runs and this episode ends next year, and that it only comes in three's, then I might be done, with some doors opening wide onto a bright expanse).

So the effects of circumstances can linger and effect our well-being. What do you think? Yes, no. In my imaginings I see this as a kind of safety measure. We have a circumstance that might not be safe, the body sets things up i.e our nervous system so that we take action to keep ourselves safe i.e run, fight, yell, hide, etc. Then we have our brain and memories that also work to keep us safe. What else, we have this logical mind that can think and plan and links in with the rest of us to take action and solve problems. We have a lot. Some times the circumstance ends and these activated parts of the body linger or they might have the volume cranked to very large concert or rave level. I don't know about you but my days of very loud concert level are not really what I am after now. So this lingering for me means after the circumstance has passed and a mildly or moderate stressful enough thing pops up my stress levels go through the roof because my volume of alert is up very high, because I am still learning that I am safe. Although I have one of these 10 year stressful circumstance episodes happening now it is not life threatening, it is not uncommon probably, however it is tweaking that stress response and that volume knob. So I get all these glorious sensations of freaking out.

So, back to where I started the page. I was pretty healthy. By this I mean I did things to create my health to try and create happiness, a nice level of well-being. By this I mean I exercised regularly, didn't drink much, ate a bit of meat, a reasonable amount of fruit and veg, didn't indulge in sweet stuff much, I had just quit smoking, I meditated, I did yoga, I didn't eat much processed or fatty take-away food. I loved going out for walks at the beach and in the bush with the dog. I loved swimming at the beach. I had just started eating sauerkraut and learning about my gut bacteria. That was mainly because I noticed stomach pains.