Do More. Do Less.
The Simplest Mental Health Advice I Have Ever Learned
Life is complex, its demands manifold, and its challenges seemingly insurmountable. The notion that we could pare all of this down into two pithy statements is absurd.
But let's do it anyway: do more of what works and do less of what does not work.
When I started doing this, I began to have more of a fighting chance of improving and maintaining my own mental, emotional, and relational health.
Although life is complicated, some of its complexity can be mediated by paring things down to the back and white, the binary, to the simplest parts. Viewing and working with things at the simplest level may help us actually see the big picture more clearly. We need to see the trees in order to see the forest.
Countless times when I am working as a counselor I have found myself saying something to the effect of: “I know things are more complicated than either ____ or ____, but let’s just look at these as the only two options to see what we can come up with?” This, more often times than not, leads to some amount of insight being provided wherein we are able to chart a path forward through the complexity and into a place of clarity. I also needed to be reminded to do this as well.
If we want to feel better emotionally, mentally, and relationally we need to (1) do more of what works (even when we do not want to)and (2) do less of what does not work (even when we do want to).
Do More (Even When You Do Not Want To)
Counseling terms never cease to make me laugh. Whenever someone comes up with a new idea that is not all that new, they need to market it as a revolutionary new idea. To do so, they give an old idea a new name. This is how you sell books and market a new counseling model.
What I am talking about here is what counselors call “behavioral activation.” Behavioral activation is the fancy, counselor way of saying that you need to get up, get moving, and do something. If you are feeling depressed, you need to get up, get out, and go do the things that you enjoy — even when you do not want to.
During the days that we feel better, we want to go out and do the things that we enjoy because we desire to do them. Afterward, we feel even better than we did prior to doing whatever activity because we have just built upon and compounded our feel-good-neurotransmitters (i.e., dopamine and serotonin).
But what about our not-so-good days? What do we do then?
We tend to seek out joy-bringing activities from a place of joy. We are experiencing positive feelings prior to our actions. It is the positive feelings that give rise to positive actions. When we are feeling down, we have to flip this around. We have to pursue positive activities in order for us to experience positive feelings. The emotions will follow the actions.
When we experience depressive periods, we tend to isolate ourselves from other people. Perhaps because we feel vulnerable, perhaps because we feel like we have nothing to contribute but sorrow and we do not “want to be a bummer.” The danger, however, is that isolation only compounds depression.
We need other people to pull us out. We need to do the things that we enjoy in order to pull the joy out of us. We need to active the emotion by doing the activity even when we do not want to. If we do not, we will only delve deeper and deeper into depression. Of course, we may not experience the compounding effect as we do when we pursued joyful activities from a place of joy. We may, however, spark an initial sense of hope and joy that may be built upon later.
When we are feeling down, we need to do more of the things that will help to pull us up and out.
Do Less (Even When Do Want To)
Whether it is an evolutionary quirk, faulty wiring, or some combination of nature and nurture, when we are feeling down we seek out activities that only make us feel worse. When we are feeling isolated, we do more isolating behaviors. We binge Netflix, we self-medicate, we avoid people or the combination of all three. When we are depressed, we run to substances that dull us out even more. In an effort to suppress the “negative” emotions, we wind up suppressing all of our emotions. We need to remember that alcohol is cataloged as a depressant and not a stimulant.
When we are feeling down, we need to do less of these things that will inevitably make us feel worse — even when we want to do them.
This, of course, is not a revolutionary claim. Yet, when we are down it becomes less obvious to us and we need to be reminded of the simple truths. At our lowest, we do not have the capacity for complexity. We need to be reminded of the simple truths.
A religious writer, teacher, and leader named Karl Barth — who had written dozens of books and delivered hundreds of lectures and sermons on complex issues in theology and faith said this what he was asked to summarize all of his life’s work:
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
We need the simple, foundational truths in our lives because they are what the complex facts of life build upon.
In an effort to make this practical, I always ask my clients to think about and list their daily minimum requirements for emotional and relational health. I encourage people to think through this in as much of a holistic approach as possible: how much sleep do you need, how many meals, how much water, how much less caffeine, time spent with family/friends, length of time in prayer and meditation, and pages of a book read.
Once we have the list of minimum daily requirements, we have a baseline that we need to meet in order to maintain overall homeostasis. Building upon this I encourage people to think through what they need to do each day, each week, each month, each year.
A brief look into my own looks like this [this is obviously not exhaustive]:
- Daily, I need to go a long walk with my family (my dog insists on this one).
- Weekly, I need to read & write for pleasure (like I am doing now!).
- Monthly, I need to go to a bookstore even if it is just to browse (although my wife knows better than to think that I will just browse).
- Yearly, I need to visit friends or family that do not live nearby (this hopefully happens more than once).
These are the things that are non-negotiable for me if I am going to maintain a stable emotional and relational life.
Find What Fulfills You
I have been helped greatly by making a list of and striving to do all of the things on my minimum requirements list. Knowing that I need to do this list of things in order to simply function has also helped me be able to build upon it in seasons of life where I have been able to flourish.
Being able to build upon a firm foundation of overall emotional health allows us to see what works — what helps us — and then do more of it. Once you find out that reading truly relaxes you, you get the opportunity to delve into the wide, wonderful world of literature. Once you find out that you enjoy writing, you get to experiment with different styles, voices, and mediums (pun actually intended).
Establishing a baseline for our functioning is the first step towards flourishing.
