Welcome to your 30 Day Mental Health Journey
This Mental Health Journey is a guide to assist you in educating yourself about your mental health and taking your life back one moment at a time. Embracing your mental health and moving beyond the confines of challenges will assist you in moving forward. May this be a moment where we acknowledge that we are doing the best that we can in the moments that we have. As we move forward in this journey let us begin with the brain.
Physical Mind
Day 1
The Brain
Frontal Lobe
The frontal lobe is important for voluntary movement, expressive language, and managing higher levels of executive functioning. Executive functions are a collection of cognitive skills including: the capacity to plan, organize, initiate, self-monitor and control one's responses in order to achieve an outcome. The frontal lobe also houses problem solving and decision making skills.
Motor skills: The frontal lobe houses the primary motor cortex, which helps coordinate voluntary movements, including walking and running.
Comparing objects: The frontal lobe helps categorize and classify objects, in addition to distinguishing one item from another.
Forming memories: Virtually every brain region plays a role in memory, so the frontal lobe is not unique. However, research suggests it plays a key role in forming long-term memories.
Understanding and reacting to the feelings of others: The frontal lobe is vital for empathy. Forming personality: The complex interplay of impulse control, memory, and other tasks helps form a person’s key characteristics. Damage to the frontal lobe can alter personality.
Reward-seeking behavior and motivation: Most of the brain’s dopamine-sensitive neurons are in the frontal lobe. Dopamine is a brain chemical that helps support feelings of reward and motivation.
Managing attention, including selective attention: When the frontal lobe cannot properly manage attention, then conditions, such as attention deficit disorder.
Temporal Lobe
The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex. It is the lower lobe of the cortex, sitting close to ear level. The temporal lobe is largely responsible for creating and preserving both conscious and long-term memory. The function of the temporal lobe centers around auditory stimuli, memory, and emotion. The temporal lobe contains the primary auditory complex. This is the first area responsible for interpreting information in the form of sounds from the ears. The temporal lobe receives different frequencies, sounds, and pitches from the ears, and gives them meaning. The temporal lobe is responsible for selective hearing in humans. Selective hearing helps filter out the unnecessary frequencies so that a person can focus on the important sounds from the environment. There is a visual aspect to the temporal lobe as well. The temporal lobe helps establish object recognition, including complex objects, such as faces.The temporal lobe plays a role in understanding and giving meaning to language. This makes language distinguishable and understandable.
Limbic system: The temporal lobe is a significant part of the limbic system. The limbic system is involved with motivation, emotion, learning, and memory. While the limbic system interacts with other areas of the brain, it works directly with the temporal lobe to influence the components of the limbic system. The limbic system itself contains important structures, including the amygdala and hippocampus. These structures are responsible for key processes in the brain, such as memory, learning, and attention. The temporal lobe interacting with these structures also plays a role in memory, helping to form conscious long-term memory. The temporal lobe contributes to a number of automatic states and bodily functions. This includes states of sexual arousal, anxiety levels, and appetite, among others.
Broca’s area: Broca’s area is the region within the temporal lobe strongly responsible for a person’s ability to speak and use language with fluency.
Wernicke’s area: Wernicke’s area is a region within the dominant side temporal lobe. It is responsible for processing and giving meaning to speech and the written word. Wernick’s area helps a person understand speech and language.
Temporal Lobe key structures that are part of the temporal lobe include:
Wernicke’s area
Broca’s area
limbic system
Parietal Lobe
The parietal lobe is primarily responsible for receiving and processing sensory input such as touch, pressure, heat, cold, and pain. The parietal lobe is involved in the perception of body awareness and the construction of a spatial coordinate system (mental map) to represent the world around us. The parietal lobe is one of the major parts of the cerebral cortex in humans. It sits near the upper back portion of the skull, close to the parietal bone. In the brain, the parietal lobe is located behind the frontal lobe. A boundary called the central sulcus separates the two lobes. The parietal lobe also sits above the temporal lobe, with the Sylvian fissure, or lateral sulcus, separating the two. Like the brain itself, the parietal lobe is divided into two hemispheres by the central furrow, or medial longitudinal fissure. The parietal lobe relies heavily on many other areas of the body to receive information. For example, the skin and nerves in the skin play a large part in detecting sensory information and delivering it to the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe itself also sends this information to other parts of the brain for interpretation. Many everyday functions require the use of multiple lobes in the brain.
