Our mental health is just as important as our physical health, and society is more aware of this than ever before. Not only are we taking the time to think about our state of mind, but businesses are becoming more conscious of their employees’ mental health too. However, even with this increased awareness, it can still be incredibly challenging to improve our mental health compared to maintaining it. To help, we’ve listed some of our preferred methods of boosting mental wellbeing and keeping it in a healthy state much more easily.
What Does Mental Health Mean?
For clarity, it’s important to know exactly what we mean by mental health. This is your emotional psychological state that hinges on many different factors. This can be influenced by so many different things, both positively and negatively. Your mental state can degrade via things such as loneliness and isolation, stress, and other external influences that can make you feel sorrow and anger, such as arguments with close friends as well as tragedies in your life. Alongside these variable factors, your mental health can be affected by certain disorders and health issues that can be out of your control.
Noticing Signs Of Poor Mental Health
While most mental health issues have their own specific signs and symptoms, many share common signs that suggest something may be wrong. While it’s important to remember that sometimes we have good and bad days and that one particularly bad moment in your life doesn’t mean that you’re suffering from a mental health disorder. However, continuous bad days and feelings of depression and anxiety can be signs of something more serious.
Be honest with yourself and take on board observations from those that are close to you. It can be really hard to admit when we’re feeling bad, especially if we’re worried about it being something more serious. But honesty with ourselves is the first step in being able to tackle these problems.
Sleeping Well
Another aspect of having a healthy lifestyle is getting the right amount of regular sleep. As adults, we need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per day, and going under or even above this number can significantly impact the way we feel. Not getting enough sleep can make us feel drained and even exhausted. This will reduce concentration levels as well as ruin our mood. At the same time, sleeping for too long can cause us to feel unproductive and like we’ve wasted too much of the day, especially if we sleep through the daytime.
Daylight provides our body with more vitamin D, which improves our mood significantly, so make sure you’re sleeping at night and up and about during the day. And if possible, get out into the sun for a bit each day, and you might find your mood improving slightly. This article from Rise Science delves further into the risks associated with sleeping too little, what can contribute to poor quality sleep, as well as how you can improve what is known as your sleep hygiene. All of this should help you answer the question; why am I sleeping so much all of the sudden?
Meditation And Mindfulness
It’s common practice today for individuals that struggle with mental health problems to practise mindfulness techniques. Spending time meditating and relaxing your mind every day can significantly improve your overall mental state, reducing symptoms of depression and stress. A common choice when it comes to meditative practices is doing yoga. Yoga combines exercise and physical control with focus and relaxation. There are many online resources that provide great guidance and walkthroughs for those looking to try meditation or yoga, no matter their level of experience—setting aside some time every day for you to focus on being mindful and conscious of your mental health. This can help you to both improve the way you’re feeling as well as give you time to identify any other problems you may be experiencing.
Asking For Help
After identifying that you’re struggling, it’s worth building up the courage to ask for help. It’s very difficult to admit this for many people, as it can often be misconstrued as a weakness, but remember that everyone deals with problems like this to some degree, and everyone has a different threshold and ability to deal with these problems themselves.
Seeking professional help when struggling with your mental health is vital as there are countless methods and forms of guidance that doctors can provide, although taking this big step can be very tough as it almost verifies the issue much too quickly for some.
Looking After Your Physical Health
It’s now well known that our physical health is linked to our mental wellbeing, and therefore regular exercise and keeping active are great remedies for feeling under the weather. While it’s not a guarantee to fix any problems you may be having, exercise can make you feel better physically as well as feeling productive. It can take your mind off of anything that’s bothering you and give you a fresh perspective on the day. Similarly, getting outside for a walk in the fresh air can do the same and allow you some time to detangle your thoughts.
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