Dr Sarah McKenna talks about the benefits of tracking your physical health for improving your mental health. Particularly tracking your food, sleep, exercise and mood. She’s a clinical psychologist and researcher at the Brain and Mind Centre, at the University of Sydney.
She says there are two important reasons why tracking your mood and your physical health is beneficial to your mental health as a whole. The first reason is: knowledge is power. The more we know about our own mood, exercise, and physical health, the better we can manage our mental health. The two are inextricably linked. The second reason is that the more information you have the better help you get from your clinicians. You can tell straight away whether one of the tools they have suggested to you is working or not. We call this measurement-based care and it’s part of the Brain and Mind Centre, Youth Model of Care: https://bit.ly/3MbGm0O
Video here: https://youtu.be/P14kPQVmj3I