Three Components to Eliminating Mental Health Issues
Eliminating Mental Health Issues – Part 1
This is an introduction to eliminating mental health issues. Now that we’ve gone through defining what mental health is and its symptoms, and caring for yourself, the next thing that we want to do is talk about how to eliminate it. With the practices and tools in place to help us not only cope with the issues, to go to the next level we must minimize them, decrease them, and eliminate them altogether. We would like to discuss how we might be able to eliminate mental health issues from our routines, habits, and from our day-to-day living. Let me first give you a summary of what you will find in this section, entitled “Eliminating Mental Health Issues.”
- Improve Your Mental Health
First, we must understand that mental health challenges, issues of that nature can be eliminated or can be improved.
We must get over the misnomer or the myth that you cannot improve your mental health. That is just not true. Just like your physical health can be improved, you can improve and eliminate the things that impact you mentally. For example, when a person is diagnosed with diabetes, they don’t have to live with it progressively getting worse. In fact, most diabetics, or people who are diagnosed with diabetes, can control it. In many cases it can be eliminated simply by changing one’s eating habits. With the help of their physician or doctors, a person can achieve improved health results when guided through the process.
That being said, it can be improved and, in most cases, can be eliminated depending on what stage a person finds himself or herself. The same is true when it comes to mental health. We must get out of our mindset that our mental health, which includes stress, emotional challenges, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and things that plague us mentally, can’t be improved. We don’t have to live with those things. These issues can be addressed, they can be improved, they can be minimized, and they can be eliminated. - Identify the Triggers
There are certain things that trigger stress, like when we are in our office, or maybe it is the receipt of an e-mail, or a group we must talk to or interact with. Many times, these are triggers that cause us to be in stressful situations.
I observed this in the story of Moses. Moses said to God that I’m not the one who should go speak to Pharaoh on your behalf. I’m a stutterer. It was a mental challenge that he was dealing with that; he had to overcome it. You know, he thought he was not adequate enough. Moses said he didn’t have the best communication skills [1] , could you get someone else to do it. This is what I call low confidence and self-esteem which leads to mental health challenges like stress, anxiety, and panic attacks.
There are some things we must learn to get over. This mental health challenge did not eliminate Moses from being the deliverer of the nation of Israel from Egypt. In fact, it was just one of those mental challenges that he was dealing with, it teaches us that we must deal with our own. There are practices, there is preparation, there are useful tools and other actions that can assist us with our own shortcomings as well.
There is something that you can do to offset the triggers that impact you mentally. - Stop the Cycle Before It Starts
Many of our anxieties, stresses, or mental stumbling blocks are things that repeatedly occur. They occur over and over again, yet we don’t take the time to identify what caused the cycles to begin in the first place. As mentioned in the previous bullet, it is important to take note of any triggers so that we can eliminate the triggers from our life. This is the most important point of all. In doing so we stop the mental issue before it gets started.
Once you can determine what the stressor is, you can determine how you can eliminate it. For example, I remember there was a time where I would get all anxious as I came into the office. Upon seeing my boss’s car triggered anxiety. Every day when I would pull in and see that car, something would hit me. Something would shift inside of me, and my attitude would change.
I would get into a mental slump. I would think, how I don’t want to deal with this today. I soon realized the trigger. It was as soon as I pulled in and I saw that car and what it represented. So, I had to do something to change it. I no longer wanted to start my day stressed, worried, and anxious. I decided I didn’t want to work in a place where I had to come in under those circumstances and be under that type of pressure.
So I decided to take some action and determine how I could put a stop to the process, and eliminate that stressor, the thing that caused my stress. The key is in identifying the stressors so that you can evaluate what options you have to eliminate those stressors that have control over you. You have more control than you think.
You can live life the same way you’ve always lived it, but you’d be foolish to think that you are going to have any different results.
If you take these lessons and do something you have not done, you are guaranteed to get results you have never had. The same happens when we talk about mental health, we have to 1st decide that we are no longer going to live with the things that burden and plague our mind. When we do, it is time to take action to make sure that we eliminate those things when we see them, when we think about them, and when we can pinpoint them. Unmanaged mental health challenges have the ability to upset our day, upset our life, and create the potential of future more dangerous problems. Today is the day that you and I decide that we are going to grow, and we are going to get ourselves in the best mental shape possible. Starting today and this day forward, we are going to take our mental health to the next level.
Question: What thoughts do you have so far on this concept for eliminating mental health issues?
[1] Exodus 4:10 NKJV, Bible.com, accessed November 6, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/114/EXO.4.10.NKJV
All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.

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