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Boundaries and Mental Health

Source: notes from reading about mental health boundaries such as book Unf*ck Your Boundaries by Faith G. Harper

Setting Boundaries in Personal and Work Life

Source: mainly my notes from a Telus Health educational session

Consider your brain has limits:
- 3: average number of hours per day of mental focus
  - Deep Word by Cal Newport
- 150: number of relationships that brain can handle tracking
  - Social by Matthew Lieberming

Questions to Ask Yourself

What do you want to remove from your tasks?
- Remove or delegate items to focus on others
What barriers are you putting on yourself?
- Role requirements (work, parent)
- Demands from others
- Your thoughts:
  - Assertiveness
  - Confidence
  - Compassion
  - Guilt
  - Perfectionism
  - Control
What would you want to take on?

Acting on Boundaries

Assess your workload and abilities
Check the list against your values, urgency, priority
Set boundaries on yourself and with others

Set limits

Be honest, assertive
Say no without other conditions, still be compassionate with people asking
Let people react and be ok with it
Set expectations
Set physical, time boundaries around work and other life to separate them - can be healthier for mind

Examples
- Set do not disturb times
- Do not check things like digital notifications until a certain scheduled time
- Talk about workload with those involved

Benefits on Boundaries

Focus on your values
Balance
Avoid fatigue, burnout, stress
Can empower others that may be depending on you too much

Delegation

What are good to delegate tasks?

Repetitive
Require skills you don’t have completely
No specific due dates
Others would like to do it or prepare them for future
Approach: prepare with person, plan, discuss, check and appreciate the person
- Be patient with delegate and accept some failure

See Also