Good Habits for Mental Health
When it comes to OCD recovery, practicing the skills and techniques you learn from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy frameworks like Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) and Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) are the fundamental building blocks that allow you to improve your mental health and fitness. ERP and ACT should be your core foundation and the first things you seek to learn about, practice, and master when going through your OCD recovery journey. However, there are also a number of other habits and routines that can greatly help you in improving and maintaining your mental health and fitness. In today’s blog, I wanted to touch on some important habits and practices that, when combined with ERP and ACT, can significantly help strengthen your mental health.
Exercise
I am a big proponent of exercise and working out - not just for the physical benefits, but for the mental health benefits as well! A study by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America found that:
Those [people] who got regular vigorous exercise were 25 percent less likely to develop depression or an anxiety disorder over the next five years.
That’s not to say that exercise is a magical pill that will suddenly cure your OCD, but I am a firm believer that it can definitely be a powerful supplement for maintaining and improving your mental health. There is a great TED talk by Wendy Suzuki, a professor of neural science, where she explains all the brain-changing benefits that a regular exercise routine can bring you. In her talk, Suzuki explains that:
The most common finding in neuroscience studies, looking at effects of long-term exercise, is improved attention function dependent on your prefrontal cortex. You not only get better focus and attention, but the volume of the hippocampus increases as well. And finally, you not only get immediate effects of mood with exercise, but those last for a long time. So you get long-lasting increases in those good mood neurotransmitters.
Furthermore, Suzuki explains that we don’t need to be triathletes or gym-rats in order to achieve these benefits. According to her, just working out 3-4 times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes is all you need to help unlock these mental health benefits! And the exercise doesn’t need to be intense, super sweaty efforts… even something like a brisk power walk around the neighborhood or choosing to take the stairs instead of the elevator will help.
I think the important thing is: find some form of exercise that you enjoy (running, weight lifting, cycling, swimming, walking, etc…) and try to develop a consistent routine for doing that exercise at least 3-4x weekly. I believe it’s critical to find something that you actually enjoy - if you hate running but try to force yourself to run 4 times a week, you’ll probably burn out and stop doing it. Finding a physical fitness routine that you enjoy and look forward to will help create a sustainable, healthy habit which you can stick to long-term. And if you stick with it, you will notice great improvements in both your physical and mental well being.
Diet
I believe that nutrition plays a big role in both our physical and mental health. Our body is powered by the food and drink that we consume - so eating nutritious, nourishing food will naturally make us both feel and perform better. That’s not to say that we can never enjoy a candy bar or occasional sweet treat - in fact, I think that everyone should make room in their diets to enjoy these treats and pleasures, because even if they may not be as “healthy” as a kale salad, sometimes our bodies and brains are just craving a nice sugary donut. And it’s important to listen to your body and eat foods that nourish you not just physically, but emotionally as well. So if you want that cookie, by all means, go ahead and enjoy it without feeling guilty!
Making room in our diets for our favorite treats (in moderation) is perfectly acceptable. I personally like the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the time you try to eat nourishing, well-balanced foods (leafy greens, fruits, lean meats, fish, nuts/seeds) and 20% of the time you can indulge your cravings (ice cream, pizza, chips, etc…). That way you are still consuming a large variety of nutritious food and drink, but still giving yourself the flexibility to enjoy the things you really love as well.
So how does all this relate to mental health? Well, aside from feeling good by eating well, studies also show that the food we eat can have a huge effect on our brain chemistry. Gut bacteria has been found to influence brain activity and mood, excess caffeine can sometimes worsen mood or even induce anxiety in high doses, and studies have shown a correlation between high-sugar diets and depression. I’m not saying this to scare you or to convince you that drinking coffee and eating ice cream are things you can never enjoy again - rather, I just want to point this out so you can be more mindful about what you are putting into your body. If you regularly drink 3 cups of coffee a day, maybe try to gradually dial it down and reduce it to 1 cup a day. Or instead of having dessert after dinner every night, try having dessert every other night. As with all things in life, I think you can still enjoy these treats in moderation and still have a good balance with maintaining your physical and mental health in parallel.
Sleep
Sleep is something that I believe is extremely underrated, but critically important. In today’s hectic and busy world, sometimes it’s difficult to get a good amount of sleep or get good quality sleep (there’s a difference! If you’re sleeping 8 hours a night but waking up every hour, you’re getting a lot of sleep, but it’s not very high quality). Sleeping well is just as important as eating well and working out regularly, because sleeping is when the brain actually has a chance to process and categorize the various events, thoughts, and emotions that we felt throughout the day. It’s well documented that sleeping has strong links to mental health and that getting good quality sleep can help manage mental health disorders like anxiety and depression.
For me personally - I try to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I know sometimes this can be difficult due to busy lives and hectic schedules, but I really try to view sleep as a cornerstone of my mental well-being, and put time aside to ensure I get that quality sleep that my body and mind need. This might mean shutting off Netflix early so I can go to bed on time, because even if I really want to watch that last episode, I know that getting enough sleep is an important priority for my mental health.
