5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Mental Health

If you want to live a happy, healthy life and achieve your goals, then you have to pay attention to your mental health. You shouldn’t wait until your mental health is struggling or you have been diagnosed with an illness. Ignoring your mental health can impact your everyday life, from your energy levels, motivation, focus, concentration, and stress. If left unchecked, it can lead to anxiety, depression, and beyond. Here are five simple ways to improve your mental health.

1. Stress Management

Often, we don’t even realize how much stress is impacting our daily life. The negative builds up over time and we don’t realize that it’s impacting our sleep, diet, and behavior. Stress can lead to fatigue, hair loss, muscle pain, weight changes, infertility and of course, negative feelings.

You can’t cut out every stressful situation in your life. However, you can learn to let go of what you can’t control and mitigate those things that do cause you stress. For example, you can’t control how busy your office gets at certain times. It agitates you. You can take your break at that point and get out of the office to manage the stress it causes you.

2. Get Regular Exercise

Evidence is just as good for your mind as it is for your body. Schedule a short workout to start your day and you will soon notice the difference in your mood and spirit. A 20-minute cardio routine is a perfect way to kick off the day.

3. Go Unplugged

We are constantly connected. Our phones are practically tethered to our hands. Often, we wake it up and unconsciously open a social media app. Before we know it we’ve wasted 15-minutes scrolling aimlessly. Not only that, but there’s been some type of breaking news that has triggered an avalanche of emotions from all over the world. Suddenly, you are caught in that avalanche and your emotions are spiraling. That’s just for starters. That doesn’t even take into account how we interrupt ourselves to look at a notification or attempt to multi-task. Being ever-connected comes with plenty of bad habits.

Do yourself, and your mental health, a major favor and unplug yourself for the day. Turn your phone to do not disturb, and spend your day untethered. Engage with people face to face, communicate with others, enjoy nature.

1. When To Walk Away

It doesn’t matter what you’re dealing with. It’s so important that you understand when to walk away (or take a break) from a situation. It’s easy to stick at it and give in to frustration, but a short break can make all the difference.

2. Make Healthy Choices

When you feel hunger pangs come late afternoon, what do you do? You wander to the vending machine and grab a candy bar. Perhaps you brought a snack with you, but it’s not much better for you than the candy bar. By making a simple healthy choice in times like this, you can positively influence your mental health. Choose a snack that’s low on the Glycemic index, offers plenty of fiber and moderate protein. This will help regulate your appetite. For example, a small handful of raw nuts or a piece of cheese and a piece of fruit.

You want to train your brain to get the same pleasure from healthy choices as it does to the junk it’s become accustomed to. Achieve this one dietary behavior at a time. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water!

It’s not easy to follow the tips above, especially if you are struggling with a mental health episode. However, once you start making these changes you will see the difference in how you feel. Others will notice, too. We all experience mental health struggles from time to time, but the tips above can help you stay on track in improving your mental health.