Filling up your mind with beautiful things can be a very beneficial mental health exercise. It is not just pleasant, but it is healthy. Seeing a beautiful piece of art, pictures, splendid sight-seeing, or anything that feels pleasant, has a great power to influence your mood.
It is very common to ones suffering from anxiety or depression to watch TV, news for example, especially during the hard pandemic times. It was a great source to create more anxiety, people would feel extremely anxious, and sadly, they would not disconnect from it. Looking for beauty can be used as a very good adaptive coping mechanism. It is simple to observe that a healthy mind usually looks for what is beautiful, while an unhealthy mind, usually looks for the opposite (ugly things, music or films).
Exchanging the maladaptive mechanisms for something more helpful is essential. That is one of the things that therapy can help you with.
It is true that some types of art or pictures for example, can also cause really unpleasant feelings. But, taking responsibility for your emotions, you rationally make choices of what are better ways to keep yourself well. You can choose what to see, what to watch on TV or listen to. You can’t control the news, but you have the influence in areas that you are responsible for in your life, such as allowing how much information you obtain or what kind of information you are willing to receive, and by that, making rational decisions that will considerably influence your mental health and consecutively, your emotions, thoughts and behaviour.
When you watch an emotional film or see a masterpiece, you experience emotions and thoughts relating to it. You may behave in accordance; you could cry or smile. when what you see is powerful enough to create emotions and you are aware of that, consequently you can make better choices of what you bring to your eyes or even your ears. Beautiful music is very compelling and brings a range of emotions. Consciously choosing classical or symphonic music or any music that will elevate your soul is a good action towards your mental health. In the CBT process we explore our clients’ coping mechanisms and help them to find more options for a healthier version of coping mechanism. So, I would strongly suggest that you take few minutes of your time and reflect on it, please. What are your coping mechanisms when you are not feeling well, anxious, depressive, angry, etc?. Make a realistic list of it. You will probably find out that you usually have more maladaptive strategies rather than adaptive ones. A few examples are, commonly are drinking alcohol, binge eating, watching violence, drama or bad news, withdrawal, staying in the dark, the list of possibilities goes on.
“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”
Plato
However, if I could suggest only one simple change to your life today, I would say, use beauty in your favour. believe me, it is easy to find as it is everywhere (if you look attentively) and you can even find immense amounts of it for free everywhere. If you can, have at least one book of arts of your disposal (I would not pick contemporary art), I mean an expression of beauty and whenever you have ten or fifteen minutes between your meetings or break time, give it a look, just a quick unpretentious look and you will fill up the levels of beauty in your life. You can also look through your window or go for a short walk, looking for birds, trees, flowers, people, etc.
Take a short time for pure appreciation and get used to it.
In conclusion, you are responsible for choosing what is best for you and you can do it. And please remember, it is most important to make a decision on doing what is most beneficial for yourself, especially when you don’t feel like it at all.