My interview with Medium - 5 Ways to Optimize Your Mental Health

I was recently interviewed by Authority magazine, which is a part of Medium. They asked me to share five tips for optimizing your mental health. I usually dislike these prompts because they remind me of pop psychology articles, which I don’t find too helpful. But I took this as an opportunity to summarize what I’ve seen to be most helpful for the people I’ve worked with in therapy.

Cameron Murphey: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cameron Murphey, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

Cameron Murphey provides psychotherapy to adults struggling with anxiety, most especially relationship anxiety and ROCD. He helps adults learn to live more courageously and pursue what in life most matters to them. He is planning to release an online course in 2023 on how to recover from relationship anxiety, so that anyone in the world can learn the skills needed to overcome anxiety and have a long-lasting relationship. He is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and sees clients in person and online throughout California.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

As a teenager I struggled with anxiety and depression. I was coming to grips with my difficult relationship with my father, as well as navigating my first romantic relationship. My mother asked me if I’d like to speak with someone about all of this, and I said yes. She connected me with someone who ended up being an exceptional therapist for me. Not only did I find the sessions helpful, but I really enjoyed the experience of therapy itself — the open-ended conversation, the close listening, the focus on emotions and ideas. Pretty quickly I realized that I could probably do this for a living myself.

After trying my hand at a few different careers in my early 20s, I decided to go back to school to train as a therapist. I fell in love with what I was learning, and was confident that I’d chosen a good career path for myself. And yet, I was still struggling with anxiety, especially in my romantic relationship. Through my training as a therapist I learned that I was struggling with what they call relationship anxiety. Relationship anxiety involves ongoing doubts about whether you’re with the right person or not. The suffering can be intense, occupying your mind for long periods of time. So, here I was, a new therapist struggling with an anxiety disorder. As the old proverb goes, “Physician, heal thyself!”

Over time, I did heal myself. Through my training and learning, I cobbled together an approach to overcome relationship anxiety that worked very well for me. Since I knew that my experience was typical of that of people suffering with relationship anxiety, I decided to specialize in working with this topic. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed working with people who were going through a similar struggle as I had. I found our conversations exciting and energizing, and the edges between work and play began to blur. Today, a large part of my practice focuses on helping people with relationship anxiety, and I am grateful for that. As cliche as it might sound, there are times when we can turn our suffering into a way of helping others.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Toward the beginning of my career, I led a summer camp for children with mental health struggles. The camp culminated in a two-night camping trip to the California coast. For many of the children, it was their first time seeing the Pacific Ocean. We swam in the ocean as a big group, and stayed up watching movies afterwards.

I share this story because it highlights an important lesson I’ve learned as a therapist. In the midst of great suffering, you can find moments of intense meaning and connection. No one wants to suffer from depression, but once you do, you become someone who others with depression can talk to. You become someone who can empathize in a way that others who haven’t known depression simply can’t. The same goes for anxiety, trauma, bipolar, and so on.

I don’t believe that suffering is in and of itself a gift. Suffering is suffering — it’s difficult. But it can create opportunities to connect with people in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Speaking personally, I don’t know whether I would have become a therapist had I not struggled with anxiety throughout my life. I wouldn’t say that I’m grateful for having felt so anxious as a child, but I am grateful that I had the chance to spend those few days on the California coast with those kids.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Although many people have helped me along the way, I am especially grateful towards my wife, who is also a therapist. When I felt insecure as a new therapist, she buoyed me up with endless support. She also introduced me to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which has become the main modality from which I practice therapy.

When I was struggling with anxiety in the first year of our relationship, she said to me, “You really need to check out ACT. I think it would help you a lot.” She was right. The more I looked into ACT, the more I realized how much I was trying to control and suppress my anxiety. When I shifted toward a more accepting stance, I was surprised at how much of the anxiety went away. Had my wife not directed me toward ACT, I would have suffered much more as a result. Thank you Brie!

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

1. Stop overthinking

Overthinking creates stress and anxiety, plain and simple. Yet, so many of us do it. Even my clients who don’t have anxiety disorders still struggle with overthinking. But the effects of overthinking are plain: along with feeling more anxious, people feel drained from spending so much time in their heads. One of my favorite metaphors is that overthinking is like running on a treadmill — you work really hard but don’t get anywhere. It can leave you feeling exhausted.

