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Physical health adds years to life but mental health adds life to those years.

The tremendous advances in medical science apart, the idea of mental health as part of holistic well-being still doesn’t evoke the interest it deserves, at least in the developing world. To some extent, this indifference is understandable given that a majority of such countries are still struggling with the more mundane issues of poverty, hunger, unemployment and basic medical facilities. Given this situation, any talk of mental health is, quite expectedly, greeted with derision, at worst and indifference, at best. The revolution in mental health care in terms of its open acceptance and de-stigmatization will require a concerted effort by governments across the world, awareness campaigns and improved economic well-being.                       

Managing mental health during COVID-19 has become even a bigger challenge given the severe restrictions on economic and social activities globally. For professionals managing mental health during COVID-19, there has been a record rise in the number of mentally sick people. I, being a life coach, get to talk to many people having such problems. Such problems contribute to the issues which people bring to a life coach. The life coach needs to work with the client on such issues to realize the most from the consultation process.

And from my experience, I can tell you that we need to get a strong handle on “mental health” first before we proceed. Contrary to common perception, mental health is NOT just “the absence of mental disorders or disabilities.” Rather, it is a positive state of well-being in which an individual realizes his/her abilities, can cope with normal stresses, works productively, and makes a contribution to the community. In other words, it refers to the overall cognitive, behavioral, and emotional well-being of an individual.

Benefits of Good Mental Health

Better Coping

With good mental health, challenges are easier to overcome. Whereas some people take to alcohol/drugs, withdrawal or fighting as coping mechanisms to manage relationship disputes, financial worries, workplace challenges and other issues, a mentally healthy person tends to adopt healthier solution-oriented coping mechanisms.

Enhanced Quality of Life

With mental well-being comes better quality of life, thereby making room for greater participation in community building e.g. volunteering, taking up local causes, fundraising etc. One is also more likely to pick up new hobbies, make new acquaintances, and travel more.

Positive Self-Image

Mental health is strongly linked to self-perception as it plays a big part in building self-esteem. Self-confidence is very often a good indicator of a healthy mind. A mentally healthy person is more likely to focus on the good in themselves and hone it and is fired by the ambitions of a healthy, happy life.

Healthier Relationships

With good mental health, you are more capable of having quality time, affection and support with your friends and family. Besides, with there being no emotional distress, it is easier to support the people you care for, when they need it. One cannot expect an unhealthy person to support another unhealthy person!

 Higher Productivity

Depression or other such disorders affect productivity negatively. A mentally strong person is more likely to work more efficiently and produce good quality work.

 Factors in Mental Health

Given this background, it is obvious that mental health affects all aspects of daily living, relationships and overall health. Conditions like stress, depression, and anxiety can all affect mental health, thereby disrupting a person’s routine. Besides, many psychological disorders are rooted in biological factors as discussed below.

Across the world, mental disorders are a leading cause of physical and mental distress, bad relationships, poor productivity, absenteeism, reduced performance and suicides. Unfortunately, as of now, we do not know much about the exact causes of many such disorders. But ongoing medical research has made it amply clear that most of them result from a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. Social and financial circumstances, biological factors, and lifestyle choices can all shape a person’s mental health. Good mental health depends on a delicate balance of various factors and elements of life and the world at large that work together to contribute to such disorders.

1. Biological Factors

Some common mental illnesses like depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are linked to abnormal functioning of neural circuits in the brain. These circuits interact with each other through a give-and-take of neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine etc.). Therefore, a popular approach to the treatment of such diseases is tweaking these chemicals through medicines or psychotherapy to help the brain circuits work more efficiently. Besides, some defects/injuries to certain brain areas are also linked to some mental conditions like memory loss, loss of speech etc..

2. Genes

Many mental illnesses often run in families as they are rooted in genes. Mental illnesses are linked to many genes working together rather than one of them or a few. How they interact with the environment is unique in case of every person. That’s why developing targeted drugs for such diseases often becomes a big challenge for researchers. The revolution in mental health care would necessitate more of such genome sequencing so that medical researchers can develop more targeted drugs to treat many such disorders.               

That also explains why some people inherit a tendency for a mental illness but don’t necessarily develop it as the illness occurs due to multiple genes interacting among themselves and other triggering factors like stress, abuse, or trauma. It’s quite similar to the way diabetes develops i.e. one may be born with the genes for it, but whether one actually develops diabetes is also a function of environmental factors like weight, exercise, nutrition, stress etc.

3. Infections

Some kinds of infections are often linked to brain damage and mental illnesses or the deterioration of their symptoms. For instance, the pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder (PANDAS) attributed to Streptococcus bacteria causes an obsessive-compulsive disorder among children.

 4. Brain defects/injuries

Certain defects/ injuries in certain brain regions can cause some mental illnesses e.g. damage to the hippocampus, which results in amnesia.

 5. Pre-natal damage

Birth traumas like the shortage of oxygen can disrupt and arrest early fetal brain development, which may, in turn, trigger certain conditions like autism.

 6. Substance abuse

Long-term substance abuse is linked to problems like anxiety, depression, and paranoia.

7. Other factors

Stress, depression, and anxiety may develop due to health problems like cancer, diabetes, and chronic pain. Poor nutrition and exposure to toxins like mercury (Minamata disease) and lead (poor intellectual functioning) in early age may lead to mental illnesses.

1. Psychological Factors

• Exposure to emotional, physical, or sexual abuse in childhood
• Loss of a parent/ primary care-giver
• Prolonged emotional neglect
• Poor ability to relate to others

1. Environmental Factors
2. Death of a loved one or parents’ divorce/ separation
3. Broken families, dysfunctional family life
4. Feelings of inadequacy, poor self-esteem, anxiety, anger, or loneliness
5. Change of job/ school
6. Social or cultural expectations e.g. associating beauty with a lean body can be a factor in triggering eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia nervosa etc.
7. Alcohol/ drug abuse by self/ parents

Common Symptoms of Mental Disorders

The absence of a physical test or a scan, which can reliably detect a mental illness, make she task of identifying mental illnesses difficult. However, some common symptoms that we can look for as possible signs of a mental disorder:

1. Social withdrawal from family, friends and colleagues 2.  Avoiding favourite activities
2. Oversleeping/ under-sleeping                   4. Over/under- eating
3. Feelings of hopelessness                         6. Low energy level
4. Using alcohol, nicotine                            8. Having negative emotions
5. Problems with daily tasks                       10. Self-harming tendencies
6. Having delusions                           
7. Unexplained confusion, anger, guilt or worry
8. Mood swings                                 
9. Picking fights with family, friends
10. “Hearing” voices with no identifiable source  
11. Inability to perform daily tasks with ease

 Common Mental Disorders

The most common types of mental illnesses are:

1. Anxiety-related disorders
2. Mood-related disorders
3. Schizophrenia and related disorders

1. Anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses. Anxiety-related disorders refer to disproportionate worry which disrupts everyday living. Patients with anxiety experience fear or anxiety in the presence of certain objects or situations. Such people tend to avoid exposure to situations, which trigger anxiety.

Common examples

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) patients may experience excessive anxiety in everyday situations like doing routine chores or meeting someone. Such patients can also experience physical symptoms like restlessness, fatigue, tense muscles and sleep disruptions.

Panic disorders

Patients with a panic disorder have regular panic attacks involving a feeling of sudden terror or an imminent disaster and death.

Phobias

Simple phobias

An irrational, excessive fear of certain objects, scenarios, or animals e.g. a fear of spiders or heights.

Social phobia

A k a social anxiety, it is the fear of being subject to the others’ judgment. Such people tend to reduce their social exposure.

Agoraphobia

A fear of open places like a marketplace.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

People with OCD suffer from obsessions and compulsions i.e. persistent, stressful thoughts and an urge to perform repetitive acts like hand washing or locking a door repeatedly, bathing again and again.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A PTSD is a result of someone experiencing a very stressful or traumatic event earthquake, war, ethnic conflict, acts of terrorism etc..

Mood Disorders

A k a affective disorders or depressive disorders. Patients have significant mood changes, generally involving either mania – high energy and elation, or depression. Examples of mood disorders are:

Major Depression

Consistently low mood and loss of interest in favourite activities and prolonged sadness.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar patients experience unusual changes in mood, energy and activity level. The ‘highs’ bring a manic phase, while depressive periods bring a low mood.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Reduced daylight triggers it during the fall, winter, and early spring months. It’s quite common in countries located far away from the equator.

Schizophrenia and related disorders

Mental health Professionals are still not sure of whether schizophrenia is a single disorder or a group of them. Typically, schizophrenia appears between 16 and 30 years, with the affected person exhibiting thought disruptions.  The individual experiences a fragmentation of thoughts, with there being no filter to check it and finds it hard to process information.

