Mental Wellness Mastery: Mental Health Expert Melanie Williams On Everyday Life Hacks For Optimal Mental Wellness
An Interview With Eden Gold
Drinking a lot of coffee and energy drinks are normalized in our society but they are risk factors for bad mental health. I’ve seen many episodes of bipolar mania that were associated with high caffeine use. I’ve also had patients who have triggered psychotic episodes from abusing caffeine, and patients who have worsened their anxiety. If you’re going to consume caffeine, please consume it mindfully and not during times that can interfere with your sleep.
In our modern, fast-paced society, mental wellness is a crucial aspect of leading a fulfilling life. However, for many people, achieving and maintaining good mental health can be a challenging task, with obstacles such as stress, anxiety, depression, and more. That’s why it’s essential to have practical and accessible strategies for mental wellness that can help build resilience, emotional intelligence, and overall well-being. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Melanie Williams.
Melanie Williams is a Behavioral Health Administrator and an experienced Psychotherapist, LCSW-C. She’s provided therapy to adults, children, and families in the Baltimore region for nearly 15 years and she has experience in a range of settings, including Partial-Hospitalization Programs (PHP), Intensive-Outpatient (IOP), Outpatient, In-Home Services, and School-Based Mental Health. Melanie has provided mental health treatment for hundreds of individuals through top Human Service Organizations in Maryland, and most recently, she led a Behavioral Health Department for MedStar, the largest healthcare provider in the DMV area. Melanie’s also a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), holds certification in multiple therapy modalities, and she’s experienced in individual, couple, family, and group therapies. Melanie received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Amherst College and her Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work with a Mental Health Concentration from the University of Maryland. You can connect with Melanie through her website AuthorMelanieWilliams.com.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about Mental Wellness Life Hacks, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Sure; well initially, as a child, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. I have a passion for helping and I believed that caring for animals was going to be the path I used to contribute to the greater good of society. In fact, I felt so adamant about becoming a vet that I even stopped eating meat because, in my childhood logic, I couldn’t reconcile wanting to care for animals while eating them too.
Then one day, when I was about 11 years old, one of my family members wrote a suicidal note and left our house with a gun. That event was the iceberg that started to unveil to me the mental health issues residing right in my own home and in my community. I decided then that caring for people and their mental well-being was the most urgent priority for me; no longer animals. (This new career choice also fortunately did not create any ethical dilemmas in my diet lol).
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
This is a hard question because when working in Behavioral Health, every day is pretty interesting.
If I had to choose just one story, however, it would be when one of my patients, Ms. M., took an adventure of a lifetime! Ms. M. was a senior who was wheelchair bound and she was on an oxygen tank due to health complications of the past year. She’d been invited to take a trip, but she was very disheartened now about going due to her current health. I empathized with her, but I also challenged some of her limiting beliefs and encouraged her to explore the possibility. A couple weeks later to my surprise, when I called for our telehealth visit, she informed me that she was on the trip and that she was in line for a rollercoaster!
In reflection, I’m so glad that Ms. M. went & that I had the opportunity to support her travel dream. You see, unfortunately Ms. M. passed away several months later so if she had waited until her health improved, she never would have experienced it. Ms. M.’s life and her amazing journey reminds me to try to live more freely and authentically in the present. We can’t wait for everything to be right, because that time may never come.
You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Faith — I believe that faith, “the substance of things hoped for; the absence of things unseen” has been the most important quality over the course of my career. When I walked into the office the first day at my last organization, I literally walked into an empty room. No exaggeration — it was just an empty space! There were no chairs, no desks, no policies, and no programs; just a blank canvas that a small team and I were asked to shape. Faith allowed me to see past the uncertainty of the situation and to embrace the extraordinary opportunity. Now those empty rooms house 3 successful bustling behavioral health programs, and I could not be prouder of their progress or of the journey!
Respect — “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”-Martin Luther King Jr.
Time and time again over the course of my career, I’ve witnessed the power of showing respect to others. Respect has softened my disagreements with peers, furthered my communication with leadership, and most importantly, it’s earned trust and mutual respect from my patients. You’d be surprised at how often patients in behavioral health report being mistreated by professionals. “They look at a chart and make so many assumptions about you. They assume that you’re crazy, and that you’re lying.” Demonstrating non-judgmental and courteous behavior to all my patients challenges the stigma that traditionally surrounds mental health care, and hopefully expands our openness to addressing mental health issues one person at a time.
