A person’s mental health empowers him to feel, think and behave in his life. It is reflected by one’s ability to deal with stress, overcome the challenges and recover from life’s setbacks and hardships. If a person is away from depression, anxiety or other mental disorders, it does not mean that he or she is mentally healthy. Someone who looks perfectly healthy might have some mental issues. An emotionally healthy person will be able to handle everyday life with ease and peacefully. It is all about how you react towards others, towards yourself and the situations.
Your life can become a total disaster if you are unhealthy mentally. No matter how wealthy you are, the thing which comes first is your mental health. It has been proved that with some simple exercises and practices you can elevate your mood, become more resilient and enjoy life more.
Value Yourself
Don’t think of yourself as a useless person. Understand your importance and value yourself. Do the things you like. Enjoy your favorite activities and hobbies. Spare some time for just yourself every day. Relax and do what you want to do.
Take Care of Your Body
Your mental health directly depends on your physical health. Always remember that a healthy body can contain a healthy mind. To achieve this target it is necessary that you eat nutritious meals, avoid smoking, drink plenty of water, involve yourself in physical activities and get enough sleep. Foods that have adverse effects on our mood are caffeine, alcohol, Trans fats, sugary snacks, refined carbs, and fried foods. The foods that boost your mood are fish, nuts, avocadoes, flaxseed, beans, leafy green vegetables, and fresh fruits.
Have Healthy Relationships
Loneliness itself is a disease and it attracts other illnesses as well as anxiety, depression, and self-pettiness. Loneliness has some impact on our lives such as smoking and obesity. According to some researchers loneliness or isolation reduces 15 years from a person’s life. You always need someone by your side for sharing not just secrets but your thoughts also. The people around us, especially the loved ones, become the aim of our life. Your good friends and your close ones are always there to console you in grief and to help you in trouble. If you become loyal and loving to your friends and relatives, you will receive the same from others. Simple is that, “Do good and Have good”. Your true relationships act like your backbone and strong essence for a healthy mind.
Healthy Activities
Healthy activities lead to a healthy body and a healthy mind. For your body, it is important to exercise properly. Exercise can help you to have peaceful sleep, relax muscles and nerves, good metabolism and release good hormones. It reduces stress, depression, and anxiety and gives you a light mood and strong emotions. You can have a good walk, jogging, aerobics, sports or work out in a gym.
Healthy activities also include mental work out. Try to spend some time on mental exercises. For that, you can solve games, puzzles, brainteasers, and quizzes. Some excellent brain games are word finder games like scrabble, crosswords, word search. These workouts help to reduce tension and relax the brain for an active mind.
Leave Bad Habits
Smoking, alcohol consumption, drugs, these are the things which are poison for your mental health. This is the time to leave all these bad habits. These short term pleasures can give you some serious long term illnesses. All these addictions increase the level of depression and stress and explode out of your physical condition. Along with these addictions eating unhealthy and junk food, sleeping late at night, waking up late in the morning are also considered as bad habits which you need to leave.
Mindfulness Meditation
We all know that there are enormous benefits to meditation. Mindfulness is a type of meditation that allows you to focus and to control your thoughts and emotions. The significant benefits of meditation include improved emotions, strong memory, better relationships, lower stress, and a healthy body. Good sleep is essential for a peaceful mind and meditation works like a magic for sleepless nights. Spirituality and religious practices are also proven to be beneficial for relaxation and calm life.
Seek Professional Help
If your mental health is in terrible condition and you think that other things are not benefitting. Don’t ever feel shy to consult a professional. Along with changing your lifestyle, it is strongly recommended that consulting a good psychologist or therapist will do wonders.
Most of the time we keep talking about physical illnesses and health, however, our mental health is equally important to lead a normal and happy life. Don’t feel shame in discussing your problems and finding the cures. The key to your success is your physical and mental health.