The word health can be a broad one. Health can refer to a myriad of different things, from how active you are, to the food you eat, to who you spend your time with. Mental health, however, is one of the most important topics regarding health, and it can affect an individual in an even greater capacity than physical health. Mental health issues are also a facet of health that is not visibly seen but can cause a great amount of harm. Even if a person looks to be at the pinnacle of physical health, that does not necessarily equate to their mental health. Through the years, mental health has slowly been getting more traction within the normal public and no longer has quite the same negative stigma as it once did before. Even though the topic of mental health no longer has to be pushed under the rug quite in the same way, there is still a long way to go before all of the important tools for people to improve their mental health become common knowledge. Here are just a few simple ways to give your mind a little boost and improve your mental health.
Spend Time Outdoors
Spending time outside is one of the most underrated tools for improving your mental health. Spending time outdoors, particularly in the sun, improves mood, lessens anxiety, and improves sleep. It does so by increasing serotonin levels, vitamin D levels and setting your natural circadian rhythms so that sleep quality is improved.
Get Your Sleep
While spending time outdoors can help with the seven to nine hours of sleep doctors most recommend trying to get each night, getting enough sleep no matter what can impact your mental health tremendously, especially if you deal with a lot of stress and anxiety. Just like your phone, if you didn’t plug it in every night, it wouldn’t be able to run well, if at all. Sleep is the recharge needed for your brain. Getting less than seven hours of sleep consistently makes decision-making harder and can put you in a fog as well as increase your anxiety and stress levels. With the proper amount of sleep, however, all of this lessens, creating an overall better mental health state.
Meditate
Meditation has been shown to be one of the most all-encompassing activities for improving health. A simple meditation on a supportive and comfortable buckwheat meditation pillow for five to ten minutes per day improves cognitive abilities, lessens stress and anxiety levels, increases the ability to stay present and increases self-awareness and focus. It can also help with inflammation by relieving tension in the body. All of these things are incredibly important facets of mental health to focus on.
Embrace Failure
Some mental health issues stem from a lack of confidence or trust in oneself. This is very common and nothing to be ashamed of. People are taught from an early age to be their own worst critics, and, over time, that can erode how you think about yourself. It’s very easy to slip into the mindset of thinking you’re not good enough, or, if you’re not the absolute best at something, then that means you’ve failed. This could not be further from the truth, however. Failure is how you learn, and learning is how you grow. Growing is how you build confidence and trust in yourself. So, reframe how you look at failure, take ownership and embrace failure.
Go to Therapy
Therapy sometimes has this stigma that, if you go, that means something is “wrong” with you. The good news is that no one is perfect, and all humans have something wrong with them. Therapy is just like going to a doctor for your body. It is a doctor for your mind. The tools that a therapist or counselor can give you can help teach you a tremendous amount about yourself, your traumas, triggers and how to process the difficult parts of your life. Talking about problems and being able to externalize your inner thoughts can be incredibly helpful, as well, especially to a non-judgmental third party.
Although it can’t be physically seen, mental health is one of the most important aspects of an individual’s health. Whether you suffer from anything extreme or simply want to navigate your day-to-day life better, mental health should not be overlooked.
t the pinnacle of physical health, that does not necessarily equate to their mental health. Through the years, mental health has slowly been getting more traction within the normal public and no longer has quite the same negative stigma as it once did before. Even though the topic of mental health no longer has to be pushed under the rug quite in the same way, there is still a long way to go before all of the important tools for people to improve their mental health become common knowledge. Here are just a few simple ways to give your mind a little boost and improve your mental health.
Spend Time Outdoors
Spending time outside is one of the most underrated tools for improving your mental health. Spending time outdoors, particularly in the sun, improves mood, lessens anxiety and improves sleep. It does so by increasing serotonin levels, vitamin D levels and setting your natural circadian rhythms so that sleep quality is improved.
Get Your Sleep
While spending time outdoors can help with the seven to nine hours of sleep doctors most recommend trying to get each night, getting enough sleep no matter what can impact your mental health tremendously, especially if you deal with a lot of stress and anxiety. Just like your phone, if you didn’t plug it in every night, it wouldn’t be able to run well, if at all. Sleep is the recharge needed for your brain. Getting less than seven hours of sleep consistently makes decision-making harder and can put you in a fog as well as increase your anxiety and stress levels. With the proper amount of sleep, however, all of this lessens, creating an overall better mental health state.
Meditate
Meditation has been shown to be one of the most all-encompassing activities for improving health. A simple meditation for five to ten minutes per day improves cognitive abilities, lessens stress and anxiety levels, increases the ability to stay present and increases self-awareness and focus. It can also help with inflammation by relieving tension in the body. All of these things are incredibly important facets of mental health to focus on.
Embrace Failure
Some mental health issues stem from a lack of confidence or trust in oneself. This is very common and nothing to be ashamed of. People are taught from an early age to be their own worst critics, and, over time, that can erode how you think about yourself. It’s very easy to slip into the mindset of thinking you’re not good enough, or, if you’re not the absolute best at something, then that means you’ve failed. This could not be further from the truth, however. Failure is how you learn, and learning is how you grow. Growing is how you build confidence and trust in yourself. So, reframe how you look at failure, take ownership and embrace failure.
Go to Therapy
Therapy sometimes has this stigma that, if you go, that means something is “wrong” with you. The good news is that no one is perfect, and all humans have something wrong with them. Therapy is just like going to a doctor for your body. It is a doctor for your mind. The tools that a therapist or counselor can give you can help teach you a tremendous amount about yourself, your traumas, triggers and how to process the difficult parts of your life. Talking about problems and being able to externalize your inner thoughts can be incredibly helpful, as well, especially to a non-judgmental third party.
Although it can’t be physically seen, mental health is one of the most important aspects of an individual’s health. Whether you suffer from anything extreme or simply want to navigate your day-to-day life better, mental health should not be overlooked.