Commitment — I believe that being successful in the behavioral health field requires tremendous commitment. Healing can be a messy, long journey and therapists must be willing to persist with patients through the process in order to see change. It’s been one of my greatest honors and privileges, for example, to work with patients experiencing Major Depressive episodes and to see them emerge on the other side. Addressing chronic suicidality is likewise extremely difficult, but when someone regains their purpose for living, it’s extremely rewarding.
Providing therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic also required special commitment and sacrifice. We lived through shared trauma so while I was helping patients to navigate their fears, loss, and concerns, I simultaneously was managing my own. My mother had an ICU stay during that time and I lost several family members. I had to do the extra work of caring for myself so that I could be available to care for my patients and others.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview about mental wellness mastery. What is one often-overlooked daily habit that can significantly improve one’s mental wellness?
In my clinical practice and in the research, I’d say that exposure to light is one overlooked daily habit that can significantly improve one’s mental wellness. Opening your blinds during the day, spending time outside in daylight, and/or using a light therapy lamp if you’re in limited natural light are simple yet effective ways to help your mental health. The world’s largest study on light exposure was just done last year in 2023 and it showed that exposure to light during the day reduced the risk for many mental health illnesses, including less risk for Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, Psychotic Disorders, and for self-harm. The benefits of light exposure held true across socioeconomic groups and even worked for people who had bad sleep habits and for people who did not exercise.
How do you recommend individuals recalibrate their mental wellness after experiencing a significant setback or failure?
I’m familiar with this feeling and it can be a downer to say the least. I remember working with a patient one time whose family brought him in for symptoms of depression. He was a formerly active senior who had become a recluse. He met the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder and we started some of the normal treatments, including medication, but he just was not getting much better. He started looking back on his life one therapy session — sharing memories from his childhood, telling me about the day he met his wife, and reflecting on the moment that he became a grandfather. I wish that I had spent more time doing ‘life-review’ because although the patient was receiving all his medical care, he, unbeknownst to us, was also dying. His depressive symptoms were from his body slowing down.
The first and most important thing that you have do to after experiencing a significant setback or failure is to: (1) Come to Terms with the Loss. You must process and accept what has happened without avoidance or excuses. In simple nonjudgemental language, tell yourself what happened. For example, “I lost my job” or “I did not get the award.” “I did not pass the exam” or “get into my first-choice school.” “I made a mistake.” In my case it was, “I did not realize that my patient was dying.”
Next you want to try to: (2) Manage Self-Talk. Often there’s going to be a range of feelings such as shame, guilt, or despair accompanied by negative self-talk following a setback or failure. You have to realize that feeling bad about yourself will not help you at this point so try to mentally park negative self-talk on the backburner. The more that you feed negative judgements about yourself, such as “I’m dumb” or “I should have known better,” the more emotional you’ll become; the more emotional you are, the less rational and the less effective you will be. The rational part of your brain needs to be activated for you to heal from setbacks.
Once you’re able to acknowledge the loss and to manage your negative self-talk about it, you’re in a position to: (3) Identity the Lesson(s) and Coping Statements. Experience, of course, teaches us many things so you should reflect to see if there are any lessons to be gleaned from this setback. Maybe your setback teaches you about the value of preparation, about overconfidence, or lets you know about a skill you need. In my case, it spurred me to learn more about supporting dying individuals during the therapy process and to confront my aversion to death.
Sometimes there is not an obvious identifiable lesson from your setback but rather a reminder of important truths or principles. Common truths found in setbacks are the limits of your control; the inability to change others; and our limited power over time. The reality is that sometimes no matter how well prepared or how well qualified you are for something, it’s simply not the right time. It’s not the opportunity bookmarked for you at this time. Use the truth about your setback to create coping statements for yourself and repeat your coping statements as needed.
Lastly, identifying the lesson or truth from your setback can free you to (4) Give Yourself Grace and Move Forward. Now that you can objectively analyze what happened, instead of spiraling in regret, you have the power to make adjustments and to cope. Reminding yourself of other successes that you have had, as well as setting and accomplishing new small goals will help you to recover. The new goals you set can be in different areas than your original one, but they will still be effective. For example, if you experienced a job-related setback, you might set a personal health goal to go for a walk that day.
