Check Your Brain

I had a crazy idea. Although most crazy ideas are bad ideas, and therefore never deserve to see the light of day, I wonder… what if there was a tool to track mental health sort of like how we track the weather?

I told you it was crazy.

But imagine if it could search out and compile a bunch of data and reasonably predict how healthy your mental health would be each day? That’s really crazy, I know. Maybe weekly would be more reasonable.

Think about it: we check our weather app multiple times a day, especially if we’re planning something outdoors or travelling, or bored. We check investment and sports apps more often than we’d care to admit. It’s almost as if we think checking them is going to affect their outcome. Our mental health is much more essential to our daily life than those things, yet we never take time to consider, observe, and possibly measure how our brains and minds are.

By the way, how is your mental health? I’m not promoting a fancy app that will give you a scientific analysis and quantify your mental health, but a simple reminder and challenge to take a few minutes to check on yourself.

The Weatherman

Go ahead and make your joke about how wrong meteorologists usually are. Laughter is good for the soul. But the fact is, predicting the weather is challenging. It is much more difficult than looking into the sky, calling a buddy a couple states over and asking what’s happening in his neck of the woods. We tend to think it’s as simple as that, or maybe downloading an app that tells us everything we could ever want to know. The fact is, they use satellites, lasers, powerful computers, special software and very complex math. I know what you’re thinking: “And they still are wrong half the time!” Maybe. But my point is how they work to predict things.

Meteorologists often run multiple simulations with slight variations in the initial conditions to create an ensemble forecast. This helps account for uncertainties in the initial data and provides a range of possible outcomes. The percentage chance of a weather event is derived from those test-case forecasts. Additionally, they consider history. For example, a 30% chance of rain means that, in 3 out of 10 similar situations in the past, rain occurred. It reflects the level of confidence in the forecast and is often expressed as probabilities for specific weather conditions (e.g., rain, snow) over a given area and time period.

My goal is not to make us all amateur weathermen, but instead to use that as an example for our own lives. We are highly complex creatures. Much more complex than weather patterns, and dare I say more unpredictable. Think of the amount of time, energy, intelligence and money that is spent on watching clouds and measuring moisture levels. We’re all concerned about how cold or sunny it is going to be 7 days from now. But what will your mental health be like 7 days from now?

Unpredictable? Maybe. But so is the weather. And that doesn’t stop us.

How’s the Weather?

What if you took a few moments each day to consider the events of yesterday? Will those events travel 1-3 days into the future and effect your mindset, thoughts and attitude? How about a week from now? Here are a few more things to consider about the weather in between your ears.

• Diet

• Sleep habits

• Private conversations

• Workload

• Personal and family events (past or planning for)

• Screen time (Phone/computer, movies, etc.)

• Sickness

• Church attendance

• Physical exercise / going outdoors

What I’m saying is our often “unpredictable” moods are not as random as the side of the bed we got up on. We probably could’ve realized there was a 60% chance we were going to say something rude to a co-worker on Tuesday morning. If we had just taken the time to check the “weather,” we could’ve seen that “mind-storm” coming a day or two earlier.

I know I am making this rather simplistic, but we don’t have to make it complicated. We can choose to be surprised by unfortunate weather or think it’s just luck when we feel like sunshine. Or we can realize that even though much of life is beyond our control, we can use our choices to affect our mind and attitude. We should make choices that are conducive to mental health for ourselves and those around us.

You’ve rained on enough people’s parades. Now you can be their sunshine. Too cheery? Well, at least give them an umbrella.