MENTAL HEALTH: Taking a course and filling a bucket

In the past month, I completed a course on mental health and anxiety management. During the course I discovered that coping mechanisms were crucial to mental stability and good stress management. I learned that I need to be in control of the stressors in my life otherwise they will control me. An important learning from the course was that coping mechanisms, such as journaling, painting, or reading in relation to stress management can help me to understand why I hold a lot of stress and how I can deal with it. By understanding what causes me stress, I can adjust my behaviour and my work ethic to improve how I manage my anxiety and subsequently improve my mental health.

In the PDE module, it became clear what my coping mechanism were: it was my own original stress bucket.

Prior to this, I had not known about the concept of a stress bucket, and so when the activity took place and I began listing down my stressors and placing them in the bucket from least controlled at the base to most controlled at the tip, I finally understood. I realised while doing this activity that there are things in my life that I can control. My own wellbeing and mental stability are the most important thing that I have in this life, without it, I cannot take care of the other activities that need my attention. I also realised that any kind of workload or personal projects that I have can be managed well if I plan them out correctly. All the other events that I am out of my control should have my main attention because it is sort of unneeded stress.

The funny thing about managing my time is that it makes me think about a TED talk by Tim Urban

https://youtu.be/arj7oStGLkU

in which he very accurately described the mindset of a student and how much we procrastinate, along with how our non-logical thinking [gratification monkey] dominates our logical thinking and ability to get things done on time, but then the Panic monster awakens when it comes close the deadline. This was my issue, I gave more attention to my gratification monkey and created unwanted stress for myself to get tasks done at the last minute, which then added to my doubt.

Controlling my stress does not necessarily mean that I have my entire life in order, it just means that I can get to organising my life without the burden of missing deadlines or worrying about events out of my control.