10 Days for Mental Health Free Online Course - Day 10

Well done for making it to Day 10! For your final day we’re going to introduce you to some new ideas and alternative therapies that have been proven to help mental health.

When you’re struggling with mental health it’s sometimes hard to change your thinking, but keeping yourself open to fresh ways of helping yourself is important. You might just hit on the very thing that changes your wellbeing for good!

Reiki

Below we have a wonderful video meditation which involves a Japanese healing therapy called Reiki. Reiki is currently being used in many hospices and children’s wards around the world as a way to combat stress during illness.

During the video you’ll be guided through a Reiki self treatment with photos of the hand positions. Don’t worry if you can’t do all the positions, you can just keep your hands wherever it feels most comfortable. Just keep yourself open to it and give it a go.

Mantras

When your brain is overwhelmed with stress, worry and fear then it’s very hard to get it to calm down and listen to reason. One way of doing this is to repeat something calming over and over.

Some people call repetitious phrases ‘affirmations’ or ‘mantras’. Chanting certain phrases provokes a healing vibration in the chest which is akin to a cat purring. Just as cats purr to soothe themselves, chanting a mantra can also soothe both our bodies and minds.

Chanting a mantra also stops negative brain chatter being able to wheedle its way into our minds. You can choose a phrase which is personal and positive or you can use one of the more well-known chants such as the word ‘Om’ which is extremely calming when you elongate the word for the whole of the exhaled breath. It symbolises the sound of the universe and is immensely calming and soothing. I find following this particular rhythm (with a big inhalation breath during the pause) calms my mind into a blissful state.

Loving Kindness

A lot of our stress comes from having to deal with other people. Take a look at our article on How to Deal With Difficult People which gives some excellent advice about how to turn round problematic relationships.

But most of us find that the hardest relationship we have is with ourselves. We have a special meditation below to say thank you for completing the #10Days with us. It’s called ‘Loving Kindness’ and it’s to remind you that when you’re struggling with mental health issues it’s really important not to beat yourself up about any of this. Be good to yourself, and show yourself a bit of kindness. Look on yourself as a child learning to walk. You wouldn’t berate a child when it’s learning, or tell it off if it falls down. Just remind yourself of who you were as a child and treat yourself kindly. And have faith in yourself. You can do this.

So to thank you from the bottom of our hearts, this is just for you…..

So congratulations - you have successfully completed the 10 Day Course! We hope you received some benefit from it and learned some new techniques to keep your mental health in check.

The course will always be here for you online so you can return to your favourite practices again and again while you become familiar with the methods and work out a daily mental care plan for yourself.

Or you want to find out more about the science behind all these techniques, you can access the 10-week free online mental wellbeing course. As well as getting tip sheets and advice from our therapist and senior psychiatric nurse, the course goes into much greater detail about all these methods - plus extra ones! - while walking you through an extensive week-by-week process to really get to the heart of your stress and worries.

© copyright 2020-2022. ‘LightHearts UK 10 Days for Mental Health Course’ by Katya Jezzard-Puyraud & Liz Axham