Wellness is a Well-Trodden Path
26 December 2021 | Neha Chaudhuri, Mihika Dhok
Cornered
All things are difficult before they are easy. - Proverb
Depression, anxiety and performance related pressures at work or in student life are not new phenomena. Yet when people talk about mental health these days, they seem to imply that mental health is a precarious entity independent of a person's immediate environment, physical capacities or social relationships. That the resolution to mental health problems is to talk to experts.
But, what if you're not there yet.
You're not sure what is wrong. You're not even sure why you're unhappy.
And you have trouble expressing or pinpointing the matter.
What if all you know is that you keep looking for evidence of doing better but do not find it? You observe that you slip faster than before into a miasma of anger or frustration every time you face a failure.
How do you get out of having been cornered into silence? Where do you restart the process of expressing what seems difficult to put into words?
Where do you begin, so that ten or twenty-one days later, you are capable enough to express your situation or state of mind to a friend, a family member, or even an expert on mental health?
Starting Small - Reading the ABC's Yourself
A good book is like a pot of gold. - Proverb
People across generations have experienced loneliness, disconnection, doubt, desire, struggle and hardship. Pressures and forces beyond our control or power have always existed. Over the ages and in all religions, specific daily regimens have been used to combat such forces and develop resilience, self-sufficiency and integrity in individuals. These different daily regimens have led to diverse lives: of saints, warriors, householders, scientists, professionals, artists or tradesmen.
Whether Eastern or Western, these systems are founded on a daily routine that follows the human body’s biological rhythm in alignment with the natural regularity of sunlight and darkness or moonlight. Our most common actions, across history, nationalities, races and genders linked to this natural rhythm are:
- Waking up
- Getting out of bed
- Going back to bed at night
- Sleeping
Since we wake up every day, we get out of bed every morning, we brush our teeth, and every night we fall into bed, these actions become the easiest to take for granted. But like the spine of a sturdy hardbound book, they hold the pages of our life together and can absorb a lot of wear-and-tear before we notice the need for mending.
The First Page - Action As Transformation
I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. - Proverb
Each morning is a new opportunity, a blank page and each micro-action - from opening your eyes, making sense of your surroundings, swinging your feet off the bed, pulling your torso up and feeling the floor beneath your soles – is like preparing to flip a page, take a pen and start writing.
Noticing these micro-actions, paying attention to them while breathing normally, will cause your thoughts to slow down, and cultivate awareness. Slowing your mind is the best self-therapy. It builds silent awareness, which is the first step to enabling the understanding of one's own predicament.
Good sleep is essential to the cultivation of this silence. Reverse engineer your day, if need be, to ensure a watertight before-sleep routine.
Winding down at the end of the day requires something around two hours, since the measure of discipline that sleeping on time requires often conflicts with our ambitions.
There's enough information linking organ health, emotional stability, productivity etc. to visual charts of the bio-rhythm that you can look up if interested. This information essentially has roots in older non-written (i.e. oral), only practice-based Indian Knowledge Systems that emphasize the value of action, repetition and the body’s capacity to overcome psycho-emotional states through action, fortifying mental, emotional and physical health.
Reaching out to others comes later, when we are able to generate expression.
Sanding Down the Edges - Reading a Chapter
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Proverb
Modern medicine has broken down the physical, emotional and psychological aspects into separate parts to be treated. Yet, a human being is the sum of all these. Hence, positive psychology, cognitive therapy, authenticity and engagement development, evolving the growth mindset, emotional resilience, and physical improvement have become separate things to pursue during the day.
But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The day is one - its start is one and open to all, as is its end.
Latest self-help books like BF Fogg's Tiny Habits, Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habits and James Clear's Atomic Habits illustrate evidence from various scientific fields to support why habits and repetition of certain habits are transformative for your mental health, physical health and surrounding environment. What can be added from the vast Eastern pantheon of wisdom into this cauldron of eternally-produced knowledge is the ability to effect transformation through awareness.
There is a basic narrative song we have about ourselves. It is a song we have acquired through history and culture; often patched up, received from others and added to our notes to make our own. We run it over and over in our heads when faced with exceptional decisions or choices, so that we can choose actions that 'someone like us' will undertake.
When we begin to practice observation of micro-actions around waking up, getting out of bed and getting back to sleep, that base level narrative is interrupted because these actions are organically repetitive, and equal to all. Everybody undertakes these actions.
Corners to Circles - Conquering Sections
Pain is the best instructor but no one wants to go to his class. - Choi, Hong Hi
The psychophysical state has a base stable level and the ego tries to maintain that base level even if that stability means to repress, break off, numb down parts of us. So resistance is inevitable when change happens. With awareness, we can voluntarily bring about change.
Hence, it is essential to anticipate change – pleasant or unpleasant - when you face whatever you think you are, and accept before you can un-repress, ex-press, release and ultimately gain the flexibility to flip the base narrative currently inhabiting you. The way to begin this is to take an extra 30 minutes so you can wake up slowly, get out of bed with awareness and come back to bed on time.
Over time, you begin to sand down the edges of exaggerated perception and witness what is unique to you in these actions. Over time, repressed emotions, feelings, thinking patterns that define a person’s psycho-emotional-physical state get disturbed since they are coming into view through awareness. This subtle change happens in silence, in your own company, without intervention from anyone.
Circles to Spirals - Your Own Book
Freedom is what we do with what is done to us. - Sartre
You're not sure what is wrong or why you're unhappy.
And you don't think this needs to be talked about just yet.
How do you gain self-sufficiency in setting right the balance for yourself, one day at a time?
Waking up early in the morning need not depend on your doubt, unhappiness, or lack of ability to express your anxiety. You do not need to wait until you are regularly burning with anger to set right your sleep routine.
Waking up and going to bed at the same time everyday need only be a decision you make to see what happens at the end of the next 10 - 21 days.
Set these up, pay attention to each micro-action for the first and last thirty minutes of your day. They're the only trigger you need to begin reaching out to others.
Ms. Neha Chaudhuri is part of a new Department Alumni and Corporate Relations Outreach Initiative. You can get in touch with her at eeacr.iitb@gmail.com.