Both mental and emotional health plays an important role in our overall health being. Managing our emotions and maintaining the right emotional balance is a vital skill. When you learn to handle your emotional health being, it, in turn, helps you to face stress and challenges. Lack of emotional skills can result in poor mental health and cause stress in relationships. Thus, it becomes very important to take care of your mental health just like how you take care of your physical health. You can practice these mental tips to maintain overall health being.
Having good mental health will help you to enjoy life and cope with issues. It provides a feeling of inner strength and well-being. Just like how you take care of your body by exercising and eating healthy foods, you can follow several mental tips to protect your mental health. Eating right and proper workout can help in maintaining good mental health.
The food you consume can have a direct impact on your energy level, mood, and physical health. What is a healthy diet? A healthy diet has all essential nutrients, consists of different foods, offers the right amount of calories to maintain a proper weight, and does not include too much salt, alcohol, and sugar.
12 Important Mental Tips
By selecting foods that can give you constant energy, you can keep yourself healthy. This will also keep your mind healthy. The same diet will not have the same effect on every person. To find the right food that suits your body type, talk to your healthcare professional.
Daily physical activity plays a significant role in both mental and physical health, including old people. By keeping yourself physically active, you can continue doing things that you enjoy and stay independent even when you grow old. Daily physical activity over long periods can offer long-term health benefits. This is the reason why health experts ask everyone to stay active daily. Physical activities can help to cope up with stress problems too.
Get enough sleep- This is one of the most important mental tips that should not be avoided by any chance. Sleep is important for our mental and physical health. Sleep helps to regulate the chemicals inside our brain that communicate information. These chemicals play a significant role in managing our emotions and moods. If our body does not get enough rest, we start feeling anxious or depressed.
Eat right-Eating healthy foods is not only important for our bodies but is also important for a healthy mind. Specific mineral deficiencies like Vitamin B12 and iron can spoil your mood. To avoid this, you must eat a balanced diet. If you feel anxious or stressed out, try to reduce your intake of caffeine as it can make you feel anxious and jittery.
Avoid smoking, drugs, and alcohol- Smoking and drinking are not the things that we associate with withdrawal symptoms, but they can cause a huge impact on our mental health. When you have few drinks, you start feeling anxious and depressed the following day, and you might find difficulty in concentrating. Too much drinking for prolonged periods can cause thiamine deficiency. Thiamine is crucial for brain functioning and its deficiency can result in serious memory issues, confusion, motor coordination issues, and eyesight problems. Smoking makes you anxious and irritated.
Other medications will frequently leave you in withdrawal and can cause anxiety and low moods. More serious effects of drugs include delusions and paranoia. Research suggests that usage of drugs can cause mental disorders like schizophrenia.
Get a lot of sunlight- It is one of the best mental tips that are easy to follow. All of us know that sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D. This is one of the essential vitamins required for both our body and brain. It helps our brain to release chemicals that enhance our moods, like serotonin and endorphins. Whenever possible, try to go under the sun, but make sure you keep both your eyes and skin protected. Getting sunlight for around 30 minutes to 2 hours a day is perfect. During winter, we feel depressed. Do you know why? It’s because we do not get enough sunlight. This is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Handle stress- Stress is unavoidable, but realizing what triggers your stress and understanding how to cope with it is the key to maintaining good health. Try to handle your worries and responsibilities by making a list or a plan of when can you solve each problem. If you divide your stresses and worries and jot them down, you will realize that they are easy to manage. If you feel that you are not able to sleep properly or wake up thinking about the things that are making you anxious, write them and reassure yourself that you can deal with them.
Regular exercise- Doing some kind of physical activity daily is one of the vital mental tips to keep your mind healthy. Keeping yourself active not just gives a sense of achievement, but also boosts the chemical inside your brain which in turn makes your mood happy. Exercising can eliminate bad moods, stress, and anxiety. It also guarantees long and healthy life. Physical activity does not have to be a 90 minutes football match or a marathon. It can be anything like a short walk or some other gentle activity.
Do things that make you happy- Try to manage some time from your busy schedule for doing things that make you happy. If you like to go for a walk, watch a specific TV show, do painting, then try to set aside some time for doing these activities. If we do not do things that we enjoy doing, we may become unhappy and irritated.
Connect with others and socialize- Try to maintain good relationships with people and make it a point to talk to others whenever possible. Making friends is vital not just for self-esteem, but also for offering support when you are not feeling that great. Studies have found that talking to others for at least ten minutes can improve one’s memory and test scores.
Help others- Helping others is not just good for those whom you are helping but is beneficial for you also. Helping somebody can make you feel satisfied with your existence in the world. Feeling as if you are a part of the community is important for one’s mental well-being. To help others, you can be a volunteer for a local charity or can even help your neighbors.
Ask for help, if required- One of the most important mental tips is to understand when you are not feeling good and to know when you should ask for help. Don’t feel ashamed to ask someone for help when you feel stressed or depressed. Everyone goes through ups and downs in their life. You can always approach your family or friends to discuss your problems. This will calm your mind and you will feel better.
Switch off your mobile before going to bed- Researches have revealed that looking at phone screens before going to sleep can affect the quality of your sleep. The blue light from your phone affects the production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates the sleep cycle. Texting, reading, watching films, etc keep your mind active when it should be relaxing instead.
Have some fun- Spare some time to laugh and have fun. This will keep you mentally fit. Laughter is the best medicine for releasing stress.
Follow these mental tips and let us know how you felt. Do you know any other tips that work great for mental well-being? If so, please do share with us in the comment section below.