Schizophrenia is usually marked by delusions, thought disruptions, and hallucinations, social withdrawal, lack of motivation and a flat (indifferent) mood.

Treatment

In general, various methods are available for managing mental health problems. Of course, the treatment plan is tailored to each individual and what works for one person may not work for another one. Most often, a combination of strategies is most successful in terms of results.

Different Types of Mental Health Treatment

Psychotherapy

A k a talk therapy. It takes a psychological approach to treating mental illnesses. Some examples can be cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, and dialectical behavior therapy. Typically, psychologists and psychotherapists employ psychotherapy to relieve the symptoms of patients suffering from mental disorders. Psychotherapy is based on the idea of helping people understand the root cause of their problems and enabling them to develop healthy thought patterns. People with anxiety or depression benefit from mind skill training and relaxation techniques like deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness.

Medication

One of the factors behind the revolution in mental health care is the use of medicines.  

In many cases, a psychiatrist may prescribe medications like tranquilizers, antidepressants, antipsychotics and other drugs to relive the symptoms of such illnesses. Although the medicines cannot cure mental disorders, they can relieve their symptoms and help the patients function effectively in routine life.

Some of them work by boosting the body’s absorption of happy hormones like serotonin from the brain. Others boost the overall levels of these chemicals or prevent their degradation or destruction.

Self-help

A significant part of the overall healing process is the willingness and readiness of the affected person as they usually need change their lifestyles to facilitate wellness. Such changes may involve

Risk Factors in Poor Mental Health

Mental health is an important part of overall well-being. It determines how effectively you can operate psychologically, emotionally, and socially to lead a productive and happy life, which allows for meaningful contributions to society.

One just needs to look at the millions of broken families, poor productivity, lost man-hours, absenteeism, personal distress, rising divorces and suicides to gauge how much havoc bad mental health can wreak on anyone. Thus, in view of the role it plays in all aspects of your life, it’s important to improve psychological wellness with appropriate measures.

However, different circumstances may come to affect our ability to handle the curveballs life throws at us. Some of them are

Childhood Abuse

A child facing physical assault, sexual violence, emotional abuse or neglect during its early years can develop severe mental and emotional distress later. In fact, loving relationships and good mental health in early years are the backbones of a happy, well-adjusted personality. Such abuse accentuates the risk of developing depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and personality disorders. Abused children may eventually develop problems of substance abuse, besides other diseases.

The Environment

A person’s usual environment contributes to mental well-being as adverse circumstances can impact psychological wellness negatively. For instance, experiencing extreme weather conditions or air pollution or natural disasters firsthand can increase the likelihood of developing PTSD.

Biology

One’s biological makeup could affect their well-being as discussed earlier. Many such disorders run in families and may be transmitted to the next generation e.g. autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.

 Lifestyle

One’s lifestyle also impacts mental health e.g. smoking, poor diet, alcoholism and substance use, and risky sexual behavior may cause psychological damage by giving rise to or worsening depression.

Looking after Mental Health

It’s important to maintain your mental health to get the most out of life. The Top Ten Tips given below won’t cost you much money or time.

1. Accept yourself

Self-acceptance is the key to good mental health. You can become someone else. Remember, none is perfect and trying to improve oneself in some aspect or the other is a sensible thing to do. But alongside, learn to love yourself, with warts and all. If you can’t love yourself, none else can!

2. Talk

Talking about your own feelings with friends and family can help you stay in good mental health and deal with troubled times. You may not always get a solution this way but in many cases, just talking about your problem make you feel immensely better.

3. Eat, sleep well

The brain needs many diverse nutrients to keep healthy and work just the way other organs do. Taking a nutritious, balanced diet is good for your physical and mental health. Likewise, have enough, quality sleep to maintain your mental health.

4. Get going

Exercising regularly boosts your self-esteem and helps you concentrate, sleep, and feel better by releasing feel-good chemicals. It keeps your brain and other vital organs in good shape and also improves your mental health.

5. Drink sensibly

Having a drink to change one’s mood or deal with a fear or loneliness is common but its effects are temporary. As its effects wear off, you feel worse due to the way alcohol works on your brain and the rest of the body. Look for better ways to deal with such feelings and develop more effective coping strategies.

6. Keep in touch

Nothing to beat catching up with someone face to face, but that may not be always possible. So, give a call, drop a note, or chat online instead to keep the lines of communication open. It’s good for your mental health!

7. Ask

You aren’t a superhuman. Nor is anyone else. It’s okay to feel tired or overwhelmed sometimes when things don’t work as per plan or expectations. Ask for help from your family or friends, who may be able to offer practical help or a patient listening. Having a support network in the family and close friends can greatly accelerate the recovery from a mental illness.

8. Take a break

Take time off work. Changing the scene or place can work wonders for your mental health. It may be a 5-minute pause from your routine chores, a 30-minute lunch break in the office or a weekend getaway. But it can also be a longer break i.e. a vacation. In most cases, this ‘me time’ is enough to de-stress you.

9. Enjoy hobbies

Do what you love to do. Enjoy yourself to beat stress. Do something you’re good at e.g. music, painting, cooking, stitching, carpentry etc. to boost your self-esteem.

10. Re-calibrate

Re-calibrate your thought processes to make them more realistic and work on personal relationships contributing to bad mental health.

Personality is the sum of the behavioural traits that make a person unique and distinctly recognizable. The term personality has acquired great popularity in the current social discourse. Though very few really understand its true import, personality is that slightly unfathomable trait which we look for in every person we meet- the people we interact with, the colleagues we work with, the friends we make, the teachers who teach us, the prospective employees an employer looks for and the prospective life partner we desire. But the billion dollar question remains as to what personality and how we can go about improving it.

Before delving into it in depth, let’s try to understand: Personality is NOT a well-dressed, charming person, though being so can certainly help. On the other hand, it means the typical manner in which we perceive the world, think about it and act – all these things make us a unique personality unlike others.

Moving Beyond Externals

The concept of personality travels way beyond superficialities. When we call someone a good personality, we are essentially conveying the idea that they are interesting and pleasant people to talk to or work with. And since we all would love to look appealing and pleasing, therefore, to this end, having an impressive personality is vital, much more so than having simply good looks. Of course, we will have to figure out how to develop it further.

Since personality is the sum of one’s qualities, quirks, characteristics, beliefs, attitudes and psychological traits, developing it involves enhancement in all areas of life. Personality is shaped by a clutch of factors – genes, environment, family and societal conditions, which influence and shape personality. Therefore, one needs to work in all these areas to ensure a well-rounded development of one’s personality.

Luckily, ample research suggests that we can change our personality if we really want to i.e. we can become the best version of ourselves – confident, enthusiastic and serene, if we really want to and become a personality that makes us stand out and get what we want from life.

Of course, this process may entail considerable effort, but we can start with these easy and effective techniques to see a perceptible transformation in our personality. For someone serious about bringing about a positive life change, it may turn out to be the most rewarding enterprise ever.

Personality – From infancy to adulthood

Contrary to the common perception, we are born with a distinct personality to some extent- some babies are adjusting, pliable and accommodating while others are tough to handle. Some babies are agreeable to begin with, some others get easily irritated, some are strongly attached to their mothers while others are not. To that extent, it would be wrong to claim that a child is born as “blank slate”. In fact, as we have seen, a lot is already imprinted on that so-called blank slate, which of course, can be re-written to some extent with life experiences and training.

A child’s personality has two major components – temperament and environment. Most psychologists agree on the fact that temperament and environment influence personality development the most. Temperament, which depends on genes, is sometimes called “nature,” while the environmental factors are called “nurture”.

In simple words, temperament implies the genetic traits that shape a child’s approach to the world and how it learns about the world. There are, of course, no such genes that give rise to specific personality traits, but there are some genes that control the development of the nervous system, which in turn, controls the child’s behavior.

The second component is born of the adaptive patterns coming from a child’s environment. Almost all experts agree that good parenting plays a critical role in developing a child’s personality. If the parents understand how their child responds to certain situations, they can anticipate the potential problems the child may face in future and prepare it for the situation or avoid it. Parents who can adapt their parenting style to the child’s temperament can provide guidance to ensure successful personality development of their child.

