Mental Health Awareness Week

Bluebells, Ripley Woods, North Yorkshire

Anyone can be affected by mental health issues …

… and it seems the challenges of 2020 are likely to cause or exacerbate all sorts of problems, from lack of income to relationship issues.

There’s lots of information on the Mental Health Foundation website.

But how can Alexander Technique help? Isn’t that about back pain or performance on stage?

Yes, it is! Alexander Technique has been proven to help with chronic lower back pain in a randomised medical trial. It is also widely used by actors, singers, and musicians to improve performance and reduce pain. But it is fundamentally a process of psychophysical re-education to organise your whole system so that it works better.

Your thoughts affect your motor system

The motor system is what enables you to move. A simple example of it being affected by thought is when you are driving to an appointment and you encounter a traffic jam. As you start to worry about arriving late, your hands gradually tighten on the steering wheel, your shoulders tense up, and you may even breathe more shallowly. If you stop to think about it, this response to the stimulus of the traffic jam is inappropriate. It will not help you get to your appointment faster. It may even give you a headache or cause you to sweat, neither of which will help the appointment go well.

While we can’t change outside events, we can change our response to them. Alexander lessons help you stop your habitual reactions and explore different possibilities. This may help you think more clearly. In the traffic jam situation, if you stop wasting effort on being angry, you’re better able to consider alternative routes, or work out where you could park to make a phone call.

Kindness

The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is Kindness. Small acts of kindness can make you, as well as the recipient, feel better. It can be something as simple as smiling at the person you’re swerving to keep two metres away from as you walk along the street.

But kindness to oneself is also important and in Alexander lessons you’re encouraged to observe yourself without judgment. This is not easy for anyone and worse for some of us than others. There are all sorts of reasons why we do what we do and why we end up in whatever state we’re in. Rather than focussing on past events we can’t alter, we need to deal with the here and now and to be open to the possibility of change.

Go outside

Finally I’d like to remind you to get outside, whatever the weather. Use all your senses to tap into your environment and on a fine day try an outdoor session of Active Rest. (For more information on Active Rest contact me.) In Alexander lessons I really love to explore the process of walking because most students make some interesting discoveries about themselves – just as I did. As Lester Burnham says in American Beauty: ‘It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.’