I've always had a reasonably stressful job. And being a dad with two young kids, trying to help out at church, and be an active contributor to society, well probably four or five years ago I wasn't really coping with all that particularly well. Things were very stressful at work, my son had a couple of health issues and just coping with life got a bit tough. I remember thinking, “God, there's something I need to do. Something's not quite right with me.” One of our bosses at work sent us on a course to learn how to detect stress in other people, and I remember going through the checklist thinking, “tick, tick, tick, tick…I've got every symptom of what to look for in stress.”

I couldn't show up as the best dad, the best husband, the best church member, the best employee. It was really affecting me in all aspects of my life, including my faith. I wanted to get back to how I had always been, which is quite positive, optimistic, engaged. The things that helped me were meditation, exercise, diet, sleep and optimism, which can be remembered using the acronym MEDSO. These are the things that I applied to my life. 

Interestingly, people at my church were not talking about these issues, but all of those topics are covered in the Bible in a reasonable amount of depth. There is so much wisdom in there and it's a question of un-surfacing it and looking at it. These are the things that you see people in the Psalms write about, that you see Jesus talk about, and all throughout the Bible. So I wanted to make that link between how the Bible helps you practically and backs up a lot of things that people are now finding through recent research; in a way, science is corroborating what's been written down for thousands of years.

So let me give you an example from the Bible. Let me start with sleep and recovery. Growing up, the fusion of my faith, the culture that I grew up in and my family work ethic produced the idea you should work hard for your employer and by helping and contributing to the church. There wasn't much talk about rest and recovery and relaxation. But rest is important! Right from the very beginning of the Bible there is this idea of recovery: on the seventh day, God rested. Science is helping us to understand that the best way for our bodies to recover is through sleep.  

Another thing that really helps is being optimistic.  There's a verse in Matthew that says, “don't worry… who can achieve anything by worrying?” Nobody can achieve anything by worrying, but if you believe God is looking after you and loves you and cares for you, that's a tremendously optimistic thought. Everything isn't all random, there is a God that loves you. If you think that Jesus will return to establish a kingdom on earth and this world isn't going to implode and just destroy itself, that's an optimistic thought. That's very difficult at the moment when we're talking about climate change and when you see some of the politics and conflicts that are going on, it's easy to get sucked out of that optimism, but the Bible really helps with optimism.

The other thing I see creeping in more and more is the comparison of yourself to others. We're in this hyper connected world where you can always compare yourself on social media, Facebook, Twitter, or on LinkedIn.  You can always find somebody showing the edited highlight reel of their life that makes you feel really bad about yourself, and this can contribute to mental health problems.

At the moment a lot of people talk about mental health and rightly so. They talk about the stigma it's had historically and how that shouldn't be there. Lots of people I know have struggled with this, and you see a lot of people suffering from anxiety, depression, and some of these MEDSO techniques really help with that. There are definitely people that need to see a doctor and get some help, and there should never ever be any shame in any of that. It's a medical condition, but there are also behaviors that help alleviate some of those symptoms, and help with general mental wellbeing. 

My call to action is to “love your Lord God with all your heart and soul and might, and love your neighbor as yourself.” There are three entities that are loved there: God, your neighbor, and yourself. We can’t love God or neighbor well without loving self, and thinking about your own spiritual, physical, and mental wellbeing. If you're in a great place yourself, you're in a much better place to effectively help others and serve God as well. 

To listen to the full interview with Ben and Steve please check out our A Little Faith podcasts.