Sensory processing
The parietal lobe deals with many sensations, including:
touch
pressure
pain
heat
cold
tension
Occipital Lobe
The occipital lobe is the part of the human brain responsible for interpreting information from the eyes and turning it into the world as a person sees it. The occipital lobe is so named because it rests below the occipital bone of the skull. It is also the smallest of the lobes. There are actually two occipital lobes one on each hemisphere of the brain. The central cerebral fissure divides and separates the lobes. The occipital lobes are located on the back of the upper brain. They sit behind the temporal and parietal lobes and above the cerebellum.
Occipital lobe deals with aspects of vision, including:
distance
depth perception
color determination
object recognition
movement
face recognition
memory information
Day 2
Left Hemisphere
&
Right Hemisphere
Right Brain
According to the left-brain, right-brain dominance theory, the right side of the brain is best at expressive and creative tasks. Some of the abilities popularly associated with the right side of the brain include8 :
Recognizing faces
Creating music
Reading emotions
Appreciating color
Using imagination
Being intuitive
Being creative
Expressing emotions
Left Brain
The left-side of the brain is considered to be adept at tasks that involve logic, language, and analytical thinking. The left-brain is described as being better at:
Language
Logic
Critical thinking
Numbers
Reasoning
Day 3
Body Systems
Circulatory System is to move blood, nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hormones, around the body. It consists of the heart, blood, blood vessels, arteries and veins.
Digestive System consists of a series of connected organs that together, allow the body to break down and absorb food, and remove waste. It includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, and anus. The liver and pancreas also play a role in the digestive system because they produce digestive juices.
Endocrine System consists of eight major glands that secrete hormones into the blood. These hormones, in turn, travel to different tissues and regulate various bodily functions, such as metabolism, growth and sexual function.
Immune System is the body's defense against bacteria, viruses and other pathogens that may be harmful. It includes lymph nodes, the spleen, bone marrow, lymphocytes (including B-cells and T-cells), the thymus and leukocytes, which are white blood cells.
Lymphatic System includes lymph nodes, lymph ducts and lymph vessels, and also plays a role in the body's defenses. Its main job is to make is to make and move lymph, a clear fluid that contains white blood cells, which help the body fight infection. The lymphatic system also removes excess lymph fluid from bodily tissues, and returns it to the blood.
Nervous System controls both voluntary action (like conscious movement) and involuntary actions (like breathing), and sends signals to different parts of the body. The central nervous system includes the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system consists of nerves that connect every other part of the body to the central nervous system.
Muscular System consists of about 650 muscles that aid in movement, blood flow and other bodily functions. There are three types of muscle: skeletal muscle which is connected to bone and helps with voluntary movement, smooth muscle which is found inside organs and helps to move substances through organs, and cardiac muscle which is found in the heart and helps pump blood.
Reproductive System allows humans to reproduce. The male reproductive system includes the penis and the testes, which produce sperm. The female reproductive system consists of the vagina, the uterus and the ovaries, which produce eggs. During conception, a sperm cell fuses with an egg cell, which creates a fertilized egg that implants and grows in the uterus.
Skeletal System which consists of 206 bones that are connected by tendons, ligaments and cartilage. The skeleton not only helps us move, but it's also involved in the production of blood cells and the storage of calcium. The teeth are also part of the skeletal system, but they aren't considered bones.
Respiratory System allows us to take in vital oxygen and expel carbon dioxide in a process we call breathing. It consists mainly of the trachea, the diaphragm and the lungs.
Urinary System helps eliminate a waste product called urea from the body, which is produced when certain foods are broken down. The whole system includes two kidneys, two ureters, the bladder, two sphincter muscles and the urethra. Urine produced by the kidneys travels down the ureters to the bladder, and exits the body through the urethra.
Integumentary System is the body's largest organ. It protects us from the outside world, and is our first defense against bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. Our skin also helps regulate body temperature and eliminate waste through perspiration. In addition to skin, the integumentary system includes hair and nails.
Day 4
Vital Organs in Body System
Humans have five vital organs that are essential for survival. These are the brain, heart, kidneys, liver and lungs.
