National Boost Your Self-Esteem Month

February is National Boost Your Self-Esteem Month, and in recognition of this designation, I thought I would spend a little time on self-esteem this week.  Self-esteem is a topic that is close to my heart, as I have led numerous Self-Esteem Support Groups over the years.  There is a wide variety of information available on this topic, some of it is very realistic and practical.

Regardless of our own personal definition of self-esteem, I believe that we all arrive at our self-esteem cognitively – which means that our self-esteem is directly related to how we think about ourselves. I believe that how we think about an upsetting event effects how we feel and our mood; therefore, you feel the way you think.

Three components are closely linked to self-esteem:  depression, which measures how bad you feel about yourself – it's like an emotional thermometer; anxiety, which indicates a level of fear; and relationship satisfaction, which is how satisfied you feel in your relationships.  As depression and anxiety levels rise, relationship satisfaction goes down, and self-esteem dips.

There is also a strong connection between self-esteem and stress.  Look at this (for more see The Stress Owner's Manual by Edmond W. Boenisch and C. Michelle Haney):

• Study after study has found that increasing someone’s self-esteem will reduce the amount of stress they experience. If your self-esteem levels start out low, however, stress will often reduce them even further.

• If my self-esteem is high, I’m less likely to just tolerate things I find stressful. Instead, chances are I’ll do something about them – either find out how to fix them or avoid them – simply because I believe I deserve better than to have to suffer them. In a very real way, higher self-esteem causes behaviors that reduce stress.

• How much stress people feel themselves experiencing is closely associated with their own sense of self-esteem. The most influential factor in determining response to stress may be your own perception of yourself.

• Research seems to indicate that because women are relational beings, when their support and social systems sprout cracks and begin to crumble, self-esteem lowers and anxieties creep in. Many stressors can trigger these situations: balancing work and family, pregnancy and postpartum issues, body image, and societal and personal attitudes toward women.

• When women are experiencing strained relationships with significant others in their lives, they can ward off anxiety and related disorders by maintaining their self esteem.

So how do I do this, you may ask?  How do I maintain or increase my self-esteem?  Following are a few tips that I have seen in action in the Self-Esteem Support Groups that I lead:

1. Be your own best friend.  Instead of tearing yourself down when you are disappointed with yourself, encourage yourself - the way you would a good friend.
2. Take baby steps.  Don't bite off more than you can chew, or set too large of a goal for yourself.  Break each goal down into it's most basic parts, and then tackle them one by one.  The sense of accomplishment is huge!
3. Learn to accept yourself.  This is a hard one, I know.  But I believe that God's design of us is not a mistake, and that each person was designed for a purpose.  By incorporating your weaknesses, as well as your strengths, into your entire self concept, you can more easily learn to accept yourself. 

Are you interested in learning more about self-esteem?  Two great resources that I use two books in my self-esteem groups, both by David Burns:  Ten Days to Self-Esteem (workbook) and The Feeling Good Handbook.

I Heart Reading

The other day I asked my husband what he thought my passions were.  Without hesitation - I mean, I had hardly finished getting the words out of my mouth - he answered, "Reading."

He's right.  He'd be the first one to tell you that when I am reading (and that's pretty much all the time), I have no idea what is going on around me.  The television can be on, he can be talking to me, and I am absorbed in the story that has transformed itself from words on a page to my imagination.

I can hardly remember a time when I didn't like to read, or have a book handy.  When I was in the fifth or sixth grades, it was not uncommon for me to be reading four books simultaneously.  My parents thought that was crazy, but I just couldn't imagine picking just one.  I had to know what all the characters were doing, all the time.

My sister knows that when she buys a book for me, the cover and binding must be pristine, without a tear or a ding.  My husband knows that while I read a book, I'm going to fan through the pages and smell the book, more than once.  My step-daughter knows that if she asks what I'm doing, the answer will be "Reading."  My mother knows that if she borrows a book, and the book somehow becomes damaged while in her possession, there will be some explaining to do.  If I have an hour to kill between appointments or while riding as a passenger in a car, I must have at least one book with me.  I get very nervous at the thought of having downtime and no book to read.

Hopefully this passion of mine - or what some might call an obsession - will serve me well in the long run.  According to Dr. Bernadine Healy in a 2005 issue of U.S. News & World Report, "Alzheimer's is more apt to strike those who don't continually prod their intellects to learn and expand" (Williams, 2007).  

According to Pat Williams in his 2007 book Read for Your Life:  11 Ways to Transform Your Life with Books, "reading helps us understand life...You become what you think about.  What we think about most definitely influences how we feel."  Reading is one way - one very affordable way - to invest in mental health.  Williams cites Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon:  An Atlas of Depression, who notes "That the rates of depression should be going up as the rates of reading are going down is no happenstance."

The benefits of reading on our brains are endless.  Reading stimulates our imagination, inspires change, helps us understand life, increases our vocabulary, decreases the chance of living in poverty... the list goes on.  Williams adds four key ways in which reading contributes to our personal growth:  reading shapes our values, reading shapes our thinking, reading helps determine our life course, and reading builds character.  Don't you want all this for yourself?  I know I do.

The March/April 2010 issues of AARP: The Magazine contains an article called "Boost Your Brain Health."  In it, author P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D. says that "...cognitive reserve is [the] combination of a person's innate abilities and the additional brainpower that comes from challenging the mind... The more you work your mind, the greater your congnitive reserve.  And the greater your cognitive reserve, the greater your ability to withstand the inevitable challenges of aging."  Reading is one very obvious way to challenge your mind and increase cognitive reserve, thereby guard against diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia.

I've been challenged this year to read one book a week, or 50 books in 2010.  I am going to rise to that challenge.  I don't think it will be easy, even for me, who loves to read.  But I am excited about what this means for my brain, and for my longterm health.