DR Alex George, social media star and author of best-selling self-help guides for adults and children, reflects on the steps he took to look after his own well-being.
He has weekly therapy, gave up alcohol a year ago, takes medication for ADHD (diagnosed 18 months ago and that explains a lot about his struggles growing up), and still cries for his 19-year-old brother Lilly. He was about to start medical school in 2020 when he committed suicide.
“I have to prioritize my mental health above all else and be able to do it all,” explains the former Love Island star, 32, from Carmarthen, Wales.
He has a good team around him and prioritizes his health, he adds.
“I get treatment, I get support, I prioritize sleep and exercise,” says George, who is a walking and health podcaster, Stompcast and UK Government Youth Mental Health Ambassador.
And he adds: “But there are ups and downs. I’m still going through difficult times.
That horrific event was one of the factors that fueled his determination to help people with mental health problems, and in 2021 Boris Johnson appointed George as Youth Ambassador for Mental Health, helping to shape mental health policy for people. youths.
Her first children’s book, A Better Day, a positive guide to mental health, was a Sunday Times bestseller and won Children’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2022.
She now keeps a great journal that includes fun, calm activities, exercises including mindfulness, visualization, and various anxiety coping techniques, and a mood journal.
“It was very difficult,” he says. «One of the things I try to tell people is that I am not sitting here as a teacher or an ambassador, I have everything organized, do this and your life will be perfect, because really life is hard, things happen and we have to learn. to deal with them.
“Now that my brother died three years ago, I went straight from the yellow/green end of the mental spectrum to the red end, trying to climb while doing everything.
“There have been times where I have struggled, and what I have found is that sharing those experiences has been incredibly helpful to me, and that is why I talk about the ups and downs of psychiatric medications and depression and my experiences with ADHD, because I really want to help others with those experiences, but having a sense of community has helped me too.
His youth ambassador role is voluntary and takes up 80% of his time – raising enough money through brand campaigns and business conversations to generate income to pay his staff and himself. He brought to their attention what he recognized was a childhood mental health epidemic.
“Recent figures from the UK (RCPCH) show that over 400,000 young people are waiting for mental health support, waiting lists are longer than ever and these are real challenges.
A Diary of a Better Day by Dr. Alex George
“It’s easy to point the finger at social media, but we live in a hyper-connected digital age, but young people are more disconnected than ever, they are more isolated than ever. With everything going on in the world right now, it’s like information overload for young people.
The expectations and pressures on young people are significant, as are the pressures they impose on themselves with comparative culture, he adds.
In the diary, she reveals to her young readers that she is a “world-class worrier,” gently encouraging them to write down their thoughts and feelings, offering advice on how to open up about their worries and turn negative feelings into positive ones. .
He knows the problems social media can create, but he also believes there are times when it can be really powerful in a good way. “For example, I’ve found a lot of support online in the ADHD community, which has probably been more helpful than any kind of professional website or information service I’ve ever seen.”
George, who stopped being an emergency room doctor two years ago because he couldn’t fit it all in, was initially upset when he received the ADHD diagnosis because he had lived with it his entire life.
«At school I had problems with concentration, sensitivity, connection with others, how you interpret the world, how your energy levels work, etc. If I had known these things, people might have supported me differently, but I could have done X, Y, and Z to change my life.
“I first thought about what I eat, the role of exercise, the importance of sleep and regular activities with ADHD, learning and understanding the psychology of ADHD.
«Stop drinking alcohol is one of the most important things. If you drink alcohol with ADHD, you are looking at someone who is very impulsive. A few months after being diagnosed, I stopped drinking.
You have a 24-hour rule, where you are prone to react impulsively to a situation (whether it’s a purchase or a decision) and you train yourself to think about it for 24 hours first.
«The net change in all this is that I am calmer, probably more and kinder to myself. I am certainly much healthier physically and mentally.
“I can’t explain how different my health is compared to a year ago,” he adds. “I can have a positive view of the world because I better understand how I see it.”
He lives in London and is single, but he doesn’t feel alone after his ADHD diagnosis. «Feeling isolated is a bad thing. I’ve always felt very different from other people, but I didn’t really understand why, whereas now I know there are many people who feel the same way.
«That’s part of why I do what I do. You can’t change the past, you are where you are today because of everything that happened.
“I think regret is nonsense,” says George. “When you eliminate something from the past, you change your present.”
A Diary of a Better Day by Dr. Alex George, published by Wren & Rook.
2024-01-14 15:33:34
#book #overcome #anxiety #improve #mood
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