Your environment and the people you surround yourself with can have a significant impact on your mental health. And you need to be able to recognize when a situation or interaction is negatively impacting your mental health. Because once you are able to recognize the impact your environment is having on your mental health, then you can learn to change your environment, begin to grow as a person, and begin working on improving your mental health. The following quote sums up this sentiment nicely:
“You cannot heal in the same environment where you got sick.” – Unknown.
Recognizing Situations and Interactions Negatively Impacting Your Mental Health
Oftentimes, people are unaware how much an environment can impact their mental health. Just recognizing this, is the first and a very important step in the process of improving your mental health.
You need to learn to take stock of how different situations, different interactions, and different people make you feel. When you first enter a room, try to pause for a few seconds and listen to your mind and body. Try to describe in your mind how you feel. Are you scared, nervous, anxious, excited, etc.? And you want to try to do the same thing when you enter into different types of interactions or interact with specific people. This can be difficult to do in social situations, so just try to make a quick mental note about what you are feeling. Then try to jot down a few notes about it when you have the opportunity. By taking notes, you will likely begin to see some patterns forming over time. And this will help you to identify some of your environmental triggers.
Find a Healing Environment
Once you are able to identify your triggers, you can begin working on how to make changes to your environment to help improve your mental health. Some changes will be pretty easy to make. For example, if a person you have been spending time with makes you feel bad about yourself and you are not required to spend time with that person, then you can just decide to no longer do so.
But if that person is a coworker and you are forced to interact with them regularly, then you will need to consider your options. You may want to have a conversation with the person, telling them how you are feeling in a kind, constructive manner, and ask them to change their behavior that is negatively impacting you. Or if you are more comfortable taking a less direct approach, you may need to consider having a conversation with your human resources (HR) department to ask for advice and their assistance in resolving the issue. If getting your coworker to change their behavior isn’t working, you may then need to consider changing your environment altogether. You may want to see if there are opportunities for you to change to a different department where you would have less interactions with the person of concern, or you may need to consider changing jobs altogether.
If You Can’t Change Your Environment, Change Your Mindset
Unfortunately, there is not a one-size fits all solution to changing your environment. And in certain situations, you may not be able to change your environment. You may be stuck right where you are, unable to resolve your issue. In this type of situation, you may have to learn to change your mindset. This can be one of the most difficult changes to make, as it can take time, patience, practice, and in most cases help from a mental health professional.
Mental Health Counselors Can Help You Make Changes to Improve Your Environment
Dr. Alyx MacTernan, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor can help you to identify situations and interactions that are negatively impacting your mental health. She can help you build a plan for changing your environment and give you tools to help you manage these types of situations better. And if necessary, she can teach you coping mechanisms or help you adjust your mindset so that certain situations or interactions have a less negative impact on you.
Elemental Mental Health works with clients in Georgia, Florida and Texas. Call or complete a website contact form to learn more.