Watch some Tips For Good Parenting

Based on my experiences as a life coach, here is my To-Do List for a better personality to drive youth empowerment:

Essential Life Skills for Better Personality

1. Be a better communicator and listener

• I often suggest to the youth coming to me for youth counselling, to develop better communication skills. No other experience can beat having someone listen to you raptly and make you feel like being the only person in the world. Good listening implies the utmost importance and respect for the speaker’s words and it makes you a likable person in a jiffy. Convey your involvement during listening with an occasional hmm of yours and a nod of your head.   
• Good communication is one of the most important life skills and the key to good interpersonal relationships. With clear communication, you can navigate through adverse situations and resolve conflicts easily. So, clear your thoughts and communicate what you want to.
• As a case in point, J K Onassis was called very charming thanks to her exceptional listening skills. She would hang on to every word said by the speaker to make them feel important.
• At a personal level, I have made many gains by being a careful listener. Of course, it is a pre-requisite in my life coaching work to bring the other person out fully, but it remains equally important for all in life.
• Address your listeners by their names as one’s name remains the sweetest sound to them. They will just love it! So, address them by their name. I do so frequently during my seminars to build a personal rapport and make them comfortable and connected. Calling someone by their name conveys that you don’t consider the other one a faceless entity; rather, they are thriving entities whom you recognize and respect.

2. Celebrate your uniqueness

• In my youth counselling work, the biggest myth I have found is that people mostly wish they were someone else. To become an effective personality, you need to feel confident by avoiding comparisons with others as such comparisons blocks our own strengths as the other one assumes more strength in our mind. But you’re unique and incomparable and this trait of yours must be celebrated.
• You were required on this planet and that’s why you were sent down. In the universe, there has been none like you before and for an infinite time, there won’t be anyone else like you. Nature loved you so much that it broke the mould after making you, so none else like you will be born again. In that manner, you are an original, a rare piece, a wonder and a masterpiece. Celebrate it!

3. Get out of comfort zone

Experts in youth counselling services often advise those coming for counseling to challenge their comfort zones. It is one of the most important life skills as the moment you get out of your personal comfort zone, you will realize many new personal qualities you never knew about.

I can recall, while I was seeing off my 13-year old daughter, who was going abroad for a Draughts championship contest, many eyebrows were raised over my decision to send her all alone. But I knew well she needed to learn to be on her own in this big, bad world and parental presence couldn’t be taken for granted, always. Of course, I had made all the necessary arrangements in case something didn’t happen as per plan. The successful solo visit not only gave her immense self-confidence, but also taught her valuable life and social skills in terms of handling unforeseen problems and different people.

So, if you take comfort in never swimming, plunge into water (of course, with a lifeguard by your side), if you are doing 20 pages of writing daily, try to improve it. Leaving your comfort zone can help you hone problem-solving skills. The results can surprise you! Try it out!

4. Expand interests

As a life coach, I strongly believe that reading and cultivating new interests make you a more interesting person. It gives you knowledge which you can share with others and exchange your ideas. It makes you a good conversationalist as the quality of your conversation is a function of your reading and knowledge.

Personally, I believe that for them to really make a productive contribution, today’s youth need to be made aware of what ails the world- its society, technology, economy, health and culture. Therefore, I used to encourage both my daughters to read general books and magazines to expand their horizons so that their minds don’t remain confined to their own fields. And the results are obvious – my younger daughter, though a trained doctor, is quite passionate about developmental issue and has authored a book on UN Sustainable Development Goals.

• No one is a know-all. It’s refreshing to learn from others what we don’t know about.
• You need to develop effective presentation skills like speaking and creativity to put your message across effectively. There are plentiful online resources to help you with cultivating listening, networking and persuasion skills.

5. Imperfections make you perfect

Experts in youth counselling services often advocate accepting oneself as one is. None in this world is perfect as everyone has some flaws. When faced with criticism, accept it if it’s positive and let it go if it’s not. Look at your flaws objectively and work on them to eliminate one at a time.

• Some people are rather tall, others puny, some obese, others lanky. Now if we tend to compare ourselves with the popular media standards of physical appeal, our imperfections agitate and trouble us. But remember, relaxed or chilled out people live happier and healthier lives and charm people with their relaxed vibes.
• To feel cooler about yourself, give space to imperfections as people, situations and your personality don’t have to be the way you want.

6. Being optimistic, grateful

Being positive holds the key to a healthy, peaceful life. Driving out negativity certainly improves your mental stability as positive thoughts reduce depression and anxiety substantially.

Practice gratitude and thankfulness for all the things you take for granted. I have always raised my daughters telling them to practice economy and savings wherever they are in life, besides being thankful for what they have. It has made them humble and polite beings in life.

So you may not have Adidas shoes, but look at others having no feet and to feel grateful for the incredible feet you have. 

7. Being self-confident

For me, as a life coach, achieving self-confidence is the first step towards personality enhancement. Confidence creates motivation and makes us aware of our inner capacities. Self- confidence triggers chemical changes in the brain to lead us to a point where we actually start believing it. So, have confidence and tell yourself you can handle anything successfully and you, really, will.

8. Never-say-die

Of all the life skills needed for success, this one holds the prime importance. Once we lose hope, we feel like quitting. But quitting is the worst thing you can do while cultivating self-confidence or improving the quality of life. Remember, we deserve a second chance and achieve our dream that keep us up at night. And if you feel like quitting, just think of why you began in the first place.

9. Being merciful and kind (to yourself!)

Any life coach will tell you that self-compassion brings out optimism, extroversion, wisdom, happiness, positivity and resilience. Self-compassion means:

• Knowing that you deserve care and to make it happen, you must have kindness and understanding towards yourself.
• Admitting that mistakes and failures are part of life. Don’t be hard on yourself when you make a mistake or fail at a task. Avoid self-criticism.
• Getting aware of your emotions and feelings. Of course, self-compassion doesn’t mean no accountability or just recklessness; rather, it is taking remedial action without becoming excessively self-critical.

9. Having opinions

• Reading gives you knowledge, which leads to opinions. Nothing is more boring than talking to someone with no opinion on anything.
• A conversation can’t go anywhere if one has nothing to say.
• An uncommon or out-of-the-box opinion makes you more stimulating.
• If you are not comfortable expressing your opinion and disagree on something, do it calmly and maturely. You will be surprised at what comes out of you. 

10. Seeds of hidden qualities

Having jealousy or insecurity about the qualities we like among our peers doesn’t bring us those qualities. Much better to applaud the qualities you like in others and recognize the fact that their seeds are lying within you. So cultivate them with attention and practice. If you can foster such an attitude, it would be a growth mindset, the attitude made for success.

11. Being social

Interact with new people, especially those unlike you. I always encouraged my daughters to befriend people, even those whom they didn’t really admire. Interacting with variety of people gives you a holistic idea of society and also a feeling that acceptance and inclusivity are important skills to learn.

You’ll get exposed to varying cultures, different ways of thinking and expand your horizons, besides making you more accommodative and tolerant.

12. Travelling light

You will often find a life coach asking you to travel light. Being light in mind is reflected in your behavior i.e. people also feel light in your company. So, avoid over-thinking and don’t let shame, anger, jealousy or greed stay with you for long. Take it easy, forgive quickly and let go of grudges as they pop up.

Once you’ve done a task, let go of your attachment with the results to feel free, calm, relaxed and happy from within. And who does not like such people? 

13. Being Positive

If you feel good inside, it gets reflected on the outside also. An ideal way to save yourself from the negativity is not to resist it but to observe it dissolve itself. Meditation is one way of achieving it.

1. No one wants to be with a complaint box or those having nothing good to say.
2. Try to be upbeat. Such people light up a room with personal energy and positivity.
3. Your warm smile, cheer, and vibrant persona can create wonders.

14. Diversifying interactions

The more you interact with different kinds of people, the more confident and comfortable you will become. It will expose to a vast range of divergent ideas on different issues and help you develop a holistic and balanced perspective on so many things. As a result, your communication skills improve, and your personality dazzles.

15. Why be so serious?

• There are people who find humour even in tragic situations, like in the movie Pipli Live. Everyone enjoys the company of those who make us smile. Try to find the humorous, quirky side to every situation, however bad it may be. Comic relief can be a much welcome and needed diversion.
• Adding fun to a dull setting naturally attracts others to you.

16. Being enthusiastic

• As a life coach, I have discovered that enthusiastic people are more likely to inspire success. We all love to meet people with whom we can easily mingle. None would prefer meeting someone with a straight face. So try to become warm and enthusiastic. Smile more often, be friendly and be ready to share and help others. A is the best ornament you can wear. So put on a smile when you look into the mirror, on a good day, and on a bad one, too!
• We all love enthusiastic people. Enthusiasm makes everyday tasks more enjoyable and pulls others towards you. Practicing meditation can help you feel enthusiastic, calm and composed.

17. Being strong from inside

• Don’t give into external pressures and try to face challenges confidently. You will overcome adversity or learn something precious – a win-win situation, either way!
• Remaining calm strengthens our personality. However, being calm may be tough when you are suffering from a splitting headache and have an urgent deadline. In such cases, try to tap the power of breathing. An awareness of your breathing can help you feel calm in the middle of any situation.

