I’ve read that cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the strongest and most robust ways to improve mental health so I used my number peg system to remember the Socratic questioning method.
- How do you feel?
- What is causing these feelings?
- What are the facts?
- What would a nice friend say
- What can you control?
- What can you not control?
- What will you do in the future?
It helps me to have some kind of fallback when I’m feeling stressed or like life is a mess. Tends to work best when I have some time to go over it. I also tried ranking different mental health exercises according to priority. When I’m going through a rough time And have lower mental bandwidth I found that cyclic sighing for 5 minutes had the quickest benefit for the least working memory. The science backs it up in Melis Yilmaz Balban’s study. “Breathwork improves mood and physiological arousal more than mindfulness meditation”
What mental tools have you used on a regular basis?