Start With Acceptance

In this edition: navigating new mental health diagnoses with radical acceptance, how sleep actively rewires your brain to master languages, and nature-based breaks that reset mental fatigue.

Today’s Quick Overview:

 🔬Science Spotlight: Sleep actively rewires your brain to learn new languages…
🛠️ Tool of The Week: Attention restoration breaks that reset mental fatigue…
📰 Mental Health News: Psychiatric disorders tied to higher dementia risk, and why mental fitness is core to effective leadership...
🙏Daily Practice: Walking through a heritage apple orchard…

Let's check in with how much space you need and how you want to move through it:

How much space does your Monday morning soul need today? Wide open expanses to stretch into new possibilities? A cozy corner to ease into the week gently? And how do you want to move through that space? With purposeful strides, gentle wandering, or careful tiptoeing? Trust what your inner compass says about space and pace.

Share your current challenge, and we'll address it with specific strategies later this week.

Trauma Coping Scale Poster

Discover a gentler way to care for yourself during tough moments with our free Trauma Coping Scale. This simple, beautifully designed poster helps you recognize your state and guides you toward small, body-based steps that bring you back to safety.

Perfect for hanging on your wall or keeping on your phone, this free tool makes trauma healing more approachable and compassionate. Simply reply to this email with today's date (September 15, 2025) and we'll send you the high-resolution file within 24-30 hours.

Answered by: Dr. Nicola Santarossa, M.Couns, MBBS, MACA. Registered Counsellor, Psychotherapist, Author, and Clinical Supervisor. Director of Strive Counselling & Psychotherapy

In my experience, this can be quite a polarizing experience. For some of you, this may offer validation, recognition, and a feeling of finally being seen in the world. For others, this news can be confronting, confusing, and may lead to more questions. Please know that you are not alone in this.

Understanding the Statistics

Depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide. According to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 300 million people are now living with depression. Lack of support, coupled with a fear of stigma, prevents many from accessing the treatment they need to live healthy, productive lives.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, statistics show that:

Each year, 20-23% of adults in the U.S suffer from AMI. This usually arises due to a combination of genetic susceptibility and experiencing unfavorable circumstantial events or stressors. AMI usually resolves with intervention (whether that be therapy and/or medication). This may or may not affect you in the long term.

SMI refers to the more "biological" types of illness, including, but not limited to, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. These diagnoses are often lifelong and carry with them significant periods of disability, higher levels of mortality, and have various consequences in terms of relationships, occupations, finances, and may limit or change the original hopes and plans you may have had for your life.

Practicing Radical Acceptance

Try not to spend too much time dwelling on "why me." Radical acceptance, a concept from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), emphasizes accepting your situation without trying to deny or change its existence. This doesn't mean giving up, it means embracing reality so you can focus your energy on what you can control.

Some radical acceptance statements to practice:

Your Identity Remains Intact

Many people worry that needing therapy or medication means there's something fundamentally wrong with who they are. This is absolutely not true. You are perfectly imperfect, just as we all are.

Your identity comprises both internal factors (your values, beliefs, interests, life story, and aspirations) and external factors (social, relational, and demographic elements). Treatment doesn't change your core identity; it simply helps you navigate life more effectively.

Medication may help you sleep better, feel less agitated, or reduce the time you feel unwell. Therapy can teach you how to respond rather than react to difficult situations, sit with discomfort without numbing it, and use techniques to support your nervous system's healthy functioning.

Moving Forward

The bottom line is, if you have just received some news that you have a mental health diagnosis, you are not alone, there is nothing "wrong" with who you are as a person, and there is help and support available. If you're wondering where to get help, a good place to start would be to see your primary care physician, who can help coordinate your care and connect you with appropriate resources.

Dr. Nicola Santarossa is a Registered Counsellor and Psychotherapist with a background in Medicine. She specializes in working with individuals with unresolved childhood trauma and its consequences in adulthood. Her specialties include mood disorders such as bipolar and major depression, ADHD, substance misuse, disordered eating, and managing complex medical conditions, including chronic pain.

Attention Restoration Break

What it is: A short pause where you let nature reset your brain. This could mean stepping outside for 10 minutes, watching the sky from a window, or even looking at photos of trees or water. The goal isn’t to solve problems or be productive; it’s simply to let your attention rest.

How to practice it:

Why it works: Your brain uses two kinds of attention:

Nature offers what researchers call soft fascination, which means that it’s interesting enough to engage you without effort. Studies show this lowers activity in the rumination center of the brain while giving your prefrontal cortex (the taskmaster) a rest.

When to use it: When you’ve read the same line three times, after a draining meeting, before creative work, or anytime you feel that tired-but-can’t-sleep kind of mental fatigue.

Research backing: Kaplan & Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory shows that nature exposure improves focus, memory, and mood. In one study, a 50-minute nature walk boosted memory and attention by 20% compared to an urban walk. Even hospital patients with tree views recovered faster and needed less pain medication.

Sleep Doesn't Just Rest Your Brain, It Actively Rewires It to Learn New Languages

Research finding: In a lab study of adults learning a miniature language (Mini Pinyin), one group learned in the morning and stayed awake; another learned in the evening and then slept with overnight brain monitoring. The sleepers performed better on language tests the next day.

