Why Mental Self-Care Is Essential in the Emotionally Overwhelming Modern World
We live in the safest, most comfortable time in human history — yet our mental self-care is lagging far behind. Advances in technology and medicine have extended life expectancy, and fewer people die from wars, hunger, or natural disasters. Yet, mental health issues are widespread across continents, cultures, and age groups.
Anxiety, depression, burnout, eating disorders, sleep problems, and substance abuse are part of everyday life for millions. Alarmingly, these issues affect not only adults but also children and teenagers1.
In a world that constantly stimulates and distracts us, emotional overwhelm has become a norm — yet mental self-care remains optional for most people. This post explores why taking personal responsibility for your mental well-being is not a luxury but a necessity.
We Care for Our Bodies—What About Our Minds?
Think about how much time we spend taking care of our bodies. Brushing teeth, showering, choosing and maintaining clothes, preparing food—these are built into our daily routine. It would feel unthinkable to skip them for days.
But what do we do each day for our minds?
European studies show that nearly one in six people experience mental health disorders each year2. In the Netherlands alone, more than 40% of individuals experience mental health problems at some point in their lives3. Our relationships are also affected—divorce rates in many Western countries still hover around 40–50%45. Emotional burnout has become so normalized that many people don’t even realize they are living in survival mode.
This raises a vital question:
Why is our mental well-being suffering so much in a time when our physical needs are more easily met than ever before?
Mental and emotional self-care is often overlooked. It is neither taught in school nor routinely practiced in adult life. The result? Many of us move through life taking mental health for granted and hoping for happiness, unaware of how much our unconscious thinking shapes our emotions, behaviors, and relationships.
Our Brain Is Wired for Survival, Not Happiness
The human brain has one primary task: to keep us safe. And it’s incredibly good at it. It constantly scans the environment—mostly outside our conscious awareness—for anything that could pose a threat. Unfortunately, this also means it pays far more attention to negativity than positivity.
Have you ever had a wonderful day, only to fixate on one small critical comment? Or remembered a hurtful moment from years ago that still stings? That’s your brain doing its job: focusing on anything that could represent danger, real or perceived.
This negativity bias, once essential for survival, now leads us to overthink, worry, ruminate, and hold grudges—often long after the original event has passed. Even the happiest moments are clouded by what “went wrong.”
Early Programming Runs Deep
Most of our unconscious beliefs, programmed behaviors, and personalities are shaped in early childhood when our brain rapidly develops.
However, children don’t yet possess the experience and knowledge to interpret situations accurately or communicate what they need. A baby left alone for a few minutes may feel abandoned and scared. Such a trivial experience can register as fear or trauma, forming part of a lifelong pattern of emotional response.
These early-formed patterns—how we relate to others, react to stress, or think about ourselves—become automatic. They run in the background of our adult lives, influencing our self-worth, relationships, and careers.
On the one hand, they ensure the ease of our utterly complex behaviors, but on the other hand, they are not always helpful. Unless we deliberately re-train our minds, we keep living through those outdated scripts.
Education Trains the Mind—But Not for Life
Our society puts great emphasis on intellectual training. From early childhood, we learn to memorize, analyze, and solve problems. Those who succeed in this system are rewarded with degrees, careers, and approval. But there is little room for training emotional intelligence, resilience, intuition, or creativity—the very things that determine the quality of our lives and relationships.
Even before adulthood, our mental and emotional challenges often begin early. Across Europe, more than 16% of children and adolescents are already living with mental health disorders — a sobering reality that highlights how unprepared we are to nurture the mind from a young age67.
The COVID-19 pandemic only deepened this crisis. In the Netherlands, for example, teenage mental health declined dramatically, with significant increases in emotional struggles, attention problems, and behavioral issues8.
These trends show that academic achievement alone is not enough. We must also teach young people how to understand and care for their minds.
Isn’t it time we ask:
What would happen if we invested even a fraction of our daily energy into training our minds the way we train our bodies or our intellect?
Avoiding Stress Is Not the Goal
Modern wellness culture often teaches us to avoid stress and seek relaxation. But this goal is misleading.
