In today’s blog I am going to focus on the following:
- Mood swings
- The actions I put in place
Disclaimer:
None of this should be treated as professional mental health advice. As with my podcast, social media and any other materials I produce on topics around mental health, self esteem, confidence and personal growth this is me sharing my own experience as an individual, working with a coach, being formerly a coach and other unnamed individual stories (unless permission gained to share their name). I am not a qualified mental health professional. Please seek professional help where appropriate to do so.
In my last blog I opened up to my mental health journey. In these future ones I’m not following a topic sequence, more what I feel like writing on the day. And no I’m not going to use AI, this is from me.
Today I wanted to explore my mood swings a little bit and not sure how long this will be, like I said these blogs are not the highest quality of grammar you’ll find in England rather more of a journal dump.
This morning for example I woke up late at about 10 am after going to bed around 5am. My heart was racing at the thought of my job and the stressful work I needed to do for the day. I needed to take my medication as a result…. I currently only take one but it works pretty well. Beta blockers. I was offered antidepressant but I’ve heard about the side effects and I’m still determined that with exercise and significant transformation in food and drink I can change my mood. Please take note and to emphasize this, DO NOT take what I am doing in terms of medication as a recommendation for your mental health or illness, please consult a professional such as a doctor for your own needs. I am merely sharing my own man’s mental health journey.
I felt a little better after it and then did some breathing exercises briefly (probably no longer than a minute) . I need to get back to them really. Breathing is said to help calm the nervous system in times of stress.
The game changer which has been the game changer for the last weeks was my running. I’m currently with the family in sunny Devon so I decided as part of my 75 hard challenge (two lots of 45 minutes exercise a day) to go for a long run. This was my 5th run in a row lol. So my legs felt it by the end. I also felt fantastic and buzzing for the day. I was super hungry after, but didn’t go overboard as there are certain foods that impact my energy. I drank a load of water, as part of the challenge we’re meant to have a gallon a day anyway! Then a small black coffee, I notice a certain amount of coffee can send me over the edge into anxiety and stress so I have to be careful.
I finished my last blog and posted and wow did it feel amazing! Bringing back my creative energy has bought me back to life. That’s one thing I realized is key for me to do what I enjoy whilst creating a sense of fulfillment. Being able to create and share with the world is something that lights me up.
The thing that seemed to bring my mood down was the bran flakes cereal. Although not the unhealthiest I think sugar (that’s not in fruit) is a challenge. I get the high rise and massive downfall in energy from it.
I got onto my weekly sales team meeting and had a great conversation with my two colleagues (one of them the boss). I absolutely love sales and cultures in certain ways. I’ve done sales since middle of last year. Unfortunately one role was short term although gained a few thousand in commission for it. Whereas the other one I still do has it’s ups and downs whilst they figure out the system. For example one month I made 6 sales from 6 calls for $3000 but the next two months I only managed to have 2 calls due to a lot of spam and fake leads. I’m finding opportunities though.
My ideal life would be to write to you like this, to podcast, speak on stage about these topics and have something to earn a decent income I enjoy such as sales. I decided to rejoin Toastmasters again after a 2 year absence so I’m excited about that 🙂
I noticed on my evening walk (exercise 2 of the day) when listening to my current audio book ‘The Way of The Superior Man’ that I can feel good and bad also from my thoughts. This is something I learned from one or my mentors Joseph McClendon that; thoughts impact feelings that impact actions than impact results and back full circle. So it’s about training thoughts which are the words and pictures in our head.
Easier said than done…. Of course, that’s life. It’s not that I’ll have zero negative thoughts nobody does, it’s about seeing them and choosing a different thought or thoughts.
I’m literally reminding myself of this as I write haha. It’s so easy for us to get it all mixed in our head and the beauty of journaling or writing a blog in this case, is it allows us to get some clarity. One practice I’ve found to do is just to sit with myself for 10 minutes a day (sometimes longer) no phone or music just me. That allows me to witness my thoughts.
So today has been a mix of a day, I’ve noticed the highs I get from exercise and the changes from certain foods and drinks even more. Becoming conscious to it makes a massive difference. Also doing what I love is massively helping. I continue to write these, in non perfect English to share my mental health stories.
Jonny Pardoe, 2nd May 2023