Brain is the body's control center, receiving and sending signals to other organs through the nervous system and through secreted hormones. It is responsible for our thoughts, feelings, memory storage and general perception of the world.
Heart is a responsible for pumping blood throughout our body.
Kidneys is to remove waste and extra fluid from the blood. The kidneys take urea out of the blood and combine it with water and other substances to make urine.
Liver has many functions, including detoxifying of harmful chemicals, breakdown of drugs, filtering of blood, secretion of bile and production of blood-clotting proteins.
Lungs are responsible for removing oxygen from the air we breathe and transferring it to our blood where it can be sent to our cells. The lungs also remove carbon dioxide, which we exhale.
Day 5
Body Senses
Taste what we experience with our mouth
Smell what we experience with our nose
Hearing what we experience with our ears
Sight what we experience with our eyes
Touch what we experience with our body
Proprioception what we experience with our physical movements in space
Emotional Mind
Day 6
Feelings
A feeling is an emotional state or a reaction to something or someone. Originating in the neocortical regions of the brain, feelings are sparked by emotions and shaped by personal experiences, beliefs, memories, and thoughts linked to that particular emotion. These are six common emotions:
Happiness activates several areas of the brain, including the right frontal cortex, the precuneus, the left amygdala, and the left insula. This activity involves connections between awareness (frontal cortex and insula) and the “feeling center” (amygdala) of the brain.
Fear activates the bilateral amygdala, the hypothalamus and areas of the left frontal cortex. This involves some thinking (frontal cortex), a “gut” feeling (amygdala), and a sense of urgency typically associated with survival (the hypothalamus.)
Sadness is associated with increased activity of the right occipital lobe, the left insula, the left thalamus the amygdala and the hippocampus. The hippocampus is strongly linked with memory, and it makes sense that awareness of certain memories is associated with feeling sad. Sadness has been studied more than the other emotions because depression may last for a long time; the effects of antidepressants can be measured based on improved symptoms.
Disgust is an interesting feeling that is often associated with avoidance. This emotion that is associated with activation and connections between the left amygdala, the left inferior frontal cortex, and the insular cortex.
Anger is an important emotion that many people, adults and children alike, try to control. Anger is associated with activation of the right hippocampus, the amygdala, both sides of the prefrontal cortex and the insular cortex.
6. Surprise is an emotion that can either make you feel good or it can make you feel bad. Surprise activates the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and the bilateral hippocampus. The hippocampus is strongly associated with memory, and the element of surprise is, by nature, associated with experiencing something that you do not remember or do not expect.
Day 7
Where my feelings start
Hypothalamus is involved in sexual responses, hormone release, and regulating body temperature.
Hippocampus helps preserve and retrieve memories. It plays a role in how you understand the spatial dimensions of your environment.
Amygdala helps coordinate responses to things in your environment, especially those that trigger an emotional response. This structure plays an important role in fear and anger.
Limbic cortex. This part contains two structures, the cingulate gyrus and the parahippocampal gyrus. Together, they impact mood, motivation, and judgement.
Day 8
Brain chemicals that impact feelings
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, released by hypothalamus and is involved in focus, attention, memory, drive, muscle control and ovulation. It is associated with alertness, memory, cognition, happiness and vigilance. Low levels of dopamine in the body can result in depression, impulsivity, mood swings, attention deficit, cognitive issues, compulsive behavior, cravings, apathy and loss of satisfaction in life activities.
Seretonin regulates wide range of physiological and biological functions including mood, arousal, aggression, thinking abilities and memory.Right levels of serotonin are related to relaxation, mood increase. Excess of serotonin causes sedation and apathy, whereas deficiency of serotonin is associated with low mood, lack of will, poor appetite control, anxiety disorders, depression, social behavior.
Acetylcholine is the primary neurotransmitter released from nerve endings in both central and peripheral nervous system. It is in charge of muscle movement, alertness, concentration and memory. When levels are optimal, mood is elevated, mind is focused and intelligence increased. With the low levels learning, recall, ability to think clearly can plummet.
