And now for something slightly different....

In this week's blog, I want to step away from training for Mount Kilimanjaro and talk about something different, mental health and in particular, my own mental health. 

As I touched on in one of my previous blogs, one of the reasons why I am climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is because I see the training, the challenge, and the whole process as good for my mental health as well as my physical health. I suffer from anxiety and insecurities and times and this has many different forms. For example, I find it difficult not to overthink and overanalyse situations, find myself believing the most unrealistic option to be correct, or suffering from imposter syndrome where despite all evidence to the contrary, I don't feel good enough or valued enough. 

These feelings/emotions came to a head a couple of weekends ago when I sat on the floor in my bedroom suffering from what I felt was a panic attack. I couldn't stop crying, felt sick and my heart rate and breathing was too fast! After about 30 minutes, I picked up the phone, called a friend, and talked it through. It was at this point, when talking through how I felt is that I wasn't treating myself that well and it was therefore no suprise that I had got myself into a position where I felt the walls closing in!

Stepping Up and Taking Action

Around one week later and after the end of a week of reflection, I decided enough was enough and that I had to take action to make tackle the causes of my anxieties & insecurities as without doing both, I won't be any more equipt to tackle these challenges when they next surface. Whilst accepting that these anxieties/insecurities won't go away, I can do two things:

1) Reduce the likelihood of them impacting me

2) If they start to impact me, learn coping skills to mitigate them. 

As a result, I develop two new routines that I felt would give my mornings and evenings more structure and as a result, help prevent some feelings that I have where life happened to me rather than me being in control of life. In the mornings, I set an alarm for 6am, get up and get 20-30 minutes of exercise in every day. I feel this gives me the best start to the day rather than sitting in bed scrolling through social media. Following that and before breakfast, I listen to and repeat a series of affirmations and practice Spanish, something I have been doing every day for the last 269 days!

In the evening I try to take time to reflect on the day, thinking about what went well that day, what I am grateful for and to build up knowledge of how I have impacted the world in the last day. Lastly, I try to ensure I get the best night's sleep so I'm reducing my phone use after 9pm, drinking what is known in my house as 'go bed tea' and listening to or reading a book before going to sleep at a consistent time. It may only be a few days in but I feel clearer in my thinking, more awake in the mornings and better able to see where my actions have impacted on me and those around me. 

So who's with me?

Whilst we all have our own journeys and challenges that are unique to us, we can make them easier by going through them with each other. I would love to know your journey and to encourage you as you travel along it. For me, knowing other people are there for you makes things a little bit easier so I would love to be there for you, whatever you are facing so you don't feel as alone as I did a few weeks ago. 

As I said at the start, this blog is something slightly different. Next time, back to training and I do need to find myself a hike or two!

See you along the path!