Last week October 10 marked as it does every year World Mental Health Day. Over the years I and many I know have taken our mental health for granted, this is the same I believe for most. While our physical bodies creak or give us aches and pains to remind us that there is an area that needs attention our mental health doesn’t always work in the same way.

Mental Health can be more subtle or indeed sometimes it may just be us refusing to listen to what our minds is shouting at us. I know from my times of burnout I should have listened, I should have taken note when that inner voice was saying, slow down, rest, take some time for yourself to practice self-care; I didn’t listen and the results weren’t good.

One thing I learnt over the times of burnout has been communication is the best medication, talking to others really helped me to sort out the tumbleweeds of my mind, to understand why things were the way the were and truly held space for me to talk about how I was feeling and what indeed was going on.

As I did this my mind became clearer, light began to shine through again and time to practice self-care became a priority. These days I recognise when these times are needed and I work to sort out a timetable that allows me to give time back to myself as well as to others.

By nature I am a carer, someone whose nature is to help others, to step in when others out however this on occasions has been to my detriment, totally no fault of others but totally my error in that I didn’t listen to my mind; I didn’t stop whilst my thoughts screamed at me to slow down I just kept on going.

Now here is the strange thing that I have noticed for me and others that when the mind gets fed up of shouting the physical body steps in and throws at us something that will make us stop. This can be anything from a cold, an infection or something very physical like my recent bad back and leg. When the physical body gets involved I can assure it what it delivers will ensure that life is put on hold on for a wee while to allow things to get back on track. This isn’t always an easy time as when ‘stop’ is called both mentally and physically things feel very awry, you realise that the exhaustion that has been creeping up is indeed the instigator in this whole scenario.

I often advised people who I see running around on the go constantly at times 24 / 7 to stop to take some time out and to give the mind time to heal before it gets the physical body to step in and force the stop to take place. Do they listen? Not always but often I hear ‘I should have listened’ whilst having forced time out to rest.

Life in 2025 is busy, technology is supposed to help us have more me time but honestly, I often find the opposite, things (as I stated in a column a couple of weeks ago) are indeed more complicated these days, as human connection gets less, frustration seems to get increased. So, today I urge you to really mark World Mental Day with the knowledge that you really should listen to the mind when it whispers as you really don’t want to hear it scream!