It also controls drives and emotions like anger, fear, rage and aggression.Norepinephrine is a catecholamine that acts as a neurotransmitter as well as a hormone. It is involved in the arousal system of the brain and the sympathetic nervous system, where it is responsible for increase in blood pressure, breathing and respiratory rate. As a hormone, it is released by adrenal glands and is involved in the fight or flight response of the body to stress.
Endorphins are neurotransmitters, chemicals that pass along signals from one neuron to the next. Neurotransmitters play a key role in the function of the central nervous system and can either prompt or suppress the further signalling of nearby neurons.
Day 9
Stress
Stress is the body's natural defense against danger o0r what the body perceives as dangerous. It flushes the body with hormones to prepare systems to evade or confront danger. This is known as the "fight-or-flight" mechanism.
When we are faced with a challenge, part of our response is physical. The body activates to protect us by preparing us either to stay and fight or to get away as fast as possible.
The body produces larger quantities of the chemicals cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. These trigger an increased heart rate, heightened muscle preparedness, sweating, and alertness. All these factors improve the ability to respond to a hazardous or challenging situation.
Factors of the environment that trigger this reaction are called stressors. Examples include noises, aggressive behavior, a speeding car, scary moments in movies, or even going out on a first date. The more stressors we experience, the more stressed we tend to feel.
Day 10
Different types of stress
Acute stress
This type of stress is short-term and is the most common way that stress occurs. Acute stress is often caused by thinking about the pressures of events that have recently occurred, or upcoming demands in the near future.
However, repeated instances of acute stress over a long period can become chronic and harmful.
Episodic acute stress
People who frequently experience acute stress, or whose lives present frequent triggers of stress, have episodic acute stress. This type of stress can occur when life presents us with undesirable situations.
Chronic stress
This type of stress can cause additional long term damage to the body and mind.
Chronic stress can continue unnoticed. It can become part of an individual's personality, making them constantly prone to the effects of stress regardless of the situations.
Day 11
Fight or flight of feelings
Reactions to stress are also known as the "fight-or-flight" response. The response evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people to react quickly to life-threatening situations. The hormonal changes and physiological responses helps someone to fight the threat off or run to safety. Unfortunately, the body can also overreact to stressors that are not life-threatening. It is important to understand how the fight or flight response impacts the mind and the body.
When we experience a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This area of the brain functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system.
After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands. These glands respond by pumping the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline) into the bloodstream. As epinephrine circulates through the body, it brings on a number of physiological changes.
The hypothalamus activates the second component of the stress response system known as the HPA axis. This network consists of the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands.
The HPA axis relies on a series of hormonal signals to keep the sympathetic nervous system down. If the brain continues to perceive something as dangerous, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone, which travels to the pituitary gland, triggering the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone. This hormone travels to the adrenal glands, prompting them to release cortisol. When the threat passes cortisol levels fall. The body returns back to its normal state.
Day 12
Fear
Fear is composed of two primary reactions to some type of perceived threat: biochemical and emotional. Fear is a natural emotion and a survival mechanism. When we confront a perceived threat, our bodies respond in specific ways. Physical reactions to fear include sweating, increased heart rate, and high adrenaline levels that make us extremely alert. The emotional response to fear, on the other hand, is highly personalized. Because fear involves some of the same chemical reactions in our brains that positive emotions like happiness and excitement.
Fear often involves both physical and emotional symptoms. Each person may experience fear differently, but some of the common signs and symptoms include:
Chest pain
Chills
Dry mouth
Nausea
Rapid heartbeat
Shortness of breath
Sweating
Trembling
Upset stomach
Fear can be caused by:
Certain objects or situations
Future events
Imagined events
Real environmental dangers
The unknown
Mental Mind
Day 13
Thoughts
Neurons release brain chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, which generate these electrical signals in neighboring neurons. The electrical signals propagate like a wave to thousands of neurons, which leads to thought formation. A continuous pattern of neuronal firing reinforces the circuitry. This means that if we are put in the same situation twice, the firing of our neurons is going to be similar and reinforced. This is why people tend to react the same way to similar situations: because neurons, which are part of the circuit responsible for this response, fire robustly. Our thoughts and our feelings are linked to one another. When we experience something traumatic or triggering we can connect the thoughts and the feeling as negatively impactful.
