As a night shift Psych nurse basically my entire job is re-tuning people's circadian rhythms. For this specific situation I recommend getting used to sleeping to a loud white noise with a fair amount of variation in pitches / "texture" I guess? The more different noises it has the better it covers random environmental noises.

My go-to is usually a raging thunderstorm with lots of lightning cracks and rumbling thunder. There's very few things that doesn't drown out and it should only take a week or two to get used to sleeping to whatever soundtrack you pick (think about how long it takes to get used to sleeping somewhere new when you move).

For extra oomph it can help to bring in your other senses as well. Essential oils may not cure cancer but they make excellent Pavlovian conditioning cues.

Remember kids, the biggest difference between you and Pavlov's dogs is that you get to choose what you get trained to do!

!DIYMentalHealth@lemmy.dbzer0.com

I'm trying to start a mental health support community that's skills based to hopefully help people who can't afford or otherwise access professional therapy.

Here's the wiki (the main page has a quickstart guide if you're looking for some things you can do today even just to maybe help stabilize yourself a little)

Here's a specific list of ways you can get involved with growing this community

Not OP but one of my chosen personal values to live my life by is actually literally to make the world a weirder place.

(sorry to advertise my comm here but this fits the post of the week and I like to think promoting a mental health comm is for a good cause)

Isn't it already?

fun reminder that https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/DIYMentalHealth

has a list of crisis resources and even if you're not in crisis right this second I highly recommend safety planning!

😊

A key component of dialectal behavior therapy is focusing your sense of injustice in ways that allow you to enact the most change while coming to peace with the things you can't. I started working on a sub about skills building but did get discouraged for a bit by low engagement. The wiki is pretty fully fleshed out though: !DIYMentalHealth@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Addressing that is the primary goal of a dialectal behavior therapy values assessment. Did a post about that fairly recently actually.

if I just put that in the URL box will it work?

ty!

very true I have a similar mention somewhere in the wiki

added to the wiki!

Oh and here's my weeks' mood log:

🟨🟩🟨🟥🟥⬜🟨

Those last couple worknights suuucked and I'm really trying to double down on my PLEASE and self-soothe this week (good timing!)

this comment is the best understanding of the concepts thus far

Fun fact! PLEASE is an actual skill in Dialectal Behavior Therapy and we'll probably be covering it within the next couple months over on !DIYMentalHealth@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Please subscribe and get active if you're looking to improve your mental health lately! The main page of our wiki has a quickstart guide if you're looking for something you could even do today to help stabilize yourself a little.

I find it helpful to think of it like emotional asthma. She's a little wheezy right now. She should probably take things a little easier. She might need a puff of her "inhaler" (although if she does have rescue meds for mental health it's probably a pill) but ultimately that's her private business. She's not doing her best but that also doesn't necessarily mean she needs to be committed or even necessarily inpatient. Suicidal ideation can absolutely be managed outpatient in a lot of cases as long as there's no active plan / intent and there's a solid safety plan in place.

In fact if you're interested in learning more about safety planning and other things you can personally do to manage your own mental health you should come join us over at !DIYMentalHealth@lemmy.dbzer0.com We also have a wiki that specifically includes a page on safety planning!