Back to Basics: How Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Supports Mental Health

People come into therapy wanting to talk about the big stuff. The childhood thing. The relationship pattern. The reason.

And sometimes we get there. But I've learned to ask a few unglamorous questions first.

When did you last eat? How are you sleeping? Have you been outside today?

It's almost insulting how often that's where the real answer is hiding. Not because the deep work doesn't matter — it does — but because it's nearly impossible to do deep work on a body that thinks it's under threat.

That's the useful core of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Not the tidy pyramid. The idea underneath it.

A Quick Refresher — and an Honest Caveat

You've seen the pyramid. Five stacked levels:

1. Physiological — food, water, sleep, warmth

2. Safety — stability, shelter, health, predictability

3. Love and belonging — connection, friendship, intimacy

4. Esteem — respect, competence, self-worth

5. Self-actualization — purpose, creativity, becoming who you are

Here's the part most people don't know, and the part that keeps this from being a lazy listicle: Maslow never drew that pyramid. It got bolted onto his work later by other people (Bridgman et al., 2019). And when researchers actually went looking for evidence that humans climb the levels in strict order, they didn't really find it — a well-known 1976 review found little support for the rigid bottom-to-top sequence (Wahba & Bridwell, 1976).

So I don't use it as a staircase. I use it as a flashlight.

Because the loose version of the idea is deeply true in the therapy room: when something low and basic is unmet, it gets very hard to access anything higher. You can't think about purpose while your brain is convinced you're not safe. You can't be generous with the people you love when you're running on three hours of sleep. The order isn't a law. But the foundation is real.

Your Feelings Are Pointing At Something

Emotions aren't noise. They're data.

Irritability, anxiety, that flat gray nothing — these are the first signal that a basic need has gone unmet, long before you consciously notice you're depleted. The body keeps the receipts.

So when a client tells me they've felt "off" all week, we don't always start with meaning. Sometimes we start with the week. The skipped meals. The doom-scrolling until 2 a.m. The fact that they haven't talked to another human in four days.

Distress isn't always a sign that something is wrong with you. Sometimes it's a sign that something is missing around you, and your body is doing exactly its job by complaining about it.

Sleep: Where Your Brain Files the Hard Stuff

If I could prescribe one thing, it would be sleep. Specifically REM sleep, when the brain processes emotional experience and takes some of the charge out of difficult memories.

Research has found that REM sleep actually lowers the brain's emotional reactivity — it loosens the grip between a memory and the distress attached to it (van der Helm et al., 2011). That's the science under a thing you already know: the problem that felt unbearable at midnight is merely annoying after a real night's sleep.

Lose the sleep and you lose that nightly recalibration. You wake up raw — faster to spiral, quicker to snap, thinner-skinned for everything the day throws.

Food and Water Are Not Optional Inputs

Food is chemistry, not just fuel. Deficiencies in things like B vitamins, omega-3s, magnesium, and zinc have been associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety (Sarris et al., 2015). And even mild dehydration can drag on mood, attention, and memory (Ganio et al., 2011).

I'm not going to hand you a meal plan. The move is smaller than that. One vegetable. One more glass of water. Breakfast, actually eaten. When you're depleted, "better" beats "perfect" every time.

Movement, and Light

Movement helps mood through plain biochemistry — it supports neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine and helps bring cortisol, your main stress hormone, back down (Basso & Suzuki, 2017).

Light matters too. Morning sunlight helps set your circadian rhythm, supports serotonin, and nudges up vitamin D — which is part of why getting outside early can quietly reset a rough stretch of sleep and mood (Lambert et al., 2002).

And don't underestimate the smallest sensory things. A warm shower, a soft blanket, something with texture in your hand. For people carrying trauma especially, gentle sensory input is a legitimate way to tell your body it's safe to come back. (That's a lot of what trauma therapy actually trains.)

Why Maslow's Hierarchy Starts at the Bottom

When the base is shaky, the top is almost unreachable. Trying to thrive up there is like climbing a ladder that's missing half its rungs.

Hard to be present in a conversation when your blood sugar is crashing.

Hard to feel capable at work on no sleep and a tight chest.

Hard to reach for creativity or meaning when your whole body is still bracing for impact.

This isn't a character flaw. It's the opposite of one. If everything feels heavier than it should, you're not lazy or unmotivated — you're running a full life on a depleted foundation, and that's a setup problem, not a you problem.

The Honest Version of "Self-Care"

So before the deep work, sometimes the work is embarrassingly basic. A check-in:

Have you eaten?

Had water?

Moved, even a little?

Slept?

Been treated with any kindness today — your own counts?

Start there. Not because the rest doesn't matter, but because the rest gets possible once the floor is solid. You don't have to summit the pyramid. You just have to keep coming back to the base when the ground gets wobbly — without turning it into one more thing to fail at.

You’re Not Alone In This

If even the basics feel out of reach right now, that's not weakness. That's an overwhelmed system asking for backup. Tending the foundation is real work, and it's easier to do with someone in your corner than alone.

Griffin Oakley, MSCP, NCC, LMHC, LPC

Founder & Therapist, Curious Mind Counseling

🌐 www.curiousmindcounseling.com

📞 971-365-3642

✉️ info@curiousmindcounseling.com

About the Author

Griffin is a licensed telehealth therapist and the founder of Curious Mind Counseling, serving Oregon and Florida. He starts with the unglamorous foundations — sleep, food, light, safety — before the deeper work, and sees clients navigating depression, trauma, and the long aftermath of childhood stress.

References

Basso, J. C., & Suzuki, W. A. (2017). The effects of acute exercise on mood, cognition, neurophysiology, and neurochemical pathways: A review. Brain Plasticity, 2(2), 127–152. https://doi.org/10.3233/BPL-160040

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & Ballard, J. (2019). Who built Maslow's pyramid? A history of the creation of management studies' most famous symbol and its implications for management education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 81–98. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2017.0351

Ganio, M. S., Armstrong, L. E., Casa, D. J., McDermott, B. P., Lee, E. C., Yamamoto, L. M., Marzano, S., Lopez, R. M., Jimenez, L., Le Bellego, L., Chevillotte, E., & Lieberman, H. R. (2011). Mild dehydration impairs cognitive performance and mood of men. British Journal of Nutrition, 106(10), 1535–1543. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114511002005

Lambert, G. W., Reid, C., Kaye, D. M., Jennings, G. L., & Esler, M. D. (2002). Effect of sunlight and season on serotonin turnover in the brain. The Lancet, 360(9348), 1840–1842. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)11737-5

Sarris, J., Logan, A. C., Akbaraly, T. N., Amminger, G. P., Balanzá-Martínez, V., Freeman, M. P., Hibbeln, J., Matsuoka, Y., Mischoulon, D., Mizoue, T., Nanri, A., Nishi, D., Ramsey, D., Rucklidge, J. J., Sanchez-Villegas, A., Scholey, A., Su, K.-P., & Jacka, F. N. (2015). Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(3), 271–274. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(14)00051-0

van der Helm, E., Yao, J., Dutt, S., Rao, V., Saletin, J. M., & Walker, M. P. (2011). REM sleep depotentiates amygdala activity to previous emotional experiences. Current Biology, 21(23), 2029–2032. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.10.052

Wahba, M. A., & Bridwell, L. G. (1976). Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15(2), 212–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(76)90038-6