It is 100% possible to stop overthinking. The first step is to realize that overthinking is something you do. Like running on a treadmill, it doesn’t just happen to you. It takes effort.

Second, once you realize that overthinking is something you do, you can take steps to stop doing it. The hardest part about this is to make the wholesale choice to stop worrying — to step off of the treadmill. Most of us silently justify overthinking with reasons like “It keeps me motivated” or “It helps me plan ahead”. These justifications keep us trapped in a cycle that hurts us, though. It’s like a bad habit — you know it hurts you, but it feels so difficult to give up. I have seen again and again though that as people give up worrying and overthinking, they feel better, more rested, and more present in their lives.

Whatever you want to call it — worrying, obsessing, ruminating — it’s important for your mental health that you learn to stop overthinking. If you struggle to do this, it can help to find a book on the topic or do a few sessions with a therapist who is trained in this area.

2. Build close relationships

There has been a lot of attention recently on loneliness, and for good reason. A recent survey showed that four out of five adults between the ages of 18 and 24 report feeling lonely. Loneliness is a predictor of many issues, including worse mental health and a lower quality of life. Fortunately, we know that the antidote to loneliness is close relationships with people you care about.

We evolved as a close-knit social species, so it makes sense that having close connections would have an impact on your mental health.

Pause for a moment and take an inventory of your relationships. Do you feel like you have as many close relationships as you would like? If not, what can you do to make them closer? Have you let certain relationships fall to the wayside? Maybe those relationships would benefit from some TLC.

Having worked with many people who’ve felt lonely, I’ve seen it pay off in spades for them to build closer relationships. It may have taken longer to build those relationships than they would have liked, but, without an exception, their mental health improved remarkably as a result.

3. Find a source of meaning

We’re used to thinking of food and water as basic human needs, but having meaning is just as important in creating a life worth living. Broadly speaking, meaning is the sense that one’s life has significance and purpose. People derive meaning from various places, such as their work, their family, their friendships, and their religion or spiritual practice.

There’s a growing body of research documenting the immense benefits of having a sense of meaning. These benefits are both physical and psychological. For example, having meaning protects a person from depression and addiction. It also predicts increased physical activity, the benefits of which we know are huge. Conversely, when people lose a sense of meaning, their mental health suffers.

So, take a moment as you read this to check in with yourself. Do you feel in touch with a sense of meaning and purpose in your life? Where do you find that meaning from? Are there some areas in your life that feel more rich with meaning than others? Are there areas that deserve more attention?

If you feel confused as to what brings you meaning, here’s a way to get in touch with what matters to you. Imagine that you’re near the end of your life. As you look back on your life, what do you imagine you’ll wish you had done more of? Who will you wish you would have spent more time with? What dream of yours will you wish you would have pursued? This tells you what is important to you, and what it is you should be spending more time doing.

In therapy, I’ve seen more than one person’s life turn around when they discovered something that gave them a sense of meaning and purpose. Those instances showed me firsthand how powerful meaning can be, especially for improving mental health.

4. Get good at facing your fears

The recipe for anxiety is simple: When something matters to you and the outcome is uncertain, you have everything you need to feel afraid. For example, if you’re launching your own company, it makes sense that you’d feel fear, because what you’re doing is very important to you, and you don’t know whether the company will make it.

Where people get stuck is this: When they feel afraid, they don’t go forward. This often gives short-term relief, but at the cost of avoiding the very thing that matters to them. For example, if public speaking is important to you, but you stay away from it because it makes you feel nervous, then you’ve exchanged meaning for comfort. In the short-term this seems like a reasonable trade, but when repeated over a lifetime it is a recipe for immense regret.

As a therapist, I’ve sat across from many people who are afraid to go after their dreams because they don’t know how to handle the fear. This deadlock is reasonable: it’s hard to do things that are scary. That’s why it matters so much to get good at facing your fears. More and more I think of doing scary things as a skill set in and of itself. Like lifting weights or running a mile, it’s something you get better at the more effort you put into it. And, amazingly, the more people face their fears, the less anxious they become.

One of the privileges of treating anxiety disorders is getting to watch people get better at facing their fears. As they do, the more their lives open up to them. They see the world more as a place of opportunity than a place of danger. They get better jobs, healthier relationships, and — maybe most important of all — a greater sense of confidence in themselves.