18. Positive outlook

• No one would like to be around complaint boxes or those with nothing good to say.
• Try to be an upbeat person who lights up a room with personal energy upon entering it.
• Look for the best in people and things. Give a warm smile, spread cheer, and enliven others with your presence.
• Stress may affect us often on the outside but our inner core always radiates positivity like a proton by being unaffected, happy and peaceful. Tune into it with the help of meditation to energize yourself and bring out enthusiasm.

19. Integrity and respect

• Be honest and true to what you say to earn admiration and respect.
• Nothing else can make you more impressive than integrity and respect. Show respect for others and yourself, too.

20. Helping out others

• Becoming helpful endears you to all quickly.
• We all love cheerleaders, who encourage us when we’re down.

21. Thinking like a leader

Leaders aren’t always by the positions they hold; they are people who assume  responsibilities without waiting to be told. Just thinking like one can nurture the leadership traits in you. Take new responsibilities and live up to them to bring change and influence on others.

22. Doing meditation

Regular meditation can help you let go and feel relaxed quite easily. Daily meditation also gives us more focus and calmness, apart from yielding other health benefits.

23. Dressing confidently

Everyone has some or the other bodily flaw and may feel inadequate due to them occasionally. But dressing a comfortable and confident-arousing dress can help you tide over tough situations.

24. Giving yourself time

Several things like the ability to let go, feeling light and enthusiasm can’t be cultivated overnight. You need time, effort and an inner change to transform yourself. With breathing awareness and meditation, you can bring out this inner change by removing deep-rooted stress, which makes a person calmer, stronger, and happier.

Teenage is quite a unique period in terms of human developmental trajectory. Being neither a child nor an adult – teenage is no easy piece of cake as is portrayed so realistically by Rabinder Nath Tagore in one of his iconic stories. Though the situation today might have become a little easier and more comfortable for a wanna-be teenager thanks to our child-centric education system and steadily rising awareness, it wasn’t always like this. Sample this popular quote on teenage

“Teenage is a time of great storm and strife, strain and stress.”

That remains the popular perception, though, despite the fact that later research has proven otherwise.  Research does say that teenage is a time of a little emotional, social and academic turmoil, but most teenagers manage to navigate it relatively comfortably without facing any major hurdles on the way. Of course, crystallizing a personal self-identity is a major developmental task at this stage, which Eric Ericson has duly emphasized. The successful formation of a personal identity is major psychological milestone, which paves the way for a responsible, successful adult life. The unfortunate ones, who are unable to forge a clear personal identity at this time, may have to struggle with role confusion in a prolonged manner in later life.

Many teenagers commonly face many other impediments on their way to a successful transition to adulthood. Among them, poor self-confidence ranks quite high on the list. In simple parlance, self-confidence is the belief that you’ll succeed, which is related to one’s self-esteem and resilience.

Self-confidence helps us make safe, well-informed decisions and avoid unsafe situations.

Self-confidence is linked with one’s

•  Self–esteem, i.e. feeling good and worthwhile about oneself
• Resilience i.e. ability to bounce back from difficulties and failures and cope with tough situations
• Self-compassion i.e. showing kindness towards yourself when events don’t work out the way you had hoped or planned.

If children feel okay about themselves and are aware that they can cope with tough situations, they will have more self-confidence to try out new things and tackle tough situations. In a way, it’s a positive cycle, which perpetuates itself to benefit the child.

Importance of building self-confidence for teenagers

Self-esteem comprises the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we have of ourselves. Changing these opinions can’t happen overnight but there are steps you can take to help your teen break out of a negative thought pattern. Once you implement these interventions, seeing results takes time.

 Having self-confidence helps a teenager feel that they can make safe, well-informed decisions and avoid potentially harmful situations. A confident teenager is assertive, positive, engaged, enthusiastic and persistent in efforts.

On the contrary, diffident teenagers shy away from joining activities, are more likely to hold themselves back in class, and are more likely to yield to peer pressure. A diffident teenager might expect to fail at new things or might not try as hard when things get tough.

As a case in point, a confident teenager, who faces problems with friends, may feel upset for a while. But they realize they can bounce back from the low mood to focus on the positive aspects of life, like other friends and family. On the other hand, a teenager with poor confidence may feel more upset or self-blame for their problems. It could affect their self-esteem and make them feel they aren’t worth being friends with.

 Low self-confidence comes from specific life experiences and how we react to them. Most often, low self-confidence is a result of exposure to:

1.     Bullying in school, playfield or otherwise
2.     Some chronic medical conditions
3.     Feelings of loneliness
4.     Anxiety
5.     Parental criticism or neglect
6.     Negative friends
7.     Abuse or trauma
8.     Disruptive life events (e.g. divorce, shifting)
9.       Mood disorders (e.g. depression)

The Root Cause

Experts in parent child relationship counselling suggest that at the very heart of poor self-confidence lies the “inner” criticism and feelings of inadequacy.

1. A good start to address this challenge will be helping your teenager identify and challenge this “inner” critic. Help them realize that these negative thoughts are based on judgments and do not reflect the reality. Also, try to guide them to turn such negative thoughts into positive self-affirmations.

2. Teach them how to make positive self-statements and encourage them to make constructive talk a habit. Try to measure up to the same standard as a positive role model.

3. While talking to them, stay clear of personal attacks and ridicule. Don’t generalize a one-off happening like “Put the trash bin out” become “You lazy! You always forget to do your chores.”

4. Celebrate what they do well.
5. Focus on the efforts made instead of looking for perfection.

6. Re-look at mistakes as learning opportunities.

7. Pinpoint triggers that lead to low self-confidence.

8. Become adventurous and try new things.

10. Own up decisions and opinions.
11. Support them by being generous with praise for things well done in specific situations like cleaning their room, getting an A+ on a class test.) Use it to celebrate good choices and hard work.

Decision Making and Self-Esteem

• For budding youth, self confidence counselling is a must. Learning effective decision-making is crucial to a teen’s success, yet it remains a neglected domain, which requires practice. So, try to locate decision-making opportunities and help your teen by guiding them in the process. Teach them how to develop clarity over a given issue and tell them how to brainstorm possible solutions, pick one and evaluate its outcomes.

• Don’t judge them or belittle their choices. And also don’t make decisions for them. Teach them to become empowered by taking their own decision and owning up their consequences and make them feel adequate and capable.

• Let go of the parental reins and allow them to explore the possibilities. Mistakes are, no doubt, inevitable in this learning process but that’s life!

• Don’t get so serious to leave no room for laughter in life. Often, despite all our good intentions, we mess up the things. Taking such challenges in one’s stride and laugh over them builds resiliency.

Tips and Techniques for Developing Self-Confidence

Here are my proven 15 practical tips to help your teen become a strong, confident adult with a healthy dose of self-esteem.

1. Room for Failure

The frequent mistakes and setbacks a teenager experiences can crush their delicate self- confidence. Your intervention in such situations is a must. So instead of criticizing or panicking over a failure, take a deep breath and talk to your teen with questions like:

1. How did things get off the track?
2. What had influenced you to take this decision?
3. What did you learn from it?
4. What are your plans to move forward in a positive direction?

Use activities to tell them about accepting mistakes and using the failures to advantage. When failures are seen as learning experiences, obstacles become easier to cross.

2. Process and Outcome

Going overboard by gushing over your teen’s achievements is the easier part. But sadly, these achievements get tied to their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence, making them feel they’re worthwhile only for their achievements and aren’t worthwhile if they fall short.

A much healthier approach would be to congratulate your teen’s accomplishments by emphasizing the hard work, effort, and perseverance they have put in. A focus on the things that made them reach this point will help them connect their efforts and the result.

Remember, healthy and effective praise can build resilience, confidence, and self-direction among teenagers

3. Unconditional Love

Make them understand that your love for them is NOT dependent on their grades, performance, friends, college, or their choices or behavior. By tying love to performance, we miss the essence of unconditional love, which has to be given freely sans any limits.

This, of course, never implies that you and your teen can’t commit mistakes, experience bad days, or have arguments. Rather, it’s just a reminder of the overall message your teen should receive: “I love you no matter what and I’ll love you through ups and downs in life.”

As a life coach, I keep on getting many such cases wherein a teenager’s elf-confidence is crushed due to some unintentional comments made by parents or significant others. I remember Kanak Tulika, a doctor, had approached me some time back with complaints of poor self-confidence.  Though she was a competent doctor and enjoyed a good reputation for her medical knowledge and skills, a certain something always kept her anxious and bogged down. During counseling, she revealed that once while she was in her teens, her mother had remarked that howsoever hard she might try to groom herself with make-up, it wasn’t going to change her looks. Though most probably, the remark was not made in a serious tone, it stuck to her mind forever and that’s what had brought her to me. Of course, with some counseling and therapy, she was back in her original form- alive, confident and springing with assertiveness.

