Mental heath hygiene is about Ilm - knowledge and Amanah - self responsibility There is no space for doubts, assumptions or taboos in face of own Afiya! Iqra then is the first step towards self care.

What are the main mental health problems and how not to make them into a bigger deal than they should be? First step always comes with knowledge, not self diagnosis or keeping it a taboo. Read through what are they and how you can recognise their symptoms first!

1. Anxiety

Anxiety can mean nervousness, worry, or self-doubt but it is also a normal reaction to stressful situations. Anxiety, like the fight, flight, or freeze response, is recognised as a survival reaction, which allows protection however it becomes malfunction if we experience it on everyday basis.

Anxiety causes are searched in conditioning by parents, stressful work environment, unresolved traumatic experiences and have potential to develop further into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder, panic attacks, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Anxiety can cause intrusive or obsessive thoughts, disturbing our ability to concentrate  or stay focused. A person with anxiety may feel confused or find it hard to  retain memory. Symptoms of anxiety can also be physical and can range form overly tense muscles to high blood pressure. Trembling, sweating, a racing heartbeat, dizziness, and insomnia can also come from this condition. Anxiety may even cause headaches, digestive problems, difficulty breathing, and nausea. Anxious person might appear confrontational, stumbling over words, trembling, and develop nervous tics.

Therapy can help in uncovering the underlying causes of worries and fears; teach how to relax; look at situations in new, less frightening ways; and develop better coping and problem-solving skills. Talking therapy gives you the tools to examines how negative thoughts and behaviours can trigger anxiety.

2. Anger

Anger is natural human reaction to situation which displeases us or might create fright. It appearance stands from the fright and fight reactions in our limbic brain structure, which it is used as sympathetic survival mechanism. It can help in protective attempts, maintenance of the personal boundaries and general release of build-up energy. It triggers physiological reactions, such as heart beat , increases blood and hormonal levels.

Anger is recently linked with health declination, such as headaches, hypertension, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome. It can also parade under different intensity of common emotions, such as depression, dislike, irritation, guilt, anxiety, loneliness.

We notice that our anger is out of control , when our actions become inappropriate, hurt our self and others, destroy things or causing physical hurt to others. Should our anger grew to disproportionate proportions to the incident that sparked it, then it is probably time to take a deeper look at ourselves and prices we pay for our behavioural choices.

The anger management counselling concentrate on: root causes, triggers, coping strategies, redirecting build up energy into prospectus and practical actions. Working on such issues involves increased self awareness and learning new techniques such as taking time out, self reflection, calming down, relaxation techniques, diversion methods, and delaying responses.

3. Bereavement

Bereavement is normal reaction to loss, such as death. However, feelings of bereavement can also accompany other losses, such as infertility, career issues, the decline of your health or the health of someone you care about, or the end of an important relationship. Regardless the causes, grief can be powerful and exhausting experience; often manifested as physical or emotional dysfunction.

Affectionate reactions of bereavement can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness, and despair. Physical reactions can include sleeping problems, changes in appetite, physical problems, or illness. Social encounter can also be affected, by internal avoidance, isolation or blaming others.

Our relationship to the person who has died will greatly influence your reaction to the loss. They can vary form spouse death, child’s death, parent’s death, suicide, accident, pet’s death or anticipatory.

Counselling offer means of working through your sorrow and allows you to express your feelings of anger, disappointment and often guilt. "Grief work" includes the stages of separating from the person who died, readjusting to a world without him or her, and forming new relationships. Therapist will often help to identify and express feelings related to the loss, understand own methods of coping, find effective ways to independent living, develop a healthy image of one selves and own world.

4. Depression

Everyone experiences an occasional blue mood however depression is a more pervasive experience and recognised as a serious condition. People with depression cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better as it often causes people to feel sad or empty for long periods of time.

Depression comes in different forms such as feeling of loneliness, insomnia, loss of appetite, substance abuse, sensational-seeking behaviour and has potential to develop into a Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), bipolar disorder or dysthymia. It can also affect one’s thinking patterns and physical health. In some cases, depression can interfere with concentration, motivation or lead people to consider suicide. It is a complex disorder, involving many systems of the body, including brain chemistry, especially dysfunctional hormonal level of dopamine and serotonin.

People with depression often feel anger, shame, and irritation. Sometimes these emotions can show up in the body as aches or nausea. These feelings can also lead to weepiness. Other times, depression causes people to feel emotionally “numb.” It is common for people to feel as if they never have energy. In severe cases, a person may not care if they live or die.

Counselling can assists you in identifying and changing your negative thoughts, improve your mood and prevent relapses. Therapy can help to examine how your belief systems and patterns of relating may be affecting your feelings about yourself. Your counsellor can be very useful in helping you to understand the way the mind works and can assist you in disengaging from ‘depression’ thoughts.

5. Parenting

Child counselling is a desired option for those who are recognised with mental health illness, have a history of traumatic events, coming from the background of parental neglect or are facing difficult family situations. In practice children are struggling with same issues as adults , and develop anxiety or depression like symptoms.

