Mental Fortitude

Mental Health conditions are reported to worsen during the festive period than at any other time. In a recent poll commissioned by Mental Health UK and carried out by Censuswide, it was reported that more than 1 in 3 adults (37%) are now turning to AI chatbots for support with their mental health or wellbeing.

The dramatic switch from traditional mental health therapies has prompted experts to begin calling out for safeguards on AI to ensure the user base is receiving accurate, safe and appropriate information.

Within financial services, the requirement to deliver good outcomes is imperative as an adviser. This stretches beyond a tick box exercise. Looking out for the signs that your client might be classed as vulnerable is imperative.

This isn’t about the client being difficult, this is about ensuring you show a great deal of care for your client and deliver the product most suitable for the desired outcome.

Of course, we should also not forget that as an adviser you may also find yourself experiencing periods low mood, not feeling yourself or just a bit sluggish, and that’s ok.

It becomes a problem, if those conditions are lasting for longer than 2 weeks or if you are unable to carry out your duties as a mortgage, protection or financial adviser.

The most powerful weapon

Growing up, I was one the youngest of my family. My mother raised both myself and brother, practically single handed as my father chose to walk out when I was 4. I was never close to my father, and so I relied a lot on the strength & guidance of my mum and her side of the family.

Throughout my school years, I was often unwell, plagued with stomach aches, illness, colds, flus, you name it, chances are I’d contact it. Going to school always felt like a whirlwind of emotions from fear and anxiousness through to just not wanting to go and never finding any real joy in education.

Bullying probably didn’t help with my relationship with school.

The walk back from school for my mum must of been a delight as I often said, “nothing much” when asked how was school.

At University I became a major recluse, focusing all my time on work, studying and researching different topics that weren’t always part of my degree syllabus. I’d go on to have sleep disturbance, night terrors, symptoms of insomnia as I’d work up to 72 hours at a time with no sleep.

Crashing was inevitable. Crashing is what I deserved!

By the age of 22, I’d undergo high intensity therapy for General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in subsequent years I’d be further diagnosed with Social Anxiety.

As I grew older, I’d bury and literally eat my feelings, ballooning to a size of over 20 stone, with about as much muscle as a marshmallow.

Me just writing that, and looking at it now I was incredibly lucky and also completely fucking stupid!

In 2024, the BMJ a publication owned and operated by the British Medical Association found that whilst antidepressants alone can improve symptoms of depression by 26%. It also found that walking or jogging improved symptoms by as much as 63% with dance showing the most highest of treatment options.

Additional research into Anxiety found that regular activity of 150 mins (2hr 30) per week, lowered anxiety symptoms by as much as 26%-49%.

Making a start on the road to recovery

Not everything can be solved with exercise or an hour at the gym, of course it can’t.

Neither can it be treated or solved by simply taking a pill at the start of your day, burying your head in the sand and hoping it will go away. It won’t.

Our head is home to the most powerful machine in the world, our brain. Yet we have, as a species have forgotten that we are the ones in control of our own brain. We get to decide what it does, what it focuses on and when we get to or want to stop.

Drawing on my own experience, after my last round of therapy in 2016, I told my therapist, that this would be the last time I would go through therapy. I would make drastic and dramatic changes to my life. It would be 2 years later when I would have to eat those words as I stood in the early hours on Torquay pier considering my life.

My mental health only improved when I accepted the reality of the life that I had built.

Over the next 12 months, I would work on myself through running my 20 stone fat ass up and down the pier in Torquay until I had gained a foothold, a reason to live. I’d go on to complete the couch to 5k program and drop over 80lbs of weight.

Build your mental fortitude

I am not saying for a moment that my approach to how I handled my own mental health in 2018 was right, it is what worked for me.

To be the adviser you want to be, to deliver good outcomes and to serve your clients, means to be in good health both physically and mentally.

At the forefront of this, is having time for you.

Your mental health journey is unique to you. What I’d like you to do is to consider the following:

When do you exercise? Are you exercising? A simple 30 minute walk in the morning is a good place to start or perhaps joining a gym with friends.

Are you eating right? Protein, vegetables, vitamins, minerals and drinking at least 2-3L of water a day.

When do you sleep? Are you getting 7 hours a night? Or are you still going at 1am.

How’s your alcohol intake? Can you lower it by a unit or 2 this week?

When was the last time you took a rest day? I don’t mean ‘doom scrolling’ looking for dopamine hits either. I mean a rest day, time with your partner, kids, time in nature etc.

What hobbies do you enjoy? Don’t have one, find one.

Often the very thing we don’t want to do is the very thing we must do to be able to move ourselves forward.

I never wanted to run, I hated running, even today I despise it, but I do it like I love it, for me, my mental wellbeing and to build mental fortitude every day.

Equally, I find taking a rest day exhausting, I prefer to be active, focused, driven and moving towards a goal. However I know spending time with my son, my fiancee and family reminds me of why I am doing the work I am doing!

I have not seen the inside of a therapist room since 2016 and in December I became a Mental Health First Aider to signpost others to start their own journey on the path to finding more of themselves.