In your experience, what is a common misconception about mental health that hinders people from seeking help or improving their wellness?
Stop being afraid of receiving a mental health diagnosis!
In 2024, there are people who are still afraid of receiving a mental diagnosis. It is true, unfortunately, that a mental health diagnosis can affect some career opportunities, such as certain government clearances, and this should be changed. For most people, however, getting a mental health diagnosis is not as scary, or as uncommon, as you might think. Statistics tell us that almost 1/3 of adults in the US will meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder at some point during their lifetime; 1 out of 6 will experience depression; and nearly 1/4 of adults (23%) experienced a mental health condition in 2022. In places with greater risk factors, these numbers are even higher.
Some people continue to have the misperception however that experiencing a mental illness makes them ‘crazy.’ I’ve heard people make statements, almost bragging, that they “may be a lot of things but at least [they’re] not crazy;” or “I don’t have mental health issues; I know that I’m sane.” It’s as if they view a mental health diagnosis as revoking your sanity, and that is not true! We do not apply that irrational logic to any other health concern, so we shouldn’t do it with mental health either. Do we label our entire immune system as bad because we get a cold? Do well call our brains degenerate when we have a headache? Mental health and mental illness exist on a spectrum that affects us all. Mental health concerns are treatable and having a mental health disorder does not prevent you from having quality of life. There are millions of successful, fulfilled people who manage mental health disorders daily. During my graduate studies, I had the honor of having a professor who disclosed that she has Major Depressive Disorder and she shared tips on how she manages her illness professionally. I’ve gone on to work with colleagues and patients from all walks of life who also have a variety of mental health diagnoses, yet they continue to pursue purposeful and meaningful lives for themselves.
Can you share a transformative moment or client story that highlights the power of a specific mental wellness strategy?
Sure, I’ll go back to the light exposure that I mentioned earlier. Shift work (afternoon, evenings, or overnight) is a reality for many people. Evening and night shift hours can also seem particularly appealing to people who have bipolar or sleep disorders, as they believe that the hours fit right into their normal rhythm. However, limited exposure to daylight and a lot of exposure to light at night is shown to worsen mental health and to increase the risk for mental health disorders. I have a patient whose mental health plummeted when her work schedule was changed from dayshift to evening. On the evening shift, she had a lot of difficulty getting to sleep after work, so she stayed up until the early hours of the morning and then she slept through the day. She started becoming more confrontational with coworkers and a conflict with her manager almost escalated into her getting fired. She also had a serious car accident. One of my primary interventions with this patient was advocating with her employer to get her back on a healthy schedule for her mental health. When my patient returned to working dayshift, she was able to once again experience daylight that helped to reset her sleep schedule and her mood. She became a lot calmer and her work performance improved tremendously.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Everyday Life Hacks For Optimal Mental Wellness?”
Of course. There are some well-known lifestyle factors, like getting enough sleep, but I’ll review a few that people may be less familiar with:
1. Set A Daily Goal
Make it a routine to identify ‘Goal(s) of the Day’ every day. You should identify at least one goal that you can realistically accomplish that will provide you with a sense of productivity and achievement. You want to steer away from having too many goals, or far-fetched goals, because they will worsen your mood if don’t accomplish them. You may also break down larger goals into smaller daily parts. For example, “On Monday, I will work on one paragraph of this assignment.” “I will read 10 pages of this book.” When you establish a daily goal, you’re setting your brain up for a healthy release of daily dopamine that is a protective factor for good mental health. This practice of daily goal setting is one that I like to use in my therapy sessions, and it’s used in the Psychiatric Day Hospital and Intensive Outpatient Program that I formed. It’s also a simple yet highly effective treatment to help with Major Depressive Disorder.