Day 14
Cognitive Thought Distortions
Filtering A person engaging in filter (or “mental filtering) takes the negative details and magnifies those details while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. When a cognitive filter is applied, the person sees only the negative and ignores anything positive.
Polarized Thinking (or “Black and White” Thinking) In polarized thinking, things are either “black-or-white” — all or nothing. We have to be perfect or we’re a complete and abject failure — there is no middle ground. A person with polarized thinking places people or situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and most situations. A person with black-and-white thinking sees things only in extremes.
Overgeneralization In this cognitive distortion, a person comes to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence. If something bad happens just once, they expect it to happen over and over again. A person may see a single, unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.
Jumping to Conclusions Without individuals saying so, a person who jumps to conclusions knows what another person is feeling and thinking — and exactly why they act the way they do.
Catastrophizing When a person engages in catastrophizing, they expect disaster to strike, no matter what. This is also referred to as magnifying, and can also come out in its opposite behavior, minimizing. In this distortion, a person hears about a problem and uses what if questions
Personalization Personalization is a distortion where a person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to them. They literally take virtually everything personally. A person engaging in personalization may also see themselves as the cause of some unhealthy external event that they were not responsible for.
Control Fallacies This distortion involves two different but related beliefs about being in complete control of every situation in a person’s life. In the first, if we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. For example, “I can’t help it if the quality of the work is poor, my boss demanded I work overtime on it.”
Fallacy of Fairness In the fallacy of fairness, a person feels resentful because they think that they know what is fair, but other people won’t agree with them.
Blaming When a person engages in blaming, they hold other people responsible for their emotional pain. They may also take the opposite track and instead blame themselves for every problem
Shoulds Should statements (“I should pick up after myself more…”) appear as a list of ironclad rules about how every person should behave.
Emotional Reasoning The distortion of emotional reasoning can be summed up by the statement, “If I feel that way, it must be true.” Whatever a person is feeling is believed to be true automatically and unconditionally. Emotional reasoning is when a person’s emotions takes over our thinking entirely, blotting out all rationality and logic. The person who engages in emotional reasoning assumes that their unhealthy emotions reflect the way things really are — “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”
Fallacy of Change In the fallacy of change, a person expects that other people will change to suit them if they just pressure or cajole them enough. A person needs to change people because their hopes for success and happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
Global Labeling In global labeling (also referred to as mislabeling), a person generalizes one or two qualities into a negative global judgment about themselves or another person. This is an extreme form of overgeneralizing. Instead of describing an error in context of a specific situation, a person will attach an unhealthy universal label to themselves or others.
Always Being Right When a person engages in this distortion, they are continually putting other people on trial to prove that their own opinions and actions are the absolute correct ones.
Day 15
Defense Mechanisms
Denial Denial is one of the most common defense mechanisms. It occurs when you refuse to accept reality or facts. You block external events or circumstances from your mind so that you don’t have to deal with the emotional impact. In other words, you avoid the painful feelings or events.
Repression Unsavory thoughts, painful memories, or irrational beliefs can upset you. Instead of facing them, you may unconsciously choose to hide them in hopes of forgetting about them entirely.
Projection Some thoughts or feelings you have about another person may make you uncomfortable. If you project feelings, you’re misattributing them to the other person.
Displacement You direct strong emotions and frustrations toward a person or object that doesn’t feel threatening. This allows you to satisfy an impulse to react, but you don’t risk significant consequences.
Regression Some people who feel threatened or anxious may unconsciously “escape” to an earlier stage of development.
Rationalization Some people may attempt to explain undesirable behaviors with their own set of “facts.” This allows you to feel comfortable with the choice you made, even if you know on another level it’s not right.
Sublimation This type of defense mechanism is considered a positive strategy. That’s because people who rely on it choose to redirect strong emotions or feelings into an object or activity that is appropriate and safe.
Reaction formation People who use this defense mechanism recognize how they feel, but they choose to behave in the opposite manner of their instincts.
Compartmentalization Separating your life into independent categories may feel like a way to protect many elements of it.
Intellectualization When you’re hit with a trying situation, you may choose to remove all emotion from your responses and instead focus on quantitative facts. You may see this strategy in use when a person who is let go from a job choose to spend their days creating spreadsheets of job opportunities and leads.