We live in the ever-changing turbulent world, and sometimes life can be particularly tough. We are constantly being pulled in a million different directions and can struggle to keep head above the water coping with the pressure that we are under by the factors outside of our control. Most of us could use some help – a gentle nudge to point us in the right direction to improve mental health, to change our approach to life, suffer less and feel more content.
How to Improve Your Mental Health in a Day
Most of us are doing our best to adopt a positive outlook on life, but daily hurdles happen that can trip us up. Try these helpful tips to improve your mental health becoming more emotionally resilient.
7 AM: Finding the Inner Pool of Calm
Just after waking, find a quiet place where you can sit for no more than 10 minutes, a quiet place where you can sit peacefully without being disturbed.
Follow a simple breathing technique counting: 1,2,3,4 — hold for four seconds, breathing out 4,3,2,1 radically keeping the focus on the breathing, staying grounded in the moment; start your day by finding the inner pool of calm.
8 AM: Food as a Fuel
A healthy breakfast can truly set you up for the entire day! A healthy diet is one that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.
10 AM: Catching Rays of Light
Just 10 minutes a day of skin exposure to direct sunlight is enough to help our body make vitamin D which enables our brains to produce serotonin –– a mood elevator we all need more of. So get outside as often as you can and catch as many sun rays as possible!
12 PM: Make it Social
Spending your lunch break with your classmates, colleagues or grabbing a cup of tea with a friend can significantly reduce the symptoms of depression as research suggest done by University College Dublin.
Open your contacts, scroll through. Who’s fallen out of your life but worth reconnecting with? Reach out to a friend and spend quality time with them talking, connecting; no screens, just two people spending quality time together face-to-face.
2 PM: Social Media, Go Take the Bench
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there… that mid-afternoon scroll may be a lot more harmful as you would have imagined. In a study conducted by the University of Copenhagen. participants reported feelings of incessant frustration, jealousy when using Facebook or Instagram and depression – those who stayed clear from their social media feeds felt a whole lot happier within just seven days!
3 PM: Water Up!
How much water should you drink per day? Our body is about 60% water. And we’re constantly losing water from our bodies, primarily via urine and sweat. There are many different opinions on how much water we should be drinking each day. The health authorities commonly recommend eight 8-ounce glasses, which equals about 2 liters, or half a gallon.
It’s important to keep hydrated throughout the entire day. To improve energy, focus, and have less nasty headaches, try to aim for those eight glasses of water a day. If you are not a big fan of plain water, try infusing it with lemon and cucumber for more flavor.
6 PM: Move It, Move It, Move It!
I’ve read recently that exercise can stimulate the parts of our brain that are unresponsive when we are depressed; when we get moving, the brain produces feel-good chemicals, endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin. And so the positive impact of the exercise on our mental well-being is immense.
Be it aerobics, a dance class, or a gentle yoga flow, find something that feels right for you and – move it, move it to increase the blood flow and brain activity.
8 PM: Introduce a Screen Break
Instead of binge-watching Netflix in the evening try finding time for reading a good soul-nourishing book or writing in your journal. Writing helps to put things into perspective and make more sense of the beehive of thoughts and feelings when we see it captured on a piece of paper; it’s incredibly useful when you have trouble sleeping at night.
If we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. – Tony Robbins
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4. Three Choices CALM People Never Make
5. On Forming New Healthy Habits and How to Start