Mental Wellness

Written By Ana Davis

Hello, friends…

I’m so glad you’re back. Today I want to talk about the mental wellness/joy/happiness branch of my wellness journey (if you missed my introductory blog post where I describe my three-pronged approach to wellness, you can read it here).

During this journey I have learned just how important mental health…and joy…and happiness are to my overall wellness. I’ve learned I have the power to regulate my thoughts and minimize negative reactions during the thought processes.

But let me back up a bit…because, in order to understand where I am today, you must first understand where I started.

A Bit About Me

I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness. That being said, it is important to note that I grew up in a time before the normalization of therapy and self-help. My first experience learning to manage stress occurred when I was about 13 years old, the year my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I had a good life and kept my nose clean. My grades, performance in athletics, and choices in friends were all good enough. I was polite, courteous, and family oriented. I worked hard and made a career for myself. No one, myself included, thought I required extra care.

But the body knows.

As Anthony says, the body bears the burden. I was not dealing with stress. Instead, I was unconsciously compartmentalizing it. I would go for 10-mile jogs. I spent a copious amount of time hanging out with friends. I traveled to exciting places and threw myself into my work. I did everything I could think of…except deal with the stress that was simmering under the surface. 

The result? I became an overworked case study on the effects of stress, who couldn’t unwind without the help of a couple of cocktails.

Some Guidance

With help I began to understand that my stress is my response to my environment, and that I must find ways to control my negative automatic thoughts. Once again, Anthony offers sage words of wisdom:

Remember…the right thoughts beget the right action beget the right outcome.

My response to the guidance? That I just need to stop my stress response. Immediately. If you’ve ever tried to break an ingrained habit, you understand—making such a seismic shift in thinking is a daunting task. How could I change 40 years of habitual thinking?

I decided, in addition to trying to stop negative thinking, why not try to do more things that promoted positive feelings and thoughts? So, I started doing more to make myself happy—things that make me smile, laugh, or feel that joyful flow of positive energy.

I decided to find joy in the work. 

I now engage in daily breathwork…Ujjayi breathing, to be exact. I make a point to come to my mat once a day, even if it is just for a single breath. It’s hard to believe a single breath has the power to open the door, but it absolutely does. Sometimes I stay for 5 minutes. Other days, breathwork can last close to an hour. 

In conjunction with Ujjayi breathing, I also practice the safe, gentle restorative yoga poses I learned in Anthony’s holistic health education courses.

I have taken up piano playing again for the sheer joy it instills in my soul. Full disclosure, I can’t play a single song. But I can follow a few lines of music, and I work with my husband who adds a fun beat. We sit in his office, having a great time making a joyful noise, tweaking and improving the sound as we go.

The husband and I also started playing tennis once again. There’s no better feeling than getting out in fresh, crisp morning air. The first time we hit the courts together, I sat down after an hour of playing tennis and realized this was the first time we’d played since my significant digestive issues started in 2020. I realized it was probably the first hour I had not thought about my digestive issues in over a year. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. My body was stable enough to play tennis (yay!) without any major symptoms. And we were together…in the gorgeous weather…just having fun. What a joy.

I also relish the time I get to spend with my nieces. They are the personification of joy! We tackle fun projects like having a tie dye day or while away the hours jumping on the trampoline together. I dare you to focus on negative thoughts while getting tossed around by your 8-year-old niece…it’s impossible!

But Why?

As promised in the previous post, I won’t just share with you my treatment recommendations. I also want to share the why. Why does shifting focus away from negative thoughts and toward that which brings joy matter?

Let’s look at the science.

I wanted to learn more about how the body responds to stress, namely through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. If you are a lover of scientific texts, you can read more about these systems by clicking here and here. 

Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) is made of two systems that basically counter each other—the parasympathetic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system. When we are stressed, our bodies respond with the “fight or flight” response, also known as the sympathetic nervous system. 

The impact of such a response is physical. When your “fight or flight” mode is engaged, it impacts your heart rate and causes constriction in your lungs, stomach, and intestines. For me, it leaves me feeling on edge and tense. I began to realize that, when I was tense, my muscles were always stiff, and I was holding onto some form of the fight or flight response at all times. I was living in a perpetual state of stress.

I learned that, if there is a stressor, my unregulated thought response can trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. I learned I need to bring awareness to my stress response and shift the polarity of my thoughts.

Additional reasons to deal with stress and negative thoughts:










Stimulation of the vagus nerve tells your body to rest and let go of stress, which can have a profound impact on your health and wellbeing. Engaging in breathwork, Ujjayi breathing, chanting, laughing, and meditation are just a few ways to stimulate the vagus nerve (if you’d like to learn more ways to stimulate the the vagus nerve, you can read about them here). Meditation in particular has been found to positively affect change in both the brain and immune function, though the world would certainly benefit from additional research on the topic.

And so…

As Anthony is so found of saying, the right thoughts beget the right actions, beget the right results. If I am to apply this to my life when the inevitable stressors arise, I must tailor it in a way that includes my commitment to shift focus away from negative thoughts and toward positive action.

For now, my version of Anthony’s wisdom looks like this:

Stressors beget positive thoughts beget positive actions beget positive results.

This seems to be working for me, and I have experienced improvement in both my mental and physical wellbeing.

And for that, my friends, I am profoundly grateful.

Until next time,

Hita




Ana Davis
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