Psychotherapy for children can take many forms, such as Play Therapy where children are encouraged to play and creatively articulate and express their emotions and inner thoughts. Play therapy is designed to work from a child's perspective and proven to help the child feel at ease and being open with the therapist. Counselling for children involves encouraging them to express themselves, just as with adult "talking therapies". Counsellor will offer a range of materials including sand, water, paints and toy figures in order to engage children in seemingly unconscious play.

Over time in a comfortable and safe space, the child is able to open up, for instance through their art or role play, and as a result can better understand and cope with their feelings. This type of therapy focuses on young person’s ability to process problems they are facing but also invites family members contribution during the process of psychotherapeutic work.

6.Relationship issues

If you’re having problems as a family, whatever’s causing them, Family Counselling can help the whole family to communicate better, and to understand and resolve differences.

The close relationships, which we create are a probably the most important aspect of our lives. They affect our stress levels, self-esteem, assertiveness, anxieties and ability to move on. The difficulties in the family are sometimes to painful to face, or on occasions we lack in tools to deal with issues and choose to ignore them.

We might find ourselves fazed with relationship problems and fail to listen, take others for granted, undermine the foundations of relationship, increase resentments and subconsciously sabotage further development of relationships.

It is a universal phenomenon, which families go through changes in their life stages as well due to unexpected events, such as loss. The ability to adapt, accept and move on can be difficult for the family at times. Counselling can help family members to support one another through these difficult times, to reduce conflict and arguments , rediscover communication and look at the future.

7. Self Esteem

Self esteem is the inner measure of being confident, valuable, and worthy of respect. People with high self-esteem often feel good about themselves and their progress through life. People with low self-esteem often feel shame and self-doubt. They often spend lots of time criticizing themselves. Low self-esteem can be a symptom of parental neglect or several mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression.

Low self-esteem often parades under different behavioural and cognitive patterns, such as masking own insecurity with procrastination or perfectionism, acting out on inferiority issues with antisocial behaviours, victimhood and self pity derived from feelings of helplessness. Internally, poor self-regard often manifests as negative self-criticism, which can be seen by person as affect and create further mental pathology, such as depression, social anxieties paranoia.

Some people may do self-destructive behaviours such as abusing substances or neglecting personal hygiene. Self-doubt can interfere with productivity at work or school. A person may worry so much about others’ opinions that they don’t focus on the task at hand. They may avoid taking risks or making goals out of a certainty they will fail. A person with low self-esteem may lack resilience in the face of a challenge.

Self-esteem issues can also impact one’s social life. Someone with low self-esteem may believe they are unworthy of love. They may try to “earn” the love of others and accept negative treatment such as bulling, abuse or criticize others to compensate for their own insecurities.

A therapist can help one address the emotions underlying low self-esteem, feel better about your self and develop a healthy relationship with oneself. Raising your own self-esteem means that you will learn to appreciate your self, respect self and feel good about who you are. Through thinking more positively and realistically about yourself you can develop your talents and abilities, trust and believe in yourself.

8. Work

Work plays, without a doubt, a major role in adult life. While work-related issues, including stress, overwork, bullying and dealing with difficult colleagues, can of course directly impact an employee’s performance, personal life –crisis can also have negative impact.

Counselling can support employees in self expression, understanding own cognitive and behavioural processes, accepting own feelings, becoming more assertive , creative and able to explore options and choices that are available to them. Work on personal growth and can be achieved on individual basis and in group works, through following packages:

Workplace counselling often helps employees who are absent from work, and there is evidence that counselling support can accelerate the rehabilitation of an absent employee, saving the organisation money in the long run.

Studies find that workplace therapy contributed to significant improvements on most attitude-to-work factors: opportunity for control, skill use, job demand, clarity, feeling valued, interpersonal contact, competence, work spill-over, adequacy of pay and job satisfaction.

A counsellor in a work place can work with designated personnel as a thinking partner, a revealing mirror, and a pacesetter among others. Other than leveraging core capacities of employees therapist will also create a culture for greater synergy in organizational learning and development.

Counselling proven to decrease costs related to turnover, burnouts, absenteeism & accident-related disability. The improvement in employee performance therefore has a potential of increasing the company productivity.

Start your own healing Journey with AJ!

Here is a quick checklist to get you started with free therapy session. Remember imperfect action beats inaction, get started and keep re investing in your growth for Khair!

• Create your vision board

• Reflect on things which you know Must Go in order for your life to change

• Start planning your therapy sessions topics by Identifying what resonates with your Heart.

• Create an outline the list of your Eternal Life goals.

• Write down the conversations you normally have with your self, like if you were telling a story to a friend

• Pick the most disturbing sentences and connect them with emotions you feeling when you hear them

• Perform several Ibadah types consciously (taddabur, dua, prayers, sadaka, fasting) and Honestly reflect on what is it you experiencing and what is it that you were hoping to experience

• Write down reasons why some of your relationships broke down and be clear on your ways about it as well

• Have a courage to name things you appreciate about your self, or are proud of - or ask you family and friends to remind you

• Take 10 minutes to edit your list and BOOK A CALL WITH AJ !