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How to Practice Better Mental Health on a Daily Basis

Easy tips for making your mental health a priority. Click here to learn how you can practice better mental health each day and live a happier life!

Mental health is foundational for all other aspects of your health. You may keep physically active at your job or get regular exercise for your heart. You may eat well and try to make good, wholesome decisions for your body. But your emotional health deserves the same attention and care.

Today, we’re sharing easy tips to practice better mental health and wellness that you can do each day.

Key Points

 

  • Positive coping skills and recommendations
  • How sleep is a critical part of how to practice better mental health
  • Ways you can get more positivity into your days
  • What to do if your mental health is in trouble

 

The Importance of Good Mental Health

Though there are factors of our mental health we cannot control, such as traumas, family history, and genetics, we can adopt a positive mental health practice to help care for our minds and our emotional health and well-being.

 

A woman that is frustrated with her hands on her head as people hand her various tasks

 

Your mental health affects every single aspect of your life:

 

  • Career and job performance
  • Relationships and social interactions
  • Your physical health
  • Your weight, sleep, and immune system
  • Your overall quality of life

 

When your mental health suffers, you may find yourself overeating or undereating, over-sleeping or not being able to sleep well at all, pulling away from people you love, or isolating yourself from your own life. You may find yourself feeling like each day is a struggle.

But, prioritizing your mental health and caring for it as you would any other aspect of your health could help you to prevent a major mental health problem. Put your mental health at the top of your priority list today with these tips for maintaining a good daily mental health practice to keep yourself mentally strong, fit, and well.

  1. Choose Your Coping Skills Wisely

We are taught a great many things as toddlers. How to eat with utensils and not our fingers. How to share our toys. How to put on our shoes. But many of us are not taught how to express emotions, understand our emotions, process how we are feeling, or cope when we are feeling upset. In fact, many of us are taught that emotions are to be controlled or suppressed.

But coping skills are life skills, and it’s never too late to learn what helps you and what does not.

Your coping mechanisms – ways you try to calm yourself or improve your mood – may be instrumental keys for how to practice better mental health every day. And negative or destructive coping skills, like drug use, smoking, drinking, or self-harm, may be so counterproductive that they hurt your mental health and keep you bound to self-destructive behaviors rather than your own self-care and wellness.

Learn New Skills: Positive Coping Skills

VerywellMind recommends some great coping skills for you to learn and make a part of your mental wellness plan:

Problem-Based Coping

Try removing unhealthy, harmful, stressful things from your life. Setting boundaries and setting aside time for keeping yourself mentally well can help you to be cognizant of creating healthy spaces, situations, and relationships in your life.

Emotion-Based Coping

Try new self-care routines, meditation, taking walks, listening to music, doing yoga, learning a new hobby, or using relaxation strategies to help you manage stress. Relaxation strategies could include breathing exercises, repeating positive mantras, squeezing a stress ball, or using a stress management guided meditation app.

Spend Time with Loved Ones, Family Members, Friends

Supportive friends and family can help you gather strength from a support network that cares about your well-being.

Make Time for Fun

Try to take about 30 minutes each day for fun or a relaxing activity you enjoy to help you re-center and rest your mind from daily stresses.

Spend Time Outdoors

Spend a little time each day outdoors. The fresh air, sunshine, and open green spaces are great ways to renew your spirit and make you feel more calm. Also, get some regular exercise to help your body be strong and release feel-good hormones that boost your day.

Try This:

Take stock of your current coping skills. Ask yourself how each is helping or harming your mental health. Consider learning new skills or trying some healthy techniques for managing your stress and maintaining your mental wellness. Maybe it’s time to take up a new hobby that also doubles as a coping mechanism for your mental wellness!

Note: If you need help with calm, try a relaxation gummy during stressful moments of your day for a quick calming wellness boost.

  1. Take Care with Your Sleep

Sleep is crucial to your mental wellness, yet many people report not getting enough sleep. One of the most kind and caring things you can do for your body and mind is to get the sleep you need – good sleep! If you’ve never really been a good sleeper or if you have some negative ideas of sleep, it’s time to clear away that negativity and prioritize your nightly sleep schedule.

Try This:

What negative ideas were you taught about sleep? That it’s “lazy” or a “waste of time”? Write these down on a blank piece of paper. Then, list reasons why these are wrong ideas and why your sleep matters for your mind, body, and spirit. Choose, today, to give your body the gift of good sleep. Write down your commitment to creating a better attitude toward regular and healthy sleep hygiene.

 

A woman that is sleeping on her bed

 

Note: If you’re having trouble sleeping or winding down for sleep, talk with your doctor. You can also try CBD sleep aids to help you get better sleep at night and wake up feeling more refreshed.

  1. Surround Yourself with Positivity

Positivity is a practice. It’s a decision. You can create a more positive environment for yourself by using some of those healthy coping skills and setting boundaries that keep you emotionally well – but also by creating positive moments in your day that keep you feeling well.

This means having a little fun. This means taking a break if you feel you need to mentally recharge. This means speaking kindly to yourself.

Try This:

Create a list of positive mantras that speak directly to your biggest insecurities. Write them on notecards or sticky notes and put them where you need them – on the bathroom mirror, in your bag, next to your bed, on the dash of your car – wherever you can read them throughout your day for a pick-me-up. Speaking kindly and positively to yourself can help you to focus on the positive, focus on what you can accomplish, and focus on forward movement rather than rumination or worry or crippling self-doubt. Also, consider a daily gratitude journal. Start your day by thinking of three things for which you are grateful. It helps to start your day on a positive note.

Related: How To Be Happy Again: Some Common (And Not So Common) Methods

  1. Ask for Help When You Need It

Learning how to practice better mental health may require a trip to your doctor, especially if your mental wellness is suffering. Discuss family history of mental illness and talk about your current and past mental health concerns. Your doctor may want to offer some screening questions or send you to a therapist for further evaluation. Don’t worry that this means something terrible for you. It just means that you are being proactive about your mental health.

Here are some mental health warning signs you need to watch out for:

 

  • Changes to your diet, behaviors, emotional stability, or sleep patterns that have continued more than a few days or weeks.
  • You are struggling with emotional trauma.
  • You have behaviors or feelings that don’t seem to make sense to you.
  • Your life feels out of control.
  • You have irrational feelings, uncontrollable feelings, or destructive or suicidal thoughts.

 

For immediate mental health help:

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline1-800-273-8255

ORText GO to 741741 to reach a trained Crisis Counselor through Crisis Text Line, a global not-for-profit organization. Free, 24/7, confidential.

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Learning how to practice better mental health is something you can prioritize each day of your life. Follow our Health and Wellness blog that covers topics like stress, sleep, and exercise to help you on your journey.

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