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Health is more than just diet and nutrition and how you look in the mirror. In order to live your best life, taking care of your mental health is crucial. Your mental state allows you to feel good about yourself, be confident to live the life you want to, and have positive, enriching relationships.

Kevin Curtis is a licensed clinical social worker with University Neuropsychiatric Institute. He suggests asking yourself three questions to assess the state of your mental health:

• Are you having thoughts that are useful to you?
• Are you having thoughts that impact your ability to function?
• Is your emotional state supporting or hindering achieving your goals?

Kevin is joined on this episode by his friend Ben. Ben works at the University of Utah and considers himself a regular guy who has been working with professionals to improve his mental health over the past decade.

Ben admits that he's not the paragon of mental health, but feels tons better than he was 10 years ago. He's learned a few tools and techniques that have helped improve his mental health over the past 10 years. He shares the three tools he feels were the most helpful for him.

1. Box Breathing/Tactical Breathing
   The way you feel during an emotion is ultimately a physical response. The increase in heart rate when anxious. The flush of blood to the face when angry. These physical changes can start a feedback loop with your emotional state that can lead to an overwhelming response.

   To help keep your mind calm when feeling stressed, Ben focuses on his breathing. He will breathe in for a count of four. Hold that breath for a count of four. Breath out for a count of four. Pause for a count of four. Repeat as necessary. This is called "box breathing."

   This breathing technique allows you to shift your mind to a physical response rather than an emotional one. It changes the way your body feels, and in turn is able to help make the emotion feel less overwhelming.

   Tactical breathing uses the same four-second breathing technique but removes the pauses between breaths. This alternative will provide the same benefit, but is best used in a situation when you need to be able to breathe regularly.

2. Check fo BLAST(H) Conditions
   We've all had a friend, partner, or child in our lives that make poor decisions or are particularly irritable because something more physical is going on. It's sometimes easy to see exactly why another person is stressed, but hard to recognize it in yourself. As such, Ben's second technique takes a personal inventory of the following if you are feeling overwhelmed:

   B: Bored
   L: Lonely
   A: Angry
   S: Stressed
   T: Tired
   H: Hungry

   If these "BLAST" conditions are present, recognize they may be having an impact on your emotional state.

   A good step to improve your mental health is to adopt strategies and daily habits that will keep you out of these conditions as often as possible.

3. The Reach Out
   While professional help can be an integral part of your mental health strategy, it's also important to build a network of support and "emotional scaffolding" with people in your life and network.

   "The Reach Out" is a technique that aims to build and strengthen your connection with others. If you are feeling down, or upset about a situation, reach out to two people you trust. These people can be friends, family, coworkers. Take the opportunity to tell them what is going on in your life and how you feel about it. Explain that you are not seeking solutions to your problems, but rather you are merely reaching out to let them know what you are experiencing.

   By expressing vulnerability without setting an expectation, you are inviting these people to join a network of support without placing pressure on them. Additionally, by reaching out and getting personal, you are inviting the possibility of sharing a meaningful interaction that can deepen the bonds you have together.

In times of stress, be sure to take care of your mental health. These tips may help maintain and improve your day to day mental resiliency. However, if you are experiencing overwhelming feelings of depression or contemplating self-harm or suicide, reach out to a professional.

For people in Utah consider the Crisis Intervention Services at University of Utah Health. Talk to Us

If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, email us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Interviewer: A happy lifestyles goes a long way. What are some of the steps you can take to promote and protect your mental health? That's coming up next on The Scope.

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Interviewer: We're talking with Dr. Jason Hunziker from the University of Utah. Dr. Hunziker, first of all what is mental health and why should I even be paying attention to it?

Dr. Hunziker: Mental health and mental well being is something that I think we all take for granted and think it's just going to happen, but it really doesn't. I think mental health and mental well being is how you feel about yourself every day and how you look at the world and how you feel the world looks at you. So it's always important to address that every day, to do certain things to kind of help yourself continue to enjoy the life that you have and attain those goals that you've set for yourself.

Interviewer: What things can affect my mood and my emotion, because I'm just going to wake up and think it's going to be a good day and I'm going to be happy and things don't go well and you get upset? Ultimately what affects your mood?

Dr. Hunziker: Well pretty much everything affects your mood. Unfortunately in our environment and in our society today we have created things that we had hoped would help our lives be easier and better and move along quicker, but at the same time what we're finding out is that it causes a lot of disconnect between people. We don't talk as much as we used to talk because we don't have to. Instead of calling on the phone anymore to talk with somebody we just send them a text message, or instead of writing a nice letter to somebody we just send them a quick email. And those things, that disconnection from people is one way that we see the destruction of people's well being and good outlook.

