The fancy lifestyle and hectic work culture are silently taking away the peace of mind due to which it is becoming tough to achieve a balanced mindset. As it is said the brain is like a muscle, if we don’t give it a regular workout, it loses drift. This blog attempts to guide you towards some of the amazing tips towards achieving balanced mental health.
Your mind is the window to your body and soul which controls your consciousness and determines how your body functions.
“Mental health affects every aspect of your life. It’s not just this neat little issue you can put into a box.” — Shannon Purser
So, if you’re facing a mental health challenge, you are not alone! Use the following tips for inspiration to keep moving forward on your own mental health fitness journey:
1. Exercise for 30 minutes every day.
Physical exercise delivers oxygen to the brain. This can help to improve your overall memory and reasoning abilities. Exercise is a blessing, not a chore. It changes your mood and attitude. Keeping yourself active at least 30 minutes is considered to be ideal for keeping yourself fit and fine. Going for a walk or unwind with yoga can be your options for a healthy and stress-free mind.
2. Break the monotony.
No matter how efficiently you carry out your daily routines, monotonies can always be dangerous as a balanced centre of mental health & wellness. Its okay to change things a little once in a while, for Change is persistent. Breaking the monotony can be as simple as altering your jogging route, trying a new genre of movies or a restaurant or even planning a vacation once in a while.
3. Pursue a hobby or a new activity.
Learning something new gives the ‘grey matter’ a drill and enhances neural pathways in the brain keeping it in a balanced and healthy state. Picking up new skill challenges you to increase your concentration levels and makes you feel good about learning something new. Any new hobby like painting, acting or cooking a new dish can increase your confidence in being able to face new situations, challenges and people. All this, in turn, makes you feel happier about self, thus supporting balanced mental health.
4. Manage your stress.
Studies have shown that stress can lower the life expectancy of an individual by 10 to 15 years. Everyone has certain triggers that can result in stress. Avoiding a stressful situation cannot help you to cope with it.
Paying attention to what makes you stressed and be aware when you feel stressful so that you can strategize the solutions is of prime importance for balanced mental health. One always needs to express anger when it’s small rather than building upon it. This in return helps improve your spatial awareness and increase your reaction time. Talking to a friend, believing in yourself, reappraising and reinterpreting your situation, meditating, going for a walk, listening to music, and exercising, can be the tactics that might work or you.
5. Self-Care is the remedy.
It is quite important to set time aside for yourself to read a book or to just pamper yourself to get the much needed “Feel Good” factor.
Stress hormones like cortisol can be harmful to the brain. Relaxing oneself can help them real-time into balanced mental health. It’s easier to feel happy if your body feels good. Exercise. Enjoy a good breakfast. Small things like drinking plentiful water, having a healthy snack and maintaining a balanced diet can help you cut through. Physical and mental health are tied together. Be gentle to your body.
6. Enjoy the company of near and dear ones.
“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candour, and more unashamed conversation.”- Glenn Close
The sense of being valued and appreciated brings internal satisfaction within the self. Spending time with people you love and get along can help you feel more accomplished and confident about self. Having healthy relationships with your friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours can increase your sense of emotional wellbeing and give you a feeling of connectedness. Engaging in stimulating conversations with friends and family about a wide range of topics gives your brain an opportunity to explore, examine and enrich your mental wellbeing. Although, spending quality time in person is rather considered to be a better option than using technology to connect with them.
7. Express yourself.
Emotions, when managed poorly or unregulated, can be harmful to your mental health. You may shy away from expressing emotions or feelings that you think are ‘negative’ or not in line to what others think. A person being able to express what they are feeling, what they like or don’t like, can help them dejunk their mind. Suppressing one’s emotions can lead to an awful state of depression or anxiety.
8. Minimize alcohol and other drugs
No wonder that sometimes people use alcohol and other drugs to “self-medicate” themselves. Little do they know that these options would only aggravate the problems. Stressful situations can lead to wrong decision-making abilities like consumption of drugs. Attaining peace of mind is a challenge in itself. Minimal consumption of drugs can certainly boost your mental health in a way or the other.
9. Challenge yourself.
Trying something different, difficult or out of the box can certainly help you improve your mental fitness. Engaging in mind-boggling games involve a combination of memory, decision-making and strategizing, which keeps the brain active and prevents dementia.
This will help you boost your overall confidence and attain the new self-highs. Setting a new goal every time, breaking par the constraints can always boost your mental health into a balanced one.
10. Acceptance
You can try to muster compassion for someone who has hurt you knowingly or unknowingly rather than wallowing in bitterness. Forgiving them will help you set yourself free against all the grudges you have. Acceptance can be in other forms like loving how you are instead of dwelling on how you wish you were different. You can try and appreciate the way people are instead of wishing them to change.