6 Ways to Boost Your Mental Health with Guided Visualization

wellbeinganxietymental health
Written By Patrick J. Liddy

Mental health is just as instrumental to your overall well-being as your physical health, but with its often-invisible struggles, many people suffer from poor mental health without knowing that a better life is possible.

Once you do find help, though, you’ll see just how much easier life can be to live when your mind isn’t working against you.

While pharmaceuticals are often pushed on those with poor mental health, a holistic approach can be just as effective while also being easier to maintain long-term.

Guided visualization, in particular, is also non-invasive and easy to implement on your own time whenever you need an extra mental health boost.

Let’s take a tour through six areas of your mental well-being that guided visualization has been shown to assist.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Overcoming Depression with Visualization

2. Enhance Your Sleep Quality

3. Managing Stress Effectively

4. Relieve Anxiety Naturally

5. Building Emotional Resilience

6. Boosting Your Self-Esteem

Using Guided Visualization to Improve Your Mental Health

References

1. Overcoming Depression with Visualization

A hallmark quality shared by those with depression is maladaptive thinking, or having beliefs that are false or rationally unsupported. They are lies that our brains spin and we latch onto, soon believing them to be true.

When it comes to treating depression, a key component is thus disengaging from these maladaptive thoughts and recognizing them for the fallacies they are—mindfulness training can help you acquire the skills you need in order to successfully do this.

In one study, participants practiced mindfulness or guided imagery relaxation for a week, and the results showed that both groups experienced a significant decrease in depression and an increase in self-regulation that they were able to maintain during the follow-up period.

Another study saw these same results when participants from a psychiatric inpatient facility listened to a guided imagery track once a day for ten days. Other variables affecting mental health also decreased, such as anxiety and stress.

These studies show that guided imagery offers a tool to overcome depression, which can then improve your life.

2. Enhance Your Sleep Quality

The benefits of guided imagery for improving sleep are so well-observed and supported that guided imagery is clinically recommended by NHS Insomnia Services.

Older individuals, in particular, are increasingly susceptible to insomnia, with it being a common disorder among the aging population. In this population, pharmacological therapies for insomnia can be increasingly risky because the body is less resilient, and older individuals are more likely to take multiple medications, which increases the risk of medication interactions.

Thus, non-pharmacological therapies, such as guided imagery, are increasingly appealing.

A literature review of six articles found that guided imagery is shown to improve sleep quality and prevent insomnia in the elderly, making it an effective management technique even in populations more susceptible to insomnia.

Guided visualization was also shown to improve sleep quality in mental health professionals suffering from compassion fatigue. One way in which guided visualization may produce these sleep-boosting benefits is by reducing stress, which can then make sleep easier to come by.

With poor sleep being a significant contributor to worsening moods and declining mental health, the ability of guided visualization to improve your sleep sets you up for improved mental health.

3. Managing Stress Effectively

Stress is a significant weight on your mental health, and in addition to dragging down your thoughts, it can also affect your physical health by increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease or obesity.

Managing stress is often easier said than done, but guided visualization offers a strategy against stress that can be implemented whenever you feel your cortisol levels rise, no matter the cause.

Work is a common culprit for rising stress levels, but a 2015 study on the benefits of guided imagery and music (GIM) saw a significant improvement in the participant’s perceived stress, well-being, depression, anxiety, and physical distress symptoms.

Even more, the results showed that the participants saw improvements quicker when the GIM interventions were completed early instead of waiting to intervene.

Physically draining and mentally stressful life events can also be mediated through guided visualization. A study on the use of guided visualization in chronic renal failure patients, a disease that is stressful for both the body and mind, saw a significant reduction in their stress levels after undergoing guided visualization.

Even better, guided visualization offers these improvements without invasive procedures, high costs, or a risk of adverse effects.

4. Relieve Anxiety Naturally

According to the World Health Organization, anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders, affecting more than 300 million people. Some people may experience ongoing anxiety, whereas others may have anxiety surrounding a specific event or procedure. When it comes to managing anxiety, guided visualization can be exceptionally helpful.

Research into the benefits of guided visualization has shown that it can be a helpful addition to a pre-procedural plan to help reduce any anxiety that you’re feeling about an upcoming procedure.

For those with medical conditions that take a significant mental burden, such as chronic renal failure or cancer, guided visualization has also been shown to reduce the stress, anxiety, and depression that the diseases often bring on, improving your quality of life and, in some cases, increasing your odds of more successful treatment.

Learn More: HARNESSING THE CALMING POWER OF GUIDED VISUALIZATION: RESEARCH ON REDUCING ANXIETY AND STRESS

5. Building Emotional Resilience

Emotional resilience refers to your ability to respond to stressful or unexpected situations and crises. It’s not something that you need to be able to rely on often, but it’s crucial for ensuring you can maintain a level head when the situation arises.

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) area of the brain has been shown to be involved in emotional regulation, and a study by Velikova et al. showed an increase in its current source density (CSD) with guided visualization, demonstrating that guided visualization can physically change the activity in your brain.

In particular, the region that sees an increase in activity is responsible for imagining pleasant scenes, which is why it is activated by guided visualization, but it also plays a role in self-reflection, self-awareness, and increasing emotional regulation.

Ultimately, by activating this portion of the brain using guided visualization, you then strengthen your ability to respond to crises, placing you in a better headspace and protecting your mental health when stressful situations arise.

6. Boosting Your Self-Esteem

With today’s social climate and the ease with which you can compare your life to the successes of others, it’s all too easy for your self-esteem to see a dip that significantly declines your mental health. However, guided visualization can help.

Kumar et al. examined how guided visualization could help improve self-esteem in college students facing examination anxiety. The students underwent 30-minute guided visualization sessions three times a week for 12 weeks.

The students’ self-esteem and test anxiety were assessed before and after the intervention, and there were significant improvements in both areas in the group receiving guided visualization.

When you feel more confident in yourself, you spend less time creating ruts of self-doubt in your mind that become impossible to dig out of.

Guided visualization works by transforming stimuli into new modes of thought, allowing you to alter your self-image and behavior. For women, this has even been shown to help increase self-esteem in new mothers during their initial postpartum period, increasing their confidence that they’re doing the best for their baby—and making this thought a reality.

Using Guided Visualization to Improve Your Mental Health

Guided visualization offers significant benefits for your mental health by decreasing anxiety, stress, and depression, improving sleep, and increasing emotional resilience and self-esteem. Combined, this allows guided visualization to serve as your tool for better mental health, which then trickles into improvements in all areas of your life, whether that’s personal relationships, work or academic successes, or your medical conditions.

Take the first step in investing in your mental health by trying our Mental Health Bundle, a 6-pack collection expertly crafted to target each of these areas listed above, allowing your mental health to thrive and produce long-term wellness and happiness.

Improving your mental health is as easy as pressing play—get started today.

References

Patrick J. Liddy

Patrick helps people empower their healing journey with guided visualization. He has a Master’s in Public Policy and a background in nonprofit marketing.

https://www.visualizetoheal.com
Next

Navigating Chronic Illness: The Empowering Role of Guided Visualization