Mental Health Awareness Means So Much More Now

It's not just about recognizing the symptoms and reducing the stigma associated with mental health conditions

Photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “mental health awareness”? I used to think it referred solely to efforts to educate people about and reduce the stigmas associated with mental health conditions.

Now I define that phrase much more broadly. It includes being aware of my thoughts and feelings and what I can do to cope with or change them. It also includes sharing information and practices that have improved my mental health and could help others improve theirs.

I've read many books and watched a lot of webinars about mental health. My most exciting recent discovery is the work of Dr. Rick Hanson, a Buddhist psychologist. His Hardwiring Happiness book has opened my eyes to a whole new level of mental health. Even better, it’s taught me how to get to that level. I’ve added it to the “top five” list in my mental health bookshop. Dr. Hanson’s other books are included in the “Books by Medical and Mental Health Experts” list.

Hardwiring Happiness is a remarkable book. It goes far beyond the usual advice to notice negative thoughts, challenge them, and replace them with positive or neutral ones. It emphasizes the importance of happy experiences instead.

Dr. Hanson compares the mind to a garden with soil that is more fertile for weeds than for flowers. Because our ancestors needed to pay more attention to negative possibilities than positive ones to survive, our minds now do that by default. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that was once quite useful.

But now we’re less likely to face immediate threats to our survival. We usually deal with bad news from around the world and challenges in our lives that we can’t quickly resolve or recover from. So it’s harmful instead of helpful to anticipate and instantly react to every possible threat.

Dr. Hanson teaches a simple process to overcome our mind’s negative bias. It includes immersing ourselves in positive experiences for at least 10 - 20 seconds as often as possible. As he explains, “Whatever we repeatedly sense and feel and want and think is slowly but surely sculpting neural structure … Day after day, your mind is building your brain.”

Dr. Hanson goes on to discuss the implications of that:

If you keep resting your mind on self criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress, then your brain will be shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations toward anger, sadness, and guilt.

On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions (someone was nice to you, there's a roof over your head), pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities, then over time your brain will take a different shape, one with strength and resilience hardwired into it, as well as a realistically optimistic outlook, a positive mood, and a sense of worth.

His message is one of hope and empowerment. He wants everyone to realize that, “Bit by bit, synapse by synapse, you really can build happiness into your brain.”

This is only a small taste of the wisdom shared in Hardwiring Happiness. The book explains in detail how to not only notice but create and absorb positive experiences. It provides prompts to help you do that. It summarizes brain functions and research findings in terms you don’t have to be a neuroscientist to understand.

It has already changed my life, and I truly believe it could change yours!