It should be amply clear that parents need to be extremely mindful of what they say, imply or indicate while interacting with their teenagers to avoid doing things that might leave permanent emotional scars on a teen’s mind, which could become a handicap for life.

4. Growth Mindset

Many teenagers are often caught in a “fixed mindset” about their identity or capabilities and are unsure how to move forward. Bring a growth mindset into your family conversations. Talk about the inherent, untapped capabilities of our brain and mention to them the areas in which you’ve seen your teenager grow.

Pepper your interactions with these messages, drill into them that their abilities are not fixed, inborn, and inflexible, that there is always room for growth and improvement. Ask them to challenge their limiting self-beliefs and see the results for themselves to convince them of the utility of a growth mindset.

5. Give Reassurance

Let your teen navigate through the ups and downs of life and the overwhelming emotions to let them learn they are normal. Building self-confidence often means taking bold stands and taking decisions that impact peer groups or social standing.

Remind your teenagers they aren’t a “bad person” simply because they quit a toxic friendship or chose an activity over a boyfriend/girlfriend. Achieving growth and maturity are difficult, but it doesn’t mean your teen is doing something wrong.

6. Assertiveness

Making confident, clear, and persuasive communication isn’t really easy for everyone. Many teens don’t grasp the differences between assertive, passive, and aggressive communication. Talk to them how such nuances like the voice tone, body language and nonverbal cues can make or mar a conversation.

Encourage your teen to practice in front of a mirror to appreciate such nuances of communication. Standing tall and speaking clearly can improve how they feel, especially if they feel shy of entering a difficult situation.

7. New Skills

Teenage brings tremendous brain growth, but it also highlights teen struggles – physical, academic, social and emotional. These struggles can create negative self-worth. So, when you pinpoint an area of concern, encourage them to look at it as an opportunity for growth, learning and inculcating their interests and abilities.

Try to look for ways to build on things your teen is passionate about and explore situations to let them practice new skills.

8. Never-say-die Family

Many people mistakenly believe that they have to be self-confident before they tackle a difficult thing.

A remarkable thing coming from extensive research is that you don’t always need confidence for a growth mindset

Your teenagers can try something they’re not good at, even if they don’t feel confident initially. By sticking to something wholeheartedly, they develop a growth mindset and self-confidence along the way.

9. Encourage Self-Compassion

A growth mindset necessitates kindness and patience with ourselves. Contrary to popular messages in social media and peer group influences, your teen doesn’t have to have an outside opinion to prove their worth.

So, if you find your teen stuck in a negative or fixed mindset, encourage them to develop self-compassion.

Ask them to use mindfulness activities, positive mantras, and affirmations regularly. While they are struggling, encourage them to self-talk using the same words and the tone they would use if a close friend were in such a situation. 

10. Practice

Make a safe space for your teen to work through tough situations. Give a free atmosphere to talk freely about challenges, peer issues, “unfair” teachers and overwhelming homework. And explore ways how they can manage these situations with self-confidence, address others respectfully and maintain their self-worth.

For teens who struggle with communication, use the safety of your home to try Role Play to practice a variety of responses, tones of voice, volume, and nonverbal cues.

11. Diversity in Activities

The teens involved in many activities, sports, volunteering, and educational activities have a higher sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. Notably, they aren’t crushed by a setback in an as other things feed their self-confidence. When a teenager engages in activities helping others, they earn a sense of purpose and meaning.

12. Less Advice

Watching your child struggle to learn or manage the consequences of an impulsive decision isn’t easy. It’s normal for a parent to try sharing their wisdom to smoothen their path. However, it has to be understood that learning to tackle challenges, brainstorm and solve problems can build your teen’s confidence.

Therefore, rather than spoon-feed them, engage them in the process and become a cheerleader, rather than a director. Listen as they explore where things went off the track and support your teen’s plan to move ahead.

13. Ask for Advice

We parents face challenges and failures in our daily lives, which we can use to show them we are humans and that we need help too! Make it a point to discuss your challenges with your kids and let them see you made mistakes.

Discuss the situation with them. Ask them how they would approach your problem. It will not only create a connection, but will also show them that you aren’t perfect and that you are learning, too.

14. Listen

Keep your relationship with them strong and build their self-worth by resisting the urge to turn everything into a “lecture”. Instead, focus on what they have to say. While at it, avoid making assumptions, judgments, or jumping to the offense.

Practice empathy by putting yourself in your child’s shoes and relating to them emotionally, realizing that responding with logic or reasoning may push them away. You don’t have to agree with your teen’s viewpoint to become empathetic. Focus on improving your listening skills rather than having the last word.

15. Model Confidence

Your teenagers watch and observe how you manage challenging situations and how you feel about yourself. Watch the conversations you have while your teens are around – be careful not to put others down, criticize yourself and make your happiness dependent on others or circumstances.

Make an honest assessment of your self-esteem and confidence and embrace a growth mindset! Look for areas you want to improve, find things that will build self-confidence and start!

You can’t compel a teenager to embrace a growth mindset, practice positive affirmations, or try challenging activities, but you can foster an enabling environment that nourishes such behaviors. With your support, they can build self-confidence which matches the images they often share on social media.

 Counselling for Teenagers

If your teenager’s confidence plunges suddenly or if low confidence stops them from trying out new things, the first thing to do is: talk to them to help you find out what’s happening. If it is something beyond your ken, try to get help from a teacher, school counsellor or psychologist.

As parents, we want our teens to feel confident. But those involved in youth self confidence counselling say that the reality is – teenage years are full of change as teenagers’ brains undergo a “reorganization” that can leave them and their parents overwhelmed, exhausted, and confused. As teenagers search for their place in the world, many of them struggle through situations that challenge their self-beliefs they’ve held for years.

Experts in parent child relationship counselling often advise parents to nurture a strong relationship with their teenagers to make them confident while they are trying to meet the challenges of adolescence. Counselling for teenagers involves building a strong bond by forging open communication and a constant connect with them.

Be practical

Look for the practical and positive things your teenager can do to build skills and thereby achieve goals and experience success. Giving your child a clear strategy to improve their chances of success is a great way to do this e.g.  Rahul, if you want to be part of the hockey team, make sure to listen to the coach and practice as per their advice.

Opportunities for new things

Trying out many different things helps one discover the one/s they’re good at and what they really enjoy. Your teenager also learn with time that most people excel at certain things and not so well at others, which is okay.

Encourage them to keep trying

If your teenager fails at doing something, help them understand the fact that everyone makes mistakes. You need to encourage your child to be kind to themselves if they are unhappy with their performance in a game. They could tell themselves ‘That didn’t go well but I’ll keep trying to better myself’.

Be a model of confidence

You could become a role model of confidence for your teenager by telling them about what you’re going to do to succeed in a task. For instance, you might discuss with them how you often felt nervous about making a presentation at your workplace but succeeded with practice over time. You could tell your teenager how you’re practicing it at home to be well prepared and confident on the day.

Encourage their self-confidence

You could also help your teenager by telling them acting confident can help them develop confidence. Teach them to make eye contact with others, smile and dress in a way that makes them good, and think good about their body posture. You can also teach them to do what they love, avoid threatening situations and try to avoid focus on what they can’t do.

Social skills

A socially anxious teenager might need some guidance from you. If such teenagers take interest in others’ activities and join in conversations, it can help them build confidence.

Praise their efforts

Those involved in counselling for teenagers suggest that should a test, interview, contest or game not work out the way they hoped, try to praise your teenager for the effort they had put in rather than the result. You could also guide them with some ideas about the difference they could make the next time to achieve success.

Stress has become quite a buzzword today thanks to its extraordinarily common prevalence, especially in the current COVID- 19 times. With the scourge of COVID-19 simply refusing to go away, the level of stress experienced by a majority of us stays or has shown a northwards trend. Given the situation, everyone talks of controlling or managing stress to lead a more peaceful and relaxed life. 

Let’s first try to understand the idea of stress before we expand on the ways to mitigate it. In simple words, stress is a normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands of life. A low level of stress is actually good for you in that it can motivate you to perform well e.g. before exam time, the little stress you feel actually helps you study hard and do well in it. But facing multiple challenges on a daily basis like unending traffic jams, meeting deadlines and paying bills, managing a family – all can push you beyond your coping ability.