What changed in the brain: During non-REM sleep, two rhythms, slow oscillations and sleep spindles, synced up. That coupling is tied to moving fresh memories from the hippocampus (short-term storage) to the cortex (more durable storage). After sleep, EEG patterns linked to memory and cognitive control were stronger, suggesting sleep actively consolidates what you studied, not just “rests” you.

Why it matters: Timing study sessions near sleep can boost how well new words and rules stick. This aligns with broader evidence that sleep is a key stage of learning, not time off from it.

Try it today:

Today’s Visualization Journey: Heritage Apple Orchard Tour

Walk a quiet lane between old apple trees with a devoted orchardist as your guide. She offers small tastes: a wine-like Spitzenburg, a tart-sweet Gravenstein, an Ashmead’s Kernel with notes of honey and nut. Each variety carries a story of the growers who kept it alive.

You learn that these trees ask for different care than modern rows. Some need precise pruning. Others ripen on their own schedule. Preservation is not only saving seeds; it is keeping the know-how alive.

You help fill baskets for cider, preserves, and next year’s seedlings. Feel the calm weight of stewardship: tending what is valuable so it can survive and thrive.

Make it yours: What valuable tradition or skill in your life deserves careful tending this week? How can you approach Monday with the same dedication as someone preserving something irreplaceable?

Today’s Affirmations

Mondays feel heavy when they read like a list of have-tos. Shifting from “I have to” to “I choose to” doesn’t erase responsibilities. It changes your stance toward them.

Try this: When you hear “I have to…,” reframe it: “I am choosing to do this because _____.” Notice how the task feels different when it is aligned with a reason.

Gratitude Spotlight

Today's Invitation: "What's one thing you've gotten better at noticing about other people's moods or needs?"

Why It Matters: We often develop subtle skills for reading others that make relationships more supportive and less awkward. This is the gradual ability to pay attention to cues that help us respond more thoughtfully to the people around us.

Try This: When you pick up on someone’s state today, pause and acknowledge it. Quietly remind yourself, “I’m getting better at noticing what people need.” Feel grateful for that sensitivity, and for your willingness to pay attention even when life feels full.

Why it matters today: We often think happiness will arrive when our circumstances improve. But this wisdom suggests that contentment comes not from having perfect conditions, but from finding what's worthwhile in the conditions we actually have.

Bring it into your day: Notice one part of your current situation you wouldn’t choose if you had a magic wand. Instead of focusing on the gap, look for what’s working, what you can appreciate, or what this season is teaching you.

Your 3-Minute Writing Invitation: "What's one story I've been telling myself about why something isn't possible that might be worth questioning?"

Why Today's Prompt Matters: Monday mornings often magnify the limits we place on ourselves. Some of these stories protect us, but others are outdated beliefs that no longer fit who we are now. Naming one of those “impossible” stories can help you see the difference between real obstacles and assumptions that may be ready to shift.

New to journaling? Start with one honest sentence. There’s no wrong way to do this. Think of your journal as a conversation with yourself, not a performance. Over time, these small notes can help you notice patterns, celebrate quiet wins, and stay connected to the person that you’re becoming.

Say What You Actually Think

When someone asks for your view this week, offer a truthful, kind answer instead of the safest one. If a friend asks, “How do I look?” or “What did you think of the movie?” or “Should I do this?”, practice giving your real perspective with care.

Why it works: Editing yourself to avoid conflict can feel polite in the moment, but it thins trust over time. Honest feedback from someone who cares is a gift. Your real opinion often helps more than polite agreement.

Try this: Start small with low-stakes situations and focus on being honest rather than harsh. You can disagree or offer different perspectives while still being respectful and caring. Notice how it feels to show up more authentically in conversations.

Permission to Feel Behind Without Rushing to Catch Up

You're allowed to acknowledge that you're running late on projects or behind on goals without immediately panicking or forcing yourself into overdrive to compensate.

Why it matters: Feeling behind often flips the stress switch, tempting you to work faster or longer just to “catch up.” But that spiral usually breeds mistakes and burnout. Sometimes the wisest move is to pause, reset priorities, and keep going at a pace you can actually sustain.

If you need the reminder: Being behind doesn't require an emergency response. You can acknowledge where you are without judgment and make realistic plans for moving forward at a sustainable pace.

Tonight's Gentle Review

 Invite the day to exhale by asking yourself:

Release Ritual: Hold a warm drink, or imagine one cupped in your hands. Feel the warmth spread through your palms, then take three slow, mindful sips. Let comfort move through you with each one.

Mondays often start with mental rehearsals of what could go wrong. This question shifts your energy from guarding against imagined trouble to meeting real life as it arrives. Trust your ability to handle challenges when they show up, not before.

Hit reply and tell us: what did you release, and how did it feel? We feature a few anonymous responses in future editions, so keep an eye out. You might just see your words helping someone else breathe easier.

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Coming Tuesday: What to say when your family keeps dropping by unannounced and expecting to be entertained, and how to set boundaries that benefit everyone involved.

Researched and edited by Natasha. Designed with love by Kaye.

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*The Daily Wellness shares educational content only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a licensed provider for personalized care.