Healthy

Mind & Soul

These are the seven aspects to focus on to help you stay mentally well.

Stress Relief
Nutrition
Sleep
Connection
Physical Activity
Be Kind
Spirituality

1. Stress Relief

We are well aware that stress worsens our life in many ways. Even though you may try to ignore it, stress catches up with you. It can damage the body and worsen symptoms of mental illnesses. It increases anxiety, causes us to eat poorly, prevents us from sleeping properly, and can put stress on relationships. While it’s impossible to eliminate all stress in life, it’s crucial to come up with healthy ways to help you deal with it.

Tips to Reduce Stress in Your Life

Understand Your Stress: Think about your triggers and prepare for them in advance—is it family, work, financial? Prioritize if you feel overwhelmed and only do what is essential. Recognize how you respond—do you get angry, aggressive, or get headaches? Figure out a better way to manage the tension.

Exercise: Recent Federal Guidelines recommend at least 2½ hours of moderate-intensity physical activity each week, but a twenty-minute walk may be all you need to immediately calm your nerves and relieve some stress.

Have a Healthy Lifestyle: Binge eating and not getting enough sleep, typical behaviors when we are stressed can affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis controls reactions to stress. Stay away from caffeine. Drop the sugary food and eat lean protein, lots of veggies, and whole-grain carbs. Healthy diets combined with proper sleep will help maintain consistent mood levels.

Be Mindful and Meditate: Mindfulness meditation, breathing to be in the present moment, has been proven to relieve chronic stress as well as increase your tolerance of it.

Put down the phone, disconnect – and reconnect with those around you: We all know it. Constant checking and rechecking of your phone and computer lead to increased stress. Give yourself a twenty-minute no phone zone each day – and never have it at the dining table.

Hobbies: Find a distraction you enjoy. Gardening, music, reading – anything you can look forward to will help relieve stress and distract you.

Go easy with criticism. Be flexible: Arguing intensifies stress. Finding compromise may even lead to a better solution.

Get Professional Help: Sometimes we all need to talk with a professional. Your general practitioner can help you find a psychiatrist or psychologist that will work with you to improve your coping skills. If you are feeling suicidal, call 911 immediately or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

2. Nutrition

Both good and bad moods can come from food. If you drink too much coffee it will bring on anxiety, nervousness, and moodiness. When you’re stressed or depressed, you are more likely to crave and eat simple carbohydrates, like white bread, cookies, or candy. These foods boost your mood and energy for a short period of time, but then they cause you to crash shortly after. In addition to eating a healthy, balanced diet, don’t forget to stay hydrated. When you get dehydrated, you can get cranky and even feel disoriented.

3. Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important elements of self-care. It affects neurotransmitters, stress hormones, thought processes, and emotional regulation. Too little can make it difficult to make decisions, solve problems and control your emotions and behavior. Simply put, everything seems worse when you don’t get enough sleep. You may feel more anxious, agitated, depressed; Whatever symptoms you typically experience are amplified. Additionally, even though you may feel like you are functioning fine with little sleep, you aren’t. Studies have found that drowsy driving can impair your functioning behind the wheel as much, if not more than, drunk driving. Find out how many hours of sleep you should be getting each night.

4. Connection

When you don’t feel well, it’s easy to stay in the house and avoid the outside world, but the social connection is very important. Humans are social animals who crave interaction with others. In fact, loneliness not only negatively impacts your mental health, but it has also been linked to cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, and memory problems. It can even interfere with sleep. When it comes to mental health, loneliness feeds symptoms. Loneliness exacerbates the symptoms of illnesses like depression, social anxiety, and alcoholism. As difficult as it is to do, try to take the initiative to reach out to others. If you’re feeling down, you really need to push yourself even when it’s hard. The best way to meet other people is by getting involved with something you like; Take a class, join a book club, get involved with a community initiative, volunteer. It will put you outside of your comfort zone, but when you make connections and begin to socialize, you will start to feel the positive benefits. Over time, the loneliness will fade.

5. Physical Activity

Although it seems impossible to think about exercise when you’re depressed or anxious, you can’t argue with the research—exercise helps. You don’t need a gym membership to reap the benefits. Walking, running, cycling, swimming, dancing and even gardening can all help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. Try not to think about it as exercise and think about moving instead. Starting out with something small, like walking to the neighborhood coffee shop, then the next day try to go a little further. Slowly work your way up to a brisk walk every day. The combination of fresh air and movement will help your mind and body.

6. Be Kind

If your partner or best friend came to you and told you they were having a rough time, would you brush them off? Would you tell them to suck it up and push through? Most likely you would be much more empathetic and offer support and comfort. Would you do the same for yourself? Most people hold themselves to higher standards than others because they feel selfish when they are kind to themselves. In reality, it’s important for our health. Make time for yourself (even if you think you don’t have any!), do something you like to do that adds joy to your life, give yourself permission to feel your feelings, stop the negative self-talk and don’t feel guilty for being nice to yourself for a change.

7. Spirituality

Spirituality is at the core of our humanity. It is not about belief. Rather it is where we experience our deepest, most vital connections to life. While many belief systems and religious traditions have spiritual components, spirituality is also a fundamental part of music, art, dance, creativity, athletic endeavors, and the natural world. Compassion, contemplation, and meditation also have spirituality at their core.

Spirituality invites an awareness of our existence and the meaning of our moments. However, in stressful and difficult times, it is challenging to call our own spiritual resources. We can feel a lack of connection to others and to the things that are meaningful to us. Here is where spiritual practices are vital to self-care. Simple spiritual practices honor the connections to the life force inside us that is energized by the people, activities, moments, and places that matter the most to us. Practicing gratitude, meditation, prayer, creative expression, community service, and self-compassion help strengthen our spiritual connections and our inner coping resources. Likewise practicing forgiveness and radical acceptance can be profoundly liberating. All of these practices support other wellness and self-care practices and help us manage stress and challenging times.