Meditation and Mindfulness
I had an entire blog post dedicated to this topic here, so I won’t go into much detail, but I believe having a regular meditation practice is essential for teaching yourself the skill of mindfulness, which is critical in OCD recovery and for mental health in general.
As I explained in my blog post, something that I do every day to help develop my mindfulness capability is practicing Mindful Meditation. Even if you only practice it for ten minutes each day, it really pays dividends if you can do this consistently! An example of how to practice this:
Get yourself in a comfortable position (sitting or laying down).
Close your eyes and take in several deep breaths, paying attention to the way your chest rises with each inhale and deflates with each exhale.
Keep your focus on the gentle rhythm of your chest as you inhale and exhale.
During this time, you may notice your thoughts drifting. If you’re anxious, you might notice yourself trying to fixate on that uncomfortable feeling, or trying to ruminate on ways to “relieve” that anxiety. If you notice that your focus is drifting, acknowledge that and gradually bring yourself back to focusing on the present moment (breathing deeply). The key here is to not get upset if you find yourself drifting. That’s OK! The point of mindful meditation is NOT to have zero thoughts - rather, it is to practice our ability to acknowledge thoughts and feelings that we may have, but still practice bringing ourselves back into the present moment.
Once you get into a good rhythm of breathing, gradually expand your focus to your other senses. With your eyes still closed, make a mental note of what you can hear, smell, and feel as you sit and breathe. Can you feel your skin rubbing against the fabric of your clothes? Can you feel any uncomfortable kinks in your muscles while you sit and meditate? What are all the noises you can hear in your current environment (this one always amazes me. When I’m not paying attention, I can think I’m in a completely quiet house, but when I start to mindfully meditate, I suddenly pick up on all these different noises in my home that I wasn’t paying attention to before, like the hum of my refrigerator or the gentle thrumming of my air conditioner).
Do this as long as you need to (generally I like to target about 10 min, but sometimes I do more and sometimes I do less. The important thing is to do it consistently, e.g. try to make an attempt at practicing mindful meditation every day). And again, whenever you find yourself drifting or recognize that your brain is trying to ruminate on some uncertainty or obsession, gently bring yourself back to focusing on the present moment and on what you can feel, hear, smell, or sense.
Mindset
And finally, the last key point I wanted to touch on is Mindset. I’ve covered this topic in great detail here, but generally, having a recovery focused mindset is critical for OCD recovery. Treat yourself like a mental health athlete - how much uncertainty can you accept today? How many compulsions can you eliminate? How long can you go embracing uncomfortable feelings like anxiety? These experiences and struggles may not be fun in the moment, but they go a long way towards building you up into a stronger and fitter mental health athlete, just like how a weight lifter gets stronger by lifting heavier and heavier weights.
In order to recover from OCD, you must practice ERP and approach your ERP exercises with the mindset of being a mental health athlete - how many triggers can you face today and still refuse compulsions? How many thoughts and fears can you think of in your brain and avoid ruminating on them? How many things can you do today even while feeling anxious? Improving your mental health and fitness is just like training your physical health and fitness - through structured practice and discipline, you can improve your brain’s capacity to refuse OCD compulsions and accept intrusive thoughts and feelings.
In order to recover from OCD, you have to accept and welcome the fact that there will be lots of hard workouts every single day for you to practice and improve upon. Instead of being afraid of triggers and intrusive thoughts, get excited by them! Welcome them as opportunities to improve your mental fitness and capacity, like a lifter welcomes the idea of lifting progressively heavier weights because he knows it will make him stronger in the long run!
In conclusion, when it comes to OCD recovery, ERP and ACT will lay the foundation for your recovery journey by teaching you the necessary skills, techniques, and habits to eliminate OCD compulsions and accept uncomfortable feelings like anxiety and uncertainty. Then, supplementing ERP and ACT with some of the good habits I’ve laid out here (good diet; regular exercise; sufficient sleep; practicing meditation and mindfulness; and having the right mindset) will set you on the right course for recovering from OCD in the long run, and building up your mental health and fitness to even stronger levels.
Before wrapping up, I do want to explain that one must be careful to not turn these habits into compulsions. Especially for OCD sufferers, it can be easy to turn something like exercise or diet into a compulsive behavior (i.e. I need to exercise each day, otherwise I will feel anxious, or I absolutely cannot have added sugar because that is “bad”). At the end of the day, use your best judgment - if you are doing something because you enjoy it and because it adds value to your life, that is an indicator that it is probably a good and healthy habit to have. If you are doing something simply to avoid feelings of anxiety or to control certain fears, that is a warning sign that a habit is potentially turning into an OCD compulsion. So I would encourage you to begin incorporating some of these habits into your daily life, but always be mindful of them as you go through your personal OCD recovery journey. Feel free to add or drop any of these habits as you see fit - again, the intent is not to say these are all mandatory for OCD recovery, because everyone will have different experiences and find different things that work for them. These are just some general tips which can be broadly applicable to anyone suffering from OCD - but feel free to incorporate them or disregard them from your lifestyle depending on how they work out for you.
As always, I hope you are having a great week and have the chance to build up your mental health and fitness skills this weekend!
Eric