2. Do an Enjoyable Activity Everyday
Everyday (yes everyday!) you should try to spend time doing at least one activity that you enjoy. The activity does not have to be big or take very long; the important thing is the quality. Examples of some daily enjoyable activities can include stepping outside for fresh air a few minutes during your break at work, playing cards, watching funny cat videos, or tuning into your favorite podcast. My favorite activities currently include sipping hot tea in the afternoon and sniffing my baby to see if she still has the new baby smell :)
3. Control Your Caffeine Intake
Drinking a lot of coffee and energy drinks are normalized in our society but they are risk factors for bad mental health. I’ve seen many episodes of bipolar mania that were associated with high caffeine use. I’ve also had patients who have triggered psychotic episodes from abusing caffeine, and patients who have worsened their anxiety. If you’re going to consume caffeine, please consume it mindfully and not during times that can interfere with your sleep.
4. Don’t Ignore Mental Health Symptoms Associated with Health
Pay attention to two commonly overlooked health issues that can impact mental health: Blood Sugar and Menstrual Cycles.
Blood Sugar: Many people do not realize how important blood sugar is to mood regularity. There’s a significant correlation however between mood disorders and uncontrolled blood sugar. People who have diabetes have a 50–100% higher risk of depression, and about 1 in 4 go on to develop the disorder. Also, over 50% of people with bipolar disorder are diabetic or pre-diabetic, and diabetes is strongly associated with schizophrenia. When you don’t control your blood sugar, you not only increase your risk of developing mental health disorders, but you also increase the difficulty in treating them. I’ve witnessed that patients who have blood sugar issues have longer mood episodes with more severe symptoms, even when they’re on psychiatric medication.
Menstrual Cycles: There’s a tendency for women to ignore mood changes that occur around their period, but Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is a real & treatable disorder. Significant mood fluctuations around one’s menstrual cycle can also impact bipolar disorder so you need to track your symptoms and inform your healthcare provider.
5. Get Moving
Exercise sounds like a dreaded word for some people; they equate it to grueling hours at the gym. The reality, however, is that exercise can consist of much simpler physical activity including walking and chair exercise. The latest research (BMJ, 2024) shows that exercises such as walking, yoga and strength training can be just as effective in managing some mental health disorders as medication. That’s a good reason to get moving!
What role does technology play in mental wellness today, and how can individuals leverage it positively without exacerbating mental health issues?
Technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to mental wellness today. There are a lot of positives that technology offers such as mental health apps, social community, and the advent of telehealth. We know, of course, of some of the dangers as well such as cyberbullying, provocative fake news, and the negative pressures of social media. Individuals must continue to use self-awareness and boundaries to successfully navigate technology. Before engaging with social media or its other forms, we should check in with ourselves and ask, “Do I have the capacity at this time?” If the answer is “No,” we can adjust our use accordingly. We should do this self-assessment process regularly, ideally daily and at minimum once a week.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
That’s a great question and my answer to it would be easy; it would be the movement that I’ve already started. I’m on a mission to make mental health more accessible to everyday people. After the events of the last few years, we’re in mental health crisis globally, but I understand that there will be some people who never step foot inside a therapy office. Healthcare costs and insurance issues are a barrier to some. Sociohistorical issues are barriers to others and even if more people wanted to seek mental health care, there are not enough providers to meet the demand. While the behavioral health system works on reforming, I’m charged to provide immediate access through sharing the mental health expertise that I’ve learned from my training and from my years of clinical experience. I call it “Demystifying Therapy.” There’s also been some great literature released recently on trauma, resiliency, and healing, but I think, unfortunately, the language used in some of these texts puts them out of reach for the general public. You shouldn’t need a Doctorate Degree, a Master’s Degree, or even a College Degree to care for your mental health. “Mental Health is Health” and access to clear, understandable ways to care for your mental health should be a right. These principles were the inspiration for my debut work, “For Parents Who Have Hurt Their Children.”
How can our readers further follow you online?
You can connect with me on social media, particularly on my LinkedIn, Melanie Williams LCSW-C, on Facebook, and on my website.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
It’s been an honor; thank you!
About The Interviewer: Eden Gold, is a youth speaker, keynote speaker, founder of the online program Life After High School, and host of the Real Life Adulting Podcast. Being America’s rising force for positive change, Eden is a catalyst for change in shaping the future of education. With a lifelong mission of impacting the lives of 1 billion young adults, Eden serves as a practical guide, aiding young adults in honing their self-confidence, challenging societal conventions, and crafting a strategic roadmap towards the fulfilling lives they envision.
Do you need a dynamic speaker, or want to learn more about Eden’s programs? Click here: https://bit.ly/EdenGold.
