Dr Sarah Vohra - The mind Medic

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First published 2020

Copyright Dr Sarah Vohra, 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Designed by Hampton
Colour reproduction by Rhapsody Ltd

ISBN: 978-0-241-98791-9

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For Amelie and Ravi

The lives we lead every day have become more demanding. We are constantly connected in a way that we werent 10 or 20 years ago. We barely have a minute to breathe and unwind from the stresses of the day before we find ourselves snoozing our morning alarm, ready to jump back on the hamster wheel and do it all over again.

Sound familiar?

All these demands on our time and energy can impact our mental health. Dressed up in various guises, whether its wellness, wellbeing or self-care, the advice available to us is vast and can feel incredibly overwhelming. What is actually going to make a difference to our mental wellbeing?

The advice that we are given routinely is simply to talk more. And while this is important, for many it isnt enough simply to share their emotional struggles with somebody else. Yes, it gets it out into the open and it can be encouraging to hear that someone understands or has experienced a similar hardship, but all too often what are missing are simple tools or strategies that you can use to get yourself out of that lull and optimize how you feel. Even if someone does offer you strategies that have worked for them, there is no guarantee that they will work for you.

We are all hardwired differently. Life experiences and events can affect us all in different ways. Why is it that some of us naturally shine on stage whereas the rest of us come out in hives at the prospect of a work presentation? Why is it that some of us can escape a car crash relatively unscathed (both mentally and physically) while others vow never to get behind the wheel again? We all have different tools available to us, from the external help and support we get from our relationships and physical environment to our own internal coping mechanisms and behaviours that we can draw upon to help us to navigate our way through life.

As a consultant psychiatrist, I have worked with thousands of patients to help them overcome a whole host of mental health difficulties, from relationship break-ups and stresses at work to the more serious clinical disorders such as depression and anxiety, where some individuals are rendered housebound and may even contemplate not wanting to be alive any more. While with the latter patients we may start them on medication (at least for the short term) to help manage their symptoms, the core of their treatment and recovery, the getting them back to fighting fit, is in helping them better understand their difficulties and empowering them to learn and develop practical tools to best manage these.

The two most common questions I get asked by my patients in clinic are how can I keep myself mentally healthy, and how do I pick myself up if and when I do hit a rocky patch? I tell them that half the battle is in them being able to recognize early on when things arent quite right (these signs can look and feel very different for each of us), and the other half is in learning to develop a toolbox of tried-and-tested methods, individual to them, which can be called upon at any given moment to help. It has been ingrained in us from day dot that eating well and exercising regularly is a sure-fire way of ensuring our physical health is in tip-top condition. We also know that when we have had a health scare, the food we eat and how much we move play a pivotal role in our recovery. But do we know what we ought to be doing to make ourselves more mentally healthy? And would we have the faintest idea of how to pull ourselves out of a rocky patch?

The practical tips and tools I share in this book are ones I use routinely with the patients I work with. The simple 5-step method will, I hope, empower you also to develop a personalized toolkit to survive the emotional twists and turns that this modern world can bring. I want to help you reclaim your mental wellbeing and be the happiest, healthiest version of yourself.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey.

The 5 senses plan is a simple method to help you pinpoint your life stresses, develop simple solutions to manage them and reclaim your inner calm.

You experience the world through your senses: your sight, hearing, smell, sense of touch (feel) and taste. Your sensory organs eyes, ears, nose, skin and mouth help you to perceive, interact with and explore your environment. Linked to your brain via your nervous system, your 5 senses help you to determine what you think about a given experience, how you feel about it (the good and the bad) and, crucially, how you then go on to act.

There may be times when you struggle to put your finger on what it is about a particular day or interaction that means your mood takes a turn for the worse. What I teach my patients to do is think about whether there is anything they may have seen, heard, smelled, felt or tasted (not necessarily all at once) that could possibly provide an explanation.