Interviewer: So connectivity with the people around you is definitely one of them. How about my diet; does that affect anything?

Dr. Hunziker: Clearly your diet is really important.

Interviewer: Not just my physical state, but also my mental state as well.

Dr. Hunziker: Definitely. If you're eating unhealthy, which we tend to do, again I'm going to go back to the society and how we're moving so quickly. We don't take the time to eat breakfast, because, oh we'll just swing by McDonalds...

Interviewer: Or just grab a banana.

Dr. Hunziker: ...and get a McMuffin or something. And then the next meal is fast food as well, and pretty soon what we've done is we've added all these empty calories that aren't available for your body to use. And then we end up hurting ourselves in the long run.

Interviewer: Is it as easy just to say, eat a good diet, or are there certain foods that I should be looking for and say, okay, this is going to help my brain be happy.

Dr. Hunziker: I think that the way that they have set up the calories and the nutrition that they think is good for us in this country I think is a fairly good way to look at that. If we're eating carbohydrates and fats and protein with every meal, I think we're going to be okay.

Interviewer: A good balance.

Dr. Hunziker: But we need to have a good balance, and that's our problem, because I would rather have three donuts in the morning than a good sensible breakfast.

Interviewer: But you can't do that though.

Dr. Hunziker: No we can't; otherwise that changes a whole bunch of things in your life. Along with the good diet I think though is an exercise program as well. And what I mean by that is I don't think you need to be at the gym three or four times a week. But I think what you need to do is make sure you're getting physical activity of some type every day.
Most of our jobs anymore seem to be sitting down. We don't spend a lot of time moving around from one place to the next because we have everything we need right in front of us. So parking a long way away from the door to your office and walking in is helpful. Trying to take the stairs when you can is helpful. Some people wear pedometers on their belt and they shoot for 10,000 steps a day to make sure that they're getting some type of exercise.

Interviewer: People always say it's good to talk about your feelings. How good is it to talk about my feelings?

Dr. Hunziker: I think it's really good to talk about your feelings.

Interviewer: But who do you talk about them with?

Dr. Hunziker: Well I think that's up to you. I think you want to find somebody who you trust and who you feel like will listen to your feelings and then help you deal with those issues. If that can be your significant other that's even better, because opening up communication between partners is another way to enhance your well being. But if that's not going to be helpful, there are therapists out there that are there for you to help you discuss those things that you need help with so that you can keep your mental health elevated. You don't have to wait to be severely depressed or severely anxious or to have marital problems or financial problems to go see a therapist.

Interviewer: So in talking to you I just realized I have a terrible mental health wellbeing. I don't eat a good diet, and I don't communicate with people very well. I don't keep in touch. I don't do all these things that you should be doing to keep a well balanced mental health. What are some tips to improve this?

Dr. Hunziker: Focus on the one thing that you think might be impairing you the most, and then make a change in that first. Start by eating breakfast every morning and maybe set something out the night before so it's already to go. Maybe take a healthy meal with you to work so that you don't end up just running and grabbing something.

Interviewer: Keep something on your stomach.

Dr. Hunziker: Exactly, or just not eating at all. And then make that change first and then move on to your next thing that you want to do to help you feel better.

Interviewer: What are the three things that you think are most essential to a healthy mental well being?

Dr. Hunziker: That's a great question. I don't know if there are just three things, but I would say that the things we have talked about; I think if you want to stay healthy we have to take care of your physical body, your mind, and make sure that everything is working together. A healthy diet is going to go a long way to improve your mental health as well as your physical health. And that's going to help you get where you need to be. Exercise always is a way to increase the way you feel about yourself, and those around you, and that helps you improve. Getting excellent sleep is very important, because if you don't have good sleep you are not going to function.

Interviewer: What is a good amount of sleep, because I feel like it's different for everybody. I'm getting like two hours of sleep a night, and that's not good I'm assuming.

Dr. Hunziker: No, we have medications for that if you need something. Yes, two hours of sleep is not healthy. There are going to be problems if you continue to function on two hours of sleep. I think you're right; there are some variations in what people do need for sleep, but for the most part it is recommended that a good healthy eight hours of sleep a night is a way to keep yourself moving forward and being healthy. You should try to do things on a schedule so that you go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time and have a nice routine that you go through so that you can then promote a more healthy well being.

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