How BACE Supports Your Mental Health
Having a secure foundation to mental health starts with ensuring a secure Bace. Bace is a simple self help acronym, to help identify areas you need to fulfil more and is unique to you and what is important for your mental health.
The B is for Body
What is important for your body?
Is it to feel clean, to have time to apply make up, is brushing your hair enough, or do you need time to blow dry and style? Is exercise important to you, and it what way and how often, a spinning class twice a week or a fast stroll on your daily lunch break. The food you eat, ensuring nutrition and flavour to fuel your body is important, or just not feeling hungry? Or is it that you need to rest, that actually you are working your body too hard and you need rest.
The A is for achievement
What gives you that sense of accomplishment?
Is it the satisfaction of an empty laundry basket, or is it the buzz of completing a 5k park run. Or is it the feeling when you a finish a book, or meeting a deadline at work? You completed that home bit of DIY!
The C is for connection
Catching up with friends, face to face or a telephone call? Intimacy or cuddles on the sofa? Connecting over a shared goal, perhaps in a gardening group or a football team. And connection with family, are we sitting down for our meals and connecting, or that phone call to your Nan?
The E is for enjoyment
Do you love reading or podcasts, bike rides or horse rides, nights out dancing or nights in with a board game? We are all unique in what we enjoy!
Some activities may tick off multiple areas of your BACE, for example reading a book at bookclub, you enjoy reading, you get to connect with others about the book and it is good for your achievement, or an exercise class, good for your body, your sense of achievement and you enjoy it, and if you went with a friend it may check all of your BACE.
My BACE needs are very different to my husbands, football would feature in each category for him, he loves to play, it gives him a sense of achievement, he plays with friends and its good for his body! It is important as a couple to understand each others needs to maintain good emotional health. I need much connection than he does to maintain good mental health, and he needs more achievement to support his. Being aware we can understand each other on a deeper level and identify when they might be missing an element of their BACE and support them to access this.
Now lets think about BACE for a new parent.
Things have changed, you are on maternity leave and sleep is broken. But by taking time to do something for each element of our BACE each day we as a parent can feel more stable in our emotional health, and therefore be more emotionally available to our baby. But we need to be realistic, our BACE will be different as a parent. For your body it may be that your partner cares for baby so you are washed and dressed ready for the day, you get those steps in walking baby in the pram. The achievement, celebrating babies first, taught by you, those first smiles, their growth, getting to baby group on time and not 10mins late like most weeks. Connection, the Mums at rhyme time who are now you 2am whatsapp repliers, sitting on the same sofa as your partner at night, ringing a family member on blue tooth in the car whilst baby naps, being present when nap trapped, sniffing your babies head and admiring their features. Enjoyment, laughing with other parents at baby groups, reading your favourite books whilst baby sleeps, being outside and keeping your hobbies and involving your children in what you love, my 4 year old absolutely loves the band Blossoms, because I do and we listen to it together – but I now also love Julia Donaldson as I can see how much he loves it!
It’s also important to have some non-negotiables – i.e once a week I play football at 7pm, or I do my book club, or I need a weekly bath pamper. These are not being selfish, they are maintaining the foundations of your emotional health, so that golfing weekend, may turn into a round of a golf on a Sunday morning, that spa day may be a weekly bath and pamper.
I also like to think of BACE for my children, have they had enough food, are they warm enough, I celebrate their achievements, do they need a cuddle or a friend to play with and identifying when they loved that activity – lets do it again tomorrow or next week!
Use our printable BACE sheet to write down things important for each area. If you are feeling like your emotional health needs improving, use of BACE diary and capture your day, are you repeatedly missing connection and this is why you are feeling less emotionally stable.