Our brain is hard-wired with an alarm system to protect us. So, whenever it perceives some threat, it sends a signal to our body to release hormones that increase our heart rate and blood pressure. This so-called “fight-or-flight” response triggered by the body provides us the fuel to deal with the threat – more oxygen, more energy, a sort of physical and mental rush.

Once the threat is gone, our body is supposed to turn back to a normal, relaxed state. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen in many cases as the never-ending complications of modern life do not ever let some people’s alarm systems shut off. And this is an unhealthy state of mind and body, which can cause great harm to our mind and body in the long term. 

Signs of excessive Stress

1. Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
2. Feeling of nausea or dizziness
3. Chronic diarrhea or constipation
4. Consuming alcohol or drugs to relax and unwind
5. Eating too much or not enough
6. Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities
7. Worrying non-stop
8. Feeling overwhelmed
9. Inability to concentrate on daily tasks
10. Anxious or “racing” thoughts
11. Feeling of being agitated, inability to relax
12. Irritability, moodiness 

Stress management

Stress management gives us the tools to reset our bodily alarm system to help our mind and body adapt (resilience). Sans such resilience, our body may always remain in a state of high alert. Over time, such chronic stress can create serious health problems. Therefore, it is advisable to not wait until stress actually damages your health, relationships and the quality of life. It’s much better to start practicing stress management techniques today. There are things you can do to relieve the pressure and regain control of life.

Job pressures, relationship problems or financial concerns are easy stressors to identify. But the hassles and demands of day to day life like waiting in a long line or being for a meeting can also raise your stress level. Even seemingly positive events like getting married or buying a new house can be stressful. In fact, any change in life can cause stress.

Remember, stress will not vanish from your life and thus, the process of stress management needs to be an ongoing one. By paying attention to the causes of stress and practicing relaxing ways, you can counter some of its ill-effects and improve your coping abilities.

Don’t feel like you have to deal with it on your own. Seek help from family and friends.

  Importance of stress management

High levels of stress put our entire physical and mental well-being at risk. Stress brings havoc on our emotional equilibrium and physical health, limits our ability to think clearly, function adequately, and enjoy life in general. It seems as if there’s nothing you can do about it as the bills won’t stop coming, the day would have the same number of hours and your work and family responsibilities will always remain demanding. Fret not! You enjoy a lot more control than you may think.

Stress management can help you yank off the hold stress is chaining you with, letting you become happier, healthier, and productive. The ultimate goal behind this entire exercise is leading a balanced life with enough time for work, relationships, relaxation and fun and build the resilience to withstand pressure and meet challenges. But unfortunately, there isn’t any one-size-fits-all trick. That’s why you need to experiment and discover what works best for you.

Stress Management Techniques

1. Sources of stress

Mind power training is an important component of learning stress management. Stress management training begins with pinpointing the sources that bring you stress. It may be easy to identify major stressors like a job change, job loss, moving and divorce, but pinpointing the reasons behind chronic stress is more complicated as our own thoughts, feelings and behaviors also contribute to stress.

For instance, you may be always worried about your deadlines, but the stress may be owing to procrastination, rather than the actual job demands. To identify the real sources, you need to look closely at your habits, attitude, and excuses and ask yourself:

1. Do you justify stress as temporary even though it has always been there?

(“I’ve got hundreds of things in hand right now”)

1. Do you call stress an integral part of your life (“Crazy things always happen here”) or personality (“I have a lot of nervous energy)?
2. Do you put the blame for your stress on others or outside events or see it as normal?

Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating / maintaining it, your stress will remain outside your control.

Write a stress journal

For better stress management training, a life coach may advise you to maintain a stress journal to identify major, regular stressors and the ways you deal with them. Whenever you feel stressed, note it in your journal. This daily log will give you patterns and common themes like:

What created the stress?

How did you feel physically and emotionally?

How did you respond?

What did you do to feel better?

2. Be imaginative and Creative

I can vividly recall how I managed to maintain the morale of our workforce during the first lockdown post-COVID-19. The first Corona-induced lockdown was total, strict and quite frustrating for all, including our plant workers, many of whom were stuck away from their families. In fact, we had made lodging and boarding arrangements for many of them, whose families were staying far away and who were suddenly stuck there. Since no physical movement was possible, we evolved a creative solution and decided to keep them involved over Zoom meetings every alternate day, wherein we would discuss creative ideas and believe me, our collective energies and focus helped us create a biodegradable product in those stressful days. It gave them not only something meaningful to keep busy, but also resulted in a technological breakthrough, besides de-stressing them.

At a personal level, my doctor-in-the-making daughter was also stuck at home, feeling bored and stressed, with there being no college and the impending fear of another lockdown. I gently persuaded her to give a vent to her thoughts, which had been brewing in her mind for the past so many months. Not only did it give her a creative outlet, but also kept her meaningfully busy and made her come out with her first-ever published book A Million Dreams.   

So, the mantra is – be imaginative and creative to de-stress yourself!

3. 4 A’s – Avoid, Alter, Adapt and Accept

Stress is an automatic response of the nervous system but some stressors arise at predictable times – your travel to work, meeting with boss or family gatherings. While handling such predictable stressors, you can change the situation or change the way you react with mind power training. In this regard, life coaches advise you to practice the four A’s: avoid, alter, adapt, or accept.

Avoid

Avoiding a stressful situation that needs to be addressed isn’t healthy, but you can eliminate many  stressors in your life.

1. Know your personal limits and learn to say “no”. Taking on more than what you can handle is a sure shot recipe for stress. Try to distinguish between the “shoulds” and the “musts” and say “no” to taking on too much work.
2. Avoid people who stress you out. If someone consistently causes stress, limit the time you spend with them or call it quits.
3. Take control of your environment. If reading the newspaper gives you anxiety, put it away. If traffic snarls make you tense, take a longer but less-travelled route. If a visit to the market is unpleasant to you, do online shopping.
4. Slim down your to-do list by analyzing your schedule, responsibilities, and daily tasks. If there’s too much on your plate, shift the tasks that aren’t truly necessary to the bottom or chuck them out entirely.

Alter

1. If you can’t avoid a stressor, alter it by changing the way you communicate and operate.
2. Give a vent to your feelings. If something/someone bothers you, communicate your concerns assertively in an open, respectful way. If you’ve got an exam and your chatty friend just dropped in, tell them you only have five minutes to talk. If you don’t express yourself, resentment builds, which increases the stress.
3. If you ask someone to change their behavior, be ready to do the same. If you both are willing to bend a little, you can easily find a happy middle ground.
4. Have a balanced schedule as all work and no play causes a burnout. Find a balance between work and family life, social activities and solo pursuits and daily responsibilities and downtime.

Adapt

1. If you can’t change the stress agent, try to change yourself. Adapt to stressful situations and regain control by changing your expectations and attitudes.
2. Reframe a problem by examining stressful situations from a positive perspective. Rather than fuming over the traffic jam, just pause, listen to music, read a book or enjoy some me time.
3. Look at the big picture by taking a perspective view of the situation. How important will it be in the long run? In a month? A year? Does it deserve getting upset over? NO, then focus your time and energy elsewhere.
4. Chasing perfection creates avoidable stress. Do not plan to fail by looking for perfection. Have reasonable standards for self and others, and try to be okay with “good enough.”
5. Practice gratitude. When stress bogs you down, reflect on all the things you appreciate including your own qualities.

Accept

Some sources of stress are, indeed, unavoidable. You can’t prevent or change a loved one’s demise, a serious illness or recession. Accept them as they are. Acceptance may be difficult, but it’s easier than railing against something you can’t change.

1. Many things are beyond our control, particularly others’ behavior. Rather than stressing out over them, focus on what you can control e.g. the way you react to problems.
2. While facing major challenges, look at them as opportunities for growth. If your own choices had created a stressful situation, learn from your mistakes.
3. We live in an imperfect world and people make mistakes. Let go of your anger and resentments. Avoid negativity by forgiving and moving on.
4. Express yourself to have a catharsis. Talk to a friend or a family member.

4. Get moving

Of all the stress management techniques, physical activity can be a huge stress reliever as exercising releases the feel-good endorphins and it can also become a valuable distraction from daily worries.

While you’ll get the most benefit from regularly exercising for 30 minutes or more, it’s okay to build up your fitness level gradually. Even very small activities can add up over the course of a day. The first step is to get yourself up and moving. While regular exercise for 30 minutes or more delivers the best benefits, it’s okay to build your fitness level gradually by including small activities.

Just get up and move i.e.

1. Put on some music and dance.
2. Walk your dog.
3. Walk or cycle to the neighborhood grocery store.
4. Take the stairs rather than an elevator.
5. Park your car at the farthest spot and walk the rest of the way.
6. Join hands with an exercise buddy to encourage each other.
7. Play ping-pong or some activity-based video game with your kids.