Life is full of challenges—and that’s not a bad thing. The goal isn’t to avoid stress at all costs. It’s to build the inner capacity to face challenges with mental and emotional resilience.
In fact, living a fulfilling life means embracing and dealing with challenges (which can be labeled as stress)—the kind that comes with striving, growing, creating, and connecting deeply. We can learn to choose meaningful challenges- the right kind of stress- and develop the tools to manage them rather than constantly retreating in fear of being overwhelmed.
Mental Self-Care Should Be Daily
In my 5-session hypnotherapy program, I help clients move from a helpless, hopeless state of mind to a more empowered and hopeful one. Along the way, I teach them practical, neuroscience-based mental self-care tools that give them control over their thoughts, emotions, and overall mental and emotional fitness. These tools are practiced and integrated during the program.
Sometimes, they come back to another session without practicing the tools. When clients tell me they haven’t practiced the mental tools because they “didn’t have time,” I ask a simple question:
Did you brush your teeth today?
They always say yes.
Just like dental hygiene is the basis of your dental health, preventing cavities, mental hygiene is the basis of your mental well-being, preventing emotional pain from accumulating. Practicing mental self-care—whether through self-reflection, breathing, forgiveness, or gratitude—helps keep your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors aligned with who you want to be as a person and with the life you want to live.
If you’re not in charge of your thoughts, your old (childish) programming is.
Hypnotherapy: A Powerful Tool to Reprogram the Mind
We don’t have to live in the default survival mode of our brains. We don’t have to be hopelessly stuck in fear, anxiety, or burnout. Happiness isn’t a matter of luck. Our minds are brilliantly adaptable. With time- and scientifically proven practices, we can retrain how we think, feel, and act.
Hypnotherapy offers a powerful way to access the deeper layers of the mind—to gently update outdated emotional patterns, change limiting beliefs, and create new ways of being.
I guide my clients through neuroscience-based techniques that help them build emotional strength, purpose-driven thinking, and inner stability. They don’t just feel better—they become capable of creating a life that feels meaningful and fulfilling.
Take Charge of Your Mental Well-Being
You brush your teeth to protect your smile.
You shower and otherwise care for your body.
Now it’s time to care for your mind.
If you’re ready to start taking charge of your mental well-being—and you want support that truly works—book a free discovery call with me, and let’s talk about how hypnotherapy can help you upgrade your inner world.
References: Mental Self-Care
- Sacco R, Camilleri N, Eberhardt J, Umla-Runge K, Newbury-Birch D. A systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of mental disorders among children and adolescents in Europe. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2024 Sep;33(9):2877-2894. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-02131-2. Epub 2022 Dec 30. PMID: 36581685; PMCID: PMC9800241. ↩︎
- World Health Organisation (WHO), Mental health EURO: https://www.who.int/europe/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1 ↩︎
- Mental Health care – Government.nl: https://www.government.nl/topics/mental-health-services?utm_source=chatgpt.com ↩︎
- Our World in Data- Marriages and Divorces: https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces ↩︎
- Divorce Rates by Country 2025 – World Population Review: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/divorce-rates-by-country?utm_source=chatgpt.com#top-10-countries-with-the-highest-divorce-rates-annually-per-1k ↩︎
- Sacco R, Camilleri N, Eberhardt J, Umla-Runge K, Newbury-Birch D. A systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of mental disorders among children and adolescents in Europe. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2024 Sep;33(9):2877-2894. doi: 10.1007/s00787-022-02131-2. Epub 2022 Dec 30. PMID: 36581685; PMCID: PMC9800241. ↩︎
- UNICEF-The Mental Health Burden Affecting Europe’s Children: https://www.unicef.org/eu/stories/mental-health-burden-affecting-europes-children ↩︎
- Health Behavior in School-Aged Children-Unprecedented decline in mental health among Dutch teenagers during pandemic raises concerns: https://hbsc.org/unprecedented-decline-in-mental-health-among-dutch-teenagers-during-pandemic-raises-concerns/ ↩︎
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