5. Make healthy lifestyle choices, including play

Making better lifestyle choices can deliver massive returns in your mental health. This includes exercising (or moving more in general), socializing, eating well, sleeping enough, reducing your screen time, and having an outlet for play.

The last one may seem strange — why play? We know that play is important for people of all ages. The benefits are legion: reduced stress, improved mood, increased creativity, greater stores of energy, and so on. People who play are more likely to have a sense of vitality and to feel young and energetic.

As a therapist, I take it quite seriously when I’m working with an adult and realize that they don’t know how to play anymore. These are often people who have become so bogged down in their work that they have lost all contact with their ability to play. They usually tell me they thought that play is something they needed to leave behind in becoming an adult. Invariably though, when they reintroduce play into their lives, their mood improves and they report a greater quality of life. Speaking plainly, they just seem happier now that they know how to play again.

In Sum

Just as your five toes work together to help you walk, these five steps support each other. In order to build close relationships, you need to stop overthinking so you can be present with the other person. In order to find sources of meaning, you need to get good at overcoming your fears and going after what matters to you. In order to play, you typically need other people, and you definitely need to get out of your head.

If you implement any one of these steps, you will see benefits. The real magic, though, comes from implementing all of these steps together. So, I encourage you, dear reader, to take action on all of these steps, and to see how much benefit they bring to your life.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

The recommendations provided above still apply, although I would add one major tweak.

It’s crucial for teens to reduce how much time they spend on screens. I know how difficult this is, especially when it feels like you’re going to miss out on opportunities to socialize. That being said, every single teen I’ve worked with has told me they’re aware of how bad screen time is for them. The negative effects aren’t lost on them, they’re just unclear about how to cut back. So, if you’re a teen, try this: Figure out how much time you spend on your phone or computer, and work on cutting it in half. If that feels like too big of a step, start with cutting it down 10%, and then 20%, and so on. As you do this, notice if anything changes in your life. Consider your mood, your energy levels, your sleep, your social life. Is anything different? I say this because it’s important to track the changes for yourself, so you can decide how much screen time is right for you.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

Claire Weekes wrote a very popular book titled “Self-Help for Your Nerves”. This book (and its predecessor “Hope and Help for your Nerves”) ushered in the modern treatment of anxiety, and has made an incredible impact on the lives of thousands of people.

Years ago, I had a panic attack while giving a presentation at work. I was so startled by the experience that I began avoiding speaking socially. To my surprise, I began to feel even more nervous in social situations. When I discovered “Self-Help for Your Nerves”, the book fit my situation to a tee. In running from fear, my fear had gotten bigger. In tensing up against any sign of anxiety, I was creating an even greater state of tension and nervousness. The treatment, paradoxically, is to turn and face the very thing that scares you, and to do so with an attitude of acceptance. This is no doubt nerve-racking at first, but you quickly learn that a) you are strong enough to handle the fear, and b) when you accept the fear — rather than tense against it — the fear typically passes through you, rather than get larger. As Weekes wrote, “Acceptance means letting the body loosen as much as possible and then going toward, not withdrawing from, the feared symptoms, the feared experiences. It means ‘letting go’, ‘going with’, bending like the willow before the wind — rolling with the punches!” I recovered quickly using her approach, and then began to apply her principles to my work with clients, with great success.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I’d like to start a movement of helping people overcome their fear of partnering and learn to commit to a healthy long-term relationship, whether it be marriage or some other form. We know that long-term relationships bring massive benefits to the people involved, including improved physical and mental health. We also know that children do better on average in households where the main relationship remains intact.

There’s a saying I like very much: a happy family is heaven on earth. I want to help as many people form happy families as possible, since that would bring an incredible amount of good to many people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

Anaïs Nin wrote the following sentence in one of her journals: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

When I was starting my own practice as a therapist, I felt terrified. I knew I wanted to run my own business, yet I was afraid that it would fail within the first year. In order to move forward, I had to disobey my own fear. What I mean by that is, no matter how loudly my fear told me to turn around and run back to the safety of working for someone else, I needed to move forward anyway. This is one way to define courage: the willingness to move forward even when you feel afraid.

As a result, my life has expanded immensely. I’ve taken on more responsibility, I make more money, and I have much more pride in myself for having done something that scared me.

I see this life lesson play out again and again, in my own life and the lives of my clients. Life really does shrink or expand in proportion to one’s courage.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Thank you as well!