While any physical activity helps burn away tension and stress, rhythmic activities are especially effective in this case. Good options are walking, running, swimming, dancing, cycling, and aerobics. But make sure to choose something enjoyable so that you stick with it.

While exercising, try to pay conscious attention to your bodily and emotional sensations. Focus on coordinating your breathing with your movements. Notice how the air or sunlight feels on your skin. This mindfulness element helps you break the cycle of negative thoughts that accompanies overwhelming stress.

5. Connect

Nothing else is as calming than spending good face time with others who makes you feel safe and understood. In fact, face-to-face interaction triggers hormones that neutralize the body’s defensive “fight-or-flight” response, a natural stress reliever (besides staving off depression and anxiety). So connect regularly in person with family and friends.

Read: Dealing with Depression

The people you talk to may not fix your problem. They just have to be good listeners. And do not think about looking weak or being a burden as those who care about you will feel flattered by your trust you repose in them and it will only strengthen your bond. Building and maintaining a network of close friends can enhance your resilience to stressors.

1. Reach out to colleagues.                              B. Help others by volunteering.
2. Share lunch/ tea with a friend.                     D. Ask a loved one to check in on you regularly.
3. Take someone with you to a movie/concert.         F. Call or email an old friend.
4. Go out for a walk with a workout buddy.   H. Have a weekly dinner date.
5. See new people by taking a class or joining a club.
6. Confide in a teacher, mentor or an elder one.

6. Fun and relaxation

You can also reduce the stress in life by taking out some “me” time. Never get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that you forget your own needs as nurturing your own self is a necessity, not a luxury. You deserve it! With regular time for fun, you can handle the stress in life in a better way.

• Keep aside some leisure time and include rest and relaxation in your daily schedule. While at it, don’t let other obligations encroach on this time as you need a break from all responsibilities to recharge your batteries.
• Do some leisure activities that you enjoy – watching birds or stars, playing an instrument, or biking. And always keep your sense of humor intact, including laughing at yourself, which is a hallmark of emotional maturity. Laughter also helps you fight stress in many ways.
• Try out yoga, meditation, and deep breathing to activate the bodily relaxation response, which is the opposite of “the fight or flight” stress response. As you practice them, your stress level will decline, leaving you calm and focused.

7. Time management

Bad time managers always face a lot of stress. If you’re too stretched and are running behind schedule, staying calm and focused is impossible. Plus, you may be tempted to avoid all the healthy things you should do to control stress e.g. socializing and relaxing. There are things you can do to attain a healthier work-life balance.

• Make only reasonable commitments and avoid scheduling things back-to-back or packing too much into a day. Often, we underestimate how long things can take and then land in a problem.
• Prioritize your tasks by making a list of tasks and finish them in order of importance. Tackle the high-priority items first and so on. For something particularly unpleasant or stressful, finish it early so that the rest of the day feels more pleasant.
• Break your projects into small, manageable steps and focus on one step at a time, rather than taking on everything in one go.
• You don’t have to do it all by yourself. If other people can take care of the task, why not let them do so? Avoid controlling or overseeing every little step, thereby letting go of the unnecessary stress.

8. Balance with a healthy lifestyle

Besides regular exercise, other healthy lifestyle choices are an important part of stress management training that can improve your resistance to stress.

1. Eat a healthy, balanced diet as a well-nourished body is better prepared to cope with stress. So be very mindful of your eating and begin your day right with a healthy breakfast and follow it with balanced, nutritious meals through the day to keep you active and your mind clear.
2. Try to limit the caffeine and sugar intake as the temporary “highs” they bring often end with a mood crash. By reducing the intake of coffee, soft drinks, chocolate, and sugar snacks, you’ll feel more relaxed and will sleep better.
3. Stay away from alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Alcohol and drugs may be an easy escape from stress, but the relief is only temporary. Don’t evade the issue at hand. Deal with it head on and with a clear mind.
4. Adequate, quality sleep rests your mind and rejuvenates your body. Feeling tired worsens your stress as it may cause you to think irrationally.

9. Quick, Momentary relief

• If you’re harried by your morning commute, are stuck in a stressful meeting or are hassled over an argument with your spouse, you need a quick stress management technique.
• The quickest route to stress relief is deep breathing. View a favorite photo, smell a specific scent, listen to your favorite music, hug your pet to quickly relax and focus yourself. Of course, you will need to experiment and discover the unique sensory experiences that work best for you.

In very simple terms, your self-esteem is your overall sense of yourself as a person i.e. self-value. It is basically your own opinion about yourself and covers a vast range of issues- your sense of identity, self-confidence, feelings of worth, competence and belonging. Self-esteem plays an extremely crucial role in many areas of life e.g. achievement, task completion, success etc., which is why having a poor self-esteem can be a serious psychological problem.

Self-esteem is not only liking yourself in general; rather it also implies a belief that you deserve love, respect and attention and valuing your own thoughts, feelings, opinions, interests, and goals. Self-esteem not only affects how you feel about and treat yourself, it can also affect how you let others treat you. It impacts the levels of your motivation to chase the goals you want to achieve in life and your ability to develop healthy and  supportive relationships.

What is low self-esteem?

People with healthy self-esteem tend to think positively about themselves and life in general. Such people know they are valuable and can name at least some positive qualities they have like “I am a good co-worker”, “I am compassionate”, “I am honest”, or “I am good as a parent”.

On the contrary, people with poor self-esteem see themselvjes, the world and the future negatively and critically. They may be anxious, sad, low or unmotivated and upon encountering challenges, they doubt their ability to handle them. They may indulge in harsh self-talk: “I am stupid”, “I’ll never manage it”, or “I’m crap”.

A person suffering from low self-esteem may try to please others or go the extra mile to please friends and family. So long as they meet these standards, they feel OK, but there will be times when it’s not possible to do so, and it can leave them feeling low and anxious.

Self-esteem can be thought of as existing on a spectrum. Some such people find that it only affects them with certain people or in certain situations. On the other hand, other people may find that their self-esteem may be much more global and colors everything that they do.

Diagnosis of Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem should be diagnosed by a qualified mental health professional. However, answering these questions can give you a good idea of whether you need to have a professional assessment for a proper diagnosis.

1. I feel I’m worthy, at least as much as others are.

 Strong agreement    Agreement   Disagreement Strong disagreement

2. Overall, I am satisfied with myself.

 Strong agreement    Agreement   Disagreement Strong disagreement

3. I have never felt useless or worthless.

Strong agreement    Agreement   Disagreement Strong disagreement

4. tend to give myself kind encouragement if things go wrong.

 Strong agreement    Agreement   Disagreement Strong disagreement

5. I have many good qualities.

 Strong agreement    Agreement   Disagreement Strong disagreement

 They can’t provide a definitive diagnosis, but if you have selected ‘Strong disagreement’ for many of these questions, you may be having problems with low self-esteem. You may speak to a qualified mental health professional about it in order to get relevant help.

Low Self-Esteem- Signs and symptoms

Poor self-esteem affects thoughts, emotions, and patterns of behavior. Many a time, its signs may be apparent, but in some cases, they can be much more subtle and harder to detect. Some low self-esteem people talk negatively about themselves, while others go the extra mile to please others in life. In either case, the lack of personal worth can negatively impact a person’s life and wellness.

1. Negative Social Comparisons

Social comparisons can work positively by enhancing a person’s sense of self and by motivating others towards greater, higher action. But such comparisons can also damage self-esteem. People with low self-esteem are more likely to do upward social comparison, or making comparisons with people who they think are better than them.

In fact, upward social comparison isn’t bad per se. In fact, these comparisons may provide information and inspiration for improvement but if people are left with feelings of inadequacy or hopelessness, it can inhibit self-esteem. Comparisons need to be made very tactfully and carefully so as to counter their possible negative consequences. In fact, it needs to be evaluated how the listener takes to such caparisons and how the said comparison is made.

The ubiquitous impact of social media may worsen the problems related to such comparisons. People who often compare themselves unfavorably to others on social media like Facebook and Instagram may experience a hit to their self-esteem.

2. Low Confidence

People having low self-confidence have poor self-esteem. Having self-confidence and confidence in your abilities allows you to know that you can handle different situations. This self-belief makes you feel comfortable and confident while you navigate the different things in life, which plays an important role in success  and your overall well-being.

Low self-esteem contributes to a lack of confidence, but poor confidence can also cause or worsen low self-esteem. Therefore, finding ways to gain self-confidence and confidence in your abilities can help. Trying to practice and acquire new skills can boost your confidence and self-esteem.

