So your body is fit, but there’s still that piece of your mind that isn’t quite right. Bad mental hygiene creates many problems; settle things. It may be that you need to get your head on straight. It’s easy to improve your mental health, and you’ve already taken the first step by looking into mental health. Remember, it all starts from within.
Develop a hobby or passion for your mind to express your emotions and joys for the mind to feel progress. For example, the body needs exercise and a means to channel its energy. This is one of the five life coping skills. Love your body, as exercise is a coping skill.
Feed your mind. Improve your social relations, and allow for more warmth and love between the people closest to you. Do not brag or be narcissistic (as much as possible accede to preferences of other people over your own preferences, ie: give them choices, not being pushy).
Recover old friendships, or make new true friendships to feed that part of your mind. Having good support systems from family and friends is a coping skill.
Challenge yourself once in a while. Seek a meaningful job to obtain a sense of real self-worth and confidence. A career that motivates you emotionally to get excited in the morning is a coping skill. However, if the job you have is not necessarily of your top career preferences, or even is flat out something you don’t like, you can still deal with it. In every job there can be respect found in it by doing your best and treating those you work around with warmth. Learn to love yourself. Satisfaction in a career must come from yourself and not others.
Surround yourself with beauty. Redecorate your house or garden. Do some spring cleaning. Put on some happy music. Do whatever helps you feel relaxed and at peace. Practice whatever form of spiritualism that appeals to you. This is a life coping skill and will help you recognize beauty.
Remember that, as long as you fill your mind with your personal ‘mental foods,’ you will experience less boredom and inner conflict. Boredom and marital conflict are often symptoms of mental starvation (or misunderstanding).
Be sure to identify any issues you have such as anxiety, panic attacks or other disorders. Identify these and acknowledge that you have them. Only from there can you move on and seek treatment to improve your mental health.
Make sure you’re consuming the right vitamins and minerals everyday. Follow a diet rich in omega3, vitamin E & C, and specially Antioxidants like raspberries and blackberries for example. Antioxidants help clean up the brain.
Tips:
- Keep your room neat, and you will soon feel happier. Remember, when the area around you is organized, so are your thoughts.
- Try to think before you speak in order to say only positive or harmless words.
- Anger is a secondary emotion. If you are angry about something, there is an underlying primary reason for the anger. That is the emotion that needs to be handled with the five coping skills.
- Stay away from a states of “vegetation” or defensiveness. Use the coping skills. If you are in any state other than practicing the coping skills, you are not in good mental health.
- Practice the five coping skills. They are a career (not necessarily your present job), positive support systems, exercise and health, a hobby, and spirituality.
- Use a journal to process emotions that are not pleasant such as sadness, emptiness, feelings of abandonment. This is good exercise before going to sleep.
- Don’t let any of the coping skills become addictive or controlling. For example, hobbies are good but if you play golf all the time at the expense of important time, it is no longer a coping skill.