Mental health and your communication habits

Open, transparent and healthy communication can help you have better mental health.

Whether it’s being able to share how you feel, communicate authentically or resolve arguments, in the long term it’s these habits that are going to help you reduce the stress and anxiety that can cause havoc with your brain.

Whether you’re overthinking every possible outcome and trying to control the worst from happening or if you’re kicking yourself for saying the wrong thing in last week’s team meeting, make this a habit and your brain isn’t going to thank you.

So here are my 3 tips to help you improve your mental health…

Learn to communicate what you need

We may have grown up with the subconscious belief that our voice isn’t important, we don’t have good ideas or that we’re wrong for expressing what we need. Whilst all are untrue, if these are your beliefs, they’re going to stop you communicating and feeling confident when you do. And suppressing how you feel is only going to impact your mental health in a negative way. So start getting clear on defining what exactly you need before you start speaking up for yourself.

Control your chatter

That internal dialogue is there for a reason and whilst it can be majorly helpful, it can also be detrimental when we allow it to spiral out of control. Most of my clients find this one of the most challenging things we do because it’s so habitual. The goal is to catch the negative things you say to yourself (usually on auto-pilot) and reframe this with a more helpful, supportive sentence instead.

Be vulnerable and open up

When you have a belief that being vulnerable makes you weak or there’s shame about speaking openly about private ‘matters’, opening up can feel like one of the biggest challenges. But the more you keep things to yourself, the more isolated and alone you’re likely to feel. Whilst it’ll feel hard at first, start small and share with one or two people you trust. Over time it’ll help retrain your brain that you can be vulnerable without feeling like you’ve done something wrong.

I'd love to hear what's helped you, what's resonated and what you want more of, so drop me an email hello@amiras.co.uk or drop me a DM @the_communicationexpert.

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HOW ARE YOUR UNHEALTHY COMMUNICATION HABITS IMPACTING YOUR MENTAL HEALTH?

I’ve shared this week’s journal prompt above so take 5, grab your phone, a notepad or record your thoughts on audio and spend time reflecting on this question

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