3. Feelings of lack of Control and Helplessness

Low-esteem people often have a feeling of having little control over their life or what happens to them. It may be attributed to their feeling that they have little ability to changes themselves or the world. With this external locus of control, they may feel powerless to do anything to solve the problems they are facing.

In situations where people have little control over what happens, higher self-esteem can help relieve some negative effects of this lack of control, which ultimately benefits their mental health.

So, for someone struggling with a feeling of having no control over life or situation, finding ways to improve self-esteem may help their well-being.

4. Problems Asking for What You Need

A person with low self-esteem may have difficulty in asking for what they need. Because of their low self-esteem, they feel they don’t deserve help and in fact, may feel embarrassed or incompetent by expressing their need for help and support. Since they don’t prioritize their desires, they feel problems with asserting themselves while they are in need.

5. Trouble Accepting Positive Feedback

A 2017 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology says that people suffering from low self-esteem cannot accept or capitalize on others’ praise, approval or compliments. Due to the lack of  a positive self-opinion, such people have difficulties with accept compliments from others.

Interestingly, such positive feedback is often greeted with suspicion and distrust by them as these words do not align with their self-beliefs. Therefore, the low self-esteem people may feel that the other person is actually being flippant or even deceitful or cruel.

6. Worry and Self-Doubt

Such people often worry about having made a wrong choice. They doubt their own opinions and may often defer to others’ opinions instead of following their own choices. It can often cause much second-guessing and self-doubting, which makes it even harder for them to make important life decisions.

7. Fear of Failure

Due to the lack of self-confidence, such people doubt their own ability to achieve success. They fear failure and either avoid challenges or give up quickly without trying hard.

Such fear of failure is seen in acting out when things go wrong, looking for ways to hide feelings of inadequacy, excuses, blaming external factors and trying to downplay the importance of the task.

8. Poor Outlook

Low self-esteem makes such people hapless in that there is little chance of future being any better. This hopelessness can make it hard for them to bring about positive changes in their lives.

Self-harm is also a common technique of coping with such feelings. By finding obstacles to prevent success, low self-esteem lets them find something else to blame for their shortcomings.

9. Negative Self-Talk

Low self-esteem people often focus on their flaws rather than strengths. They always have something negative to say about themselves, blame themselves for things gone wrong and always find some fault with their appearance, personality or abilities.

10. Trying to Please Others

Pleasing others is another common symptom of low self-esteem. Such people may go above and beyond to ensure others’ comfort and happiness and gain external validation. In the process, they neglect their own needs and say yes to things they may not want to do, and feel guilty about saying no.

Impact of Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem is linked to many mental health problems like:

• Anxiety                          
• Emotional distress          
• Risky behaviors               
• Substance use                 
• lack of concentration
• Eating disorders
• Panic disorder
• Social anxiety disorder
• Stress

1. 1.Low self-esteem makes goal achievement and forming healthy, supportive relationships a difficult task. It can also contribute to mental health problems including anxiety and depression. Low self-esteem is also likely to make such people vulnerable to suicidal thinking.
2. Low self-esteem makes people over-sensitive to criticism or rejection. While someone with a high self-esteem can shake off negative feedback, someone with poor self-value may take it more personally, who  is more likely to give up in the face of challenges.

3. They often engage in behaviors designed to help preserve their limited self-worth i.e. acting sad or sulking to garner support from others. Unfortunately, such behaviors backfire and instead of getting the support they need to boost self-esteem, they end up with others’ negative reactions.

Coping with low self-esteem

Low self-esteem takes a heavy toll on emotional well-being. Thus, it’s important to address your sense of self and get the needed support. There are things you can do to protect and improve your self-regard:

1. Hopeful Thoughts

Spend a little time daily having positive, hopeful thoughts. Notice the things you are good at and let  yourself feel proud of them. Think of the past when you made it through something really difficult and remind yourself that though you may not feel your best now, you have the ability to get through it.

2. Care for Yourself

Investing time and energy in your own care and comfort isn’t indulgence —it’s vital to your mental health. Poor self-esteem can give a feeling like you don’t deserve care and consideration. Remind yourself that you need care and show kindness to yourself. Spend some time on things that you enjoy. Give yourself rest and relaxation.

3. Outside Support

Share your struggles with someone – a friend or family member, a doctor, therapist, teacher, or an elder –  who can give you unconditional support. Caring people who value you and want you to value yourself can help you improve your self-esteem.

Causes of low self-esteem

Low self-esteem results from the negative beliefs and opinions you have of yourself. But none is born with such beliefs and they develop from life experiences – How others treat you, particularly during early years can greatly affect how you see yourself. Some experiences that contribute to poor self-esteem are:

Punishment, abuse, neglect

Punishment, abuse, and neglect are very powerful negative experiences. Children affected by them often mistakenly conclude they are bad and deserve such experiences.

 Inadequate warmth, affection, praise, encouragement

You may not remember anything visibly traumatic happening but wonder why you feel this way about yourself as you can develop low self-esteem without any specific negative experiences. It can happen through a deficit of enough positive ones. Lacking enough reinforcement that they are good, special, or loved, children can form an impression of being not good enough.

 Failure to meet others’ expectations

Not meeting someone else’s expectations may cause you to feel you are not good enough. It doesn’t matter whether the standards were fair or balanced, what stays is their failure to meet them.

Inability to fit in with your peer group

The feeling of belonging to a ‘group’ is important in life and is a human survival need in a social sense. Being different or the ‘odd one out’, and therefore, being cast out, especially during adolescence when a personal identity is being created, can impact the sense of self.

How to build self-esteem

Notice Your Thoughts

Pay attention to the automatic negative thoughts you have. Identify your cognitive distortions and replace unhelpful thoughts with positive thinking.

Forgive Yourself

If you always ruminate over your failures, learn to forgive yourself and move on. It can keep you focused on the things you can do better instead of the negative things in the past.

Practice Self-Acceptance

Forget that you have to be perfect to have value. Accept yourself as you are today. Of course, it  doesn’t mean you don’t want to make any changes in yourself, but it is important to recognize that you deserve  love and esteem from yourself and from others.

Value Yourself

Think of the things you have accomplished and take pride in. Appreciate your worth and talents without making comparisons. You don’t need to become better to value yourself, but learning to value yourself can help you work towards your goals.

It can also help to think of yourself as you would a friend. How would you treat someone you care about who is in a similar situation? You may find that you would try to offer them understanding, patience, empathy and kindness. So it is important to show yourself the same unconditional support.

Practical Tips to Build Self-Esteem

Here are some practical tips on how you can build self-esteem:

1. Do something that makes you feel good about yourself.
2. Stay physically active as exercising can help improve your mood.
3. Think about something you are good at to build self-esteem.
4. Keep a gratitude journal.
5. Challenge a negative thought.
6. Spend time with people who make you feel good about you.
7. Volunteer to help others; it helps you feel good about yourself.
8. Remember that everyone makes mistakes, learn from them and move on.
9. Celebrate your accomplishments, both big and small ones to build self-esteem.

Treatments for low self-esteem

A number of psychological treatments have been developed to directly target low self-esteem or self-criticism. The ingredients of effective therapy for low self-esteem include:

1. Identifying core beliefs
2. Identifying your rules for living
3. Developing healthier rules and beliefs for healthy living
4. Testing negative predictions using behavioral experiments
5. Facing fears and tackling anxiety-provoking situations
6. Replacing self-criticism with self-compassion
7. Living according to new core beliefs

In general, no medical treatments are prescribed for low self-esteem. Wherever low self-esteem accompanies other problems like anxiety or depression, medical treatments may be recommended.

Read: Dealing with Depression

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective treatments for low self-esteem. CBT therapists are more focused on what sustains it and what they can do to put it out. If we can grasp what keeps a problem going, we can treat it by interrupting this cycle.

Throughout life, you form negative beliefs about yourself on the basis of how you have been treated i.e. ‘core belief’- how you feel about yourself deep down, for example “I’m useless” or “I’m a flop”. Since confronting such core beliefs is unpleasant, we develop rules of living that protect us from our core beliefs and guide how we live. So long as the rules don’t get broken, the core belief remains dormant. For example, people with poor self-esteem often have demanding and rigid rules like “I must please other people”, or “As long as I’m not criticized, I’m OK”.

But the moment a rule is broken, it can create great anxiety. If one of your rules is “I’m fine as long as all others are happy”, it may cause anxiety if people around you are not happy. You may feel like a failure.

Whenever there is a danger of the rules being broken, you might get anxious about what might happen and fear the worst outcome or might self-talk critically or avoid tricky situations and use coping strategies.

You make rules to protect yourself, but they are often inflexible and stop things from getting better. Although these safety strategies can make you feel good in the short-term, they keep your core belief from changing, thereby keeping your self-esteem poor.