7 lessons for Mental Health Awareness Week from "Notes on a Nervous Planet"

1. If you ever read any of Matt Haig's books, and especially Reasons to Stay Alive, then you know about his personal struggle with mental health issues and how much effort he invested to increase awareness into it.  Therefore, not only has he been struggling with depression, but, throughout this struggle, he had found some coping strategies and, in Notes on a Nervous Planet boldly shares with his readers that: 

"The familiar path of recovery arrived sooner rather than later. And abstaining from stimulants -not just alcohol and caffeine, but these other things - was part of the process."

 p.7

2. In his case, these "other things" are nothing more than the social media tools which make us feel that we need to be 24/7 connected. That we need to instantly reply to our phone calls/emails/texts. Sure, social media has its own advantages (eg. allows me to see my family who is 1000+ kilometers away, or to do homework with my little brother, to hear him reading stories...you got my point :) ), but as Matt Haig's puts it, one needs:

"To disconnect in order to reconnect"

 p.22

3. One cannot avoid struggles during a lifetime, but when presenting his struggles, Matt Haig admits that:

"Pain is one hell of a teacher"

 p.26

4.  Sure, social media is getting us stressed, but there are so many things out there, in this big world, that makes us worry about our future, our kids' future, our world's. His top worries are:

• news
• underground trains,
• suicide, 
• health worries,
• looks, 
• guilt (correlated with perfectionism), 
• inadequacy (so high that leads to addiction),
• nuclear weapons, 
• robots - for this one and for automatization in general, the author admits to:

"I boycott self-service checkouts in a continual act of pro-human defiance"

 p.29

5. More, in the age of increasing automatization, is worth remembering that:

"Everyone you have ever loved and cared for was not a robot"

p.30

6. Who else than a person fighting it, should we rely on to share with us some precious info about what is triggering the mental health issues:

"When looking at triggers for mental health problems, therapists often identify an intense change in someone's life as a major factor" 

p.38

Some of the examples encountered in the book are:

• moving, 
• losing a job, 
• getting married

7. In a world of rapid change, it helps to know that adapting and learning is also:

 "a way to love living right now."

 p. 48

Now, that we know these 7 lessons for Mental Health Awareness Week from Matt Haig's "Notes on a Nervous Planet" book, I would like to invite you to reflect about just how much place you allow them in your life and how you cope with mental health issues!

Happy MHAW everyone!