Looking After Your Mental Health with Asha Gill

by Caryl Teh

In conjunction with World Health Day on 10 October 2020, YTL Construction organised a lunch session with life coach Asha Gill called “I’m Okay, Thanks”. The session aimed at shedding some light on the importance of mental health and guidance on how to look after your mental wellbeing. We wanted to share some of the big takeaways from the session with those of you who weren’t able to attend.

1. Meaning: The “mental health” misconception

First, Asha set the record straight: what is “mental health”? By a show of hands, most participants thought that having mental health means that we’re either positive or depressed all the time. That’s a misconception. Mental health is actually just like physical health – it’s something we all have. Whether it is in good or bad shape, however, is a different, and more important question.

How can we build better mental health? Asha introduced a handy acronym: ARC – awareness, recalibrate, and cause change. As with any physical ailment, we have to know the cause of a problem to create change. So let’s jump into it.

2. Awareness

It’s important to recognise that when we feel flustered, the cause is often something from inside us, not outside. Our mind tends to run ahead of us with countless thoughts whizzing through our head so quickly that we fail to see how our own thoughts often affect and amplify what we feel.

Being aware of this can help you stop yourself from spiralling down into depression valley.

Can you recall a time when you were in a heated disagreement with a colleague? Do you remember feeling the pressure gradually build up in your brain until you wanted to explode or erupt like a volcano? And the one thing that screams in your desperate mind is “Get away from me!”

When you think that, you are pushing the power & responsibility of improving your mental state on your colleague. If you need to disengage from the situation because your brain has reached capacity, why not you walk away instead of being upset that your colleague isn’t complying to what you want them to do? Your mental health is your responsibility.

3. Recalibrate

Recalibrating is about taking a step back from the stressful situation to “clear your head”, as you often hear. Change the space that your head is in.

3.1 Take a “smoke break”

Rather than continually apologising to the person you’re arguing with, just explain that you need a minute to decompress so that you can handle the situation better.

Go somewhere with no one around and swear. You’ll be amazed how much calmer you’ll feel after that.

3.2 Have a cup of tea in your head

We all have that one favourite beverage that helps us kick start, get through, or wind down our day. Green tea, latte, Starbucks Frappuccino, Cantina’s cold brew, to name a few.

The next time you’re stuck on a task that you’re tackling on your own, e.g. a bug in your code that you’ve been trying to fix for hours but nothing seems to work, and you can’t actually go to the shop or kitchen to get that drink, try this mental exercise:

Close your eyes, and take your time to walk yourself through the entire process. Let’s say your go-to drink is a black coffee. Imagine yourself walking to the kitchen, the aroma of your freshly-brewed coffee wafts into your nose as the hot water drips over the beans. You can already feel your mind & body calming down. You pick up your coffee mug, it feels warm in your hands. As you take your first sip, you feel the hot coffee going down your throat and warming your stomach. You take another deep sniff of caffeine – inhale, exhale.

Feel better? Hopefully that helped make your head feel calmer & clearer now.

3.3 Deal with the job first, and the person later

But what if you’re the event organiser and you have a spat with a teammate? This is not a situation where you can just walk away and take a smoke break. The end goal is to make the event run smoothly. So deal with the job first, and the person later.

After the event is over, have a post-event meeting to debrief. The purpose of this meeting is not to place blame, but rather to identify where along the pipeline the pipe broke, and how this can be avoided in the future.

4. Cause change

The following suggestions are more effective when practised as habits.

4.1 Make a sh*t-list at the end of each day

Take 1 minute to write down ALL the negative thoughts you’ve had throughout the day. Get it out so that you can let go and your subconscious won’t hold a grudge.

4.2 Make use of your commute

When we feel bogged down by or stressed out about something, our body changes. Sometimes, all it takes is straightening up your posture to feel better. Smiling and laughing can have the same effect on your mental health. So find a comedy podcast that makes you laugh. And if you’ve had a stressful day at work, listen to that podcast on your way home.

4.3 Take your gratefulness to the next level

You’ve heard of gratefulness journaling – write down 3 things that you’re grateful for each day. Research has shown that this drastically improves brain neuroplasticity and neuro pathways.

But Asha encouraged us to also take it a step further: delve deeper, and use more specific language to write down not just the what but also the why. For example, don’t just stop at “I’m grateful for my morning coffee”, but continue and say “because it makes me feel calm and energised for my day.” This could help you understand yourself better.

4.4 The 8-hour sleep challenge

Your ability to cope with stressful situations can be remarkably improved by simply getting enough rest. The 8 hour-sleep challenge is a commitment to get 8 hours of sleep every night.

Regardless of whether you believe this or not, Asha recommends that you just try it for 2 weeks. Create your own record, like a daily journal, to track your mood and how well you’re handling stressful situations.

5. Conclusion

We hope you’ll find these tools helpful. These are only a handful of nuggets of wisdom that Asha Gill shared during the session. Remember, only you can look after your mental health by ensuring that you are practising healthy habits. So start taking control of your mental wellbeing today.