Mental Health - Notes
As part of my #weeknotechallenge I have decided to challenge myself to doing a different style of weeknotes every week.
Today is weeknote #36
The many other weeknotes in the challenge are linked below, i hope that even one of them will inspire someone to write or do something differently with their weeknotes/blog in future.
‘Traditional’ Weeknotes , Gif-Notes , Sketch-Notes, Shanty-Notes, Week-quotes, Animal Crossing — Notes , Poster — Notes, Haiku — notes, Achievement — notes, Hanami — notes, Meme — notes, Retro — notes, Comic — notes, Story — notes, Slang — notes, Tweet — notes, Blog — notes, Hansai — notes,Show & Tell — notes, Taskmaster — notes, Lyrical — notes, Rap — notes, Wellbeing — notes,Football — notes, Superhero — notes,Hot or Not — notes, Olympic — notes, Lesson — notes,Hamilton — notes,Poké — notes,Limerick — notes,Lil’ — notes,Emoji — notes,Bin it off — notes,Festival — notes
This week i am talking all about Mental Health. Last week
wrote this piece and designed this incredible image.He talked about his experiences with Dyslexia and encouraged so many people to open up and talk about their challenges. This really inspired me to be really open with my weeknotes this week.
In the Digital team we all strive to be open and transparent with our work. This helps build trust, understanding and means we can share learnings with our colleagues.
Its also part of the design principles by GDS that we use as guidance for our work:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles#make-things-open-it-makes-things-better
Writing weeknotes is a part of being open,sharing process, thoughts and reflections to everyone, to aid with collaborative working. One thing that can sometimes be hard is being fully open. Talking about your feelings and talking subjectively rather than always objectively.
Inspired by
i want to talk about some of my experiences in an open fashion whilst also maybe prompting a discussion on mental health and wellbeing.Overthinking
One thing i have challenges with (not even sure is challenges is the right word) is overthinking. My mind normally wanders a lot in a more positive creative way but sometimes it has a mind of its own (pun intended) overthinking can really effect your ability to focus and leaves your mind wandering to areas you really don’t want/have time to explore.Which can result in slowly deteriorating your mental health.
I don’t want to think back to a conversation I had last year with someone wondering if they hate me or they just put up with me as I am trying to get to sleep or finish a piece of work
Quite often the inner thoughts can result in things like:
- ‘Did I just upset that person or am i overthinking?’
- ‘Am i coming across correctly or am i overthinking?’
- ‘Am i being annoying? Shall i be quiet or am i just overthinking?’
- ‘Did i misinterpret that message or am i overthinking it?’
You get the idea…
Although most would say that i come across as confident it can often be a ‘fake it till you make it sorta thing’. I wasn’t always like this, when i was younger i could barely walk into shops to ask for things because i was cripplingly shy and anxious. A lot of that faded with work and getting out of my comfort zone doing musicals and drama performances at school but deep down the lack of confidence can still creep up sometimes.
Lots of people have that little voice in their head. Sometimes it can be a gut feeling talking to you or coming up with some solution/creative idea. But when its overthinking or getting anxious the best thing to do it ignore it. Block them out or distract yourself.
I know i know, saying to ignore is a bit like telling someone with depression just to smile and be happy.
But it really is the best thing to do. Otherwise you will get yourself tangled in knots or going down rabbit holes of thought that don’t really matter.
Bojack horseman had a great episode on how anxiety and depression can be really impactful on people’s lives and the realities of when you get stuck inside your own head. Overthinking is only one aspect of this and it’s really important to raise awareness of Mental Health so people can seek help and improve their wellbeing.
*Warning there is some colourful language*
Taking back control
Here is a great and thought provoking (pun intended) Ted Talk i like about overthinking and taking back control.
It’s such an alien concept to me that you can actually control your own thoughts and not let them control you, whether that is coming up with ideas or the day in day out voice in your head.
How to stop your thoughts from controlling your life | Albert Hobohm | TEDxKTH
Directing your thoughts to be constructive is such an incredible skill to develop and is one i am going to try working on!
Also, whilst doing the research for this weeknote i have found out that some people don’t even have that voice in their head they just use shapes or images in their mind to think… that is literally MIND BLOWING! (i gotta stop it with these puns)
Getting help
If you think you need help there are lots of ways to find it. Lots of great resources available online i found when i was doing some reserach:
There is also some advice that i have put down below about who you surround yourself with. In many ways it is a lot like digital and design, it might be a long journey but regardless of the size as long as you are taking steps along it you are making progress.
Wrap up
Thanks for reading this far! I hope you found this interesting or thought provoking. This was partly talking about my experiences, partly talking about others and partly talking about getting help and changing habits.
I found is refreshing to write about something like this to mix things up as part of the #weeknotechallenge. I might do another on procrastiation because i have the attention span of a peanut at the moment!
Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading and i will end with this good piece of advice i found online.
Sam out.
