Anyone who does a lot of running will know that even though when you get into the sport, it can be great. It can help to keep you fit, reduce your weight, stress and also help you with your cardiac fitness. But what about injuries? What can we do about them?
Recently I have been trying to cope with a ligament issue. I have had pain in a ligament next to my knee, but although the pain has been lingering for a while, I think it is on the mend. I saw a doctor about it to make sure it wasn’t something too serious. I then started to work out what helps to improve it. Doing a bit of cycling after every run seems to help to reduce the pain and inflammation.
After all of the drama with my injury, I started to ask myself some questions. Could I have prevented it? Maybe. But I don’t know how. I also thought that I was a bit too optimistic and thought it would just go away.
I think that our mental health can be thought of in a similar way. When we start to feel that something is not ok, you need to think about what you do to get back to feeling ok. Some things work well for some people and not as well for others. Everybody needs to take charge of their mental health just the same way that I took charge of my ligament injury. We have friends, family, and mental health professionals to talk to, but sometimes that is not enough.
I think that we could always strive to prevent problems from occurring, but it can often be hard to do. But once a mental health problem arises, we need to take action before it gets out of hand. Recently in the news in Thailand, a young teenager went on a shooting spree in a shopping mall. He had mental health issues and was off his medication. But what if some action was taken before the teenager needed to resort to medication?
We all need to find out how to deal with our mental health problems before they become mental health illnesses. I don’t think anybody could say that all mental illnesses are preventable, but in the case of young people, they can learn to be resilient through social and emotional learning. I also think that with older people, they can still be taught new tricks. They should be learning about social and emotional learning as well.
The key takeaway is that you should not ignore your symptoms. If you are not feeling like your normal happy self, don’t wait to magically become happy again. Take early action. Speak to somebody about it. Find some strategies that work for you. If they have worked for you in the past but don’t now, try new strategies.
If you want someone to talk to. I am always available.
storysolutionstherapy@gmail.com
