Find 10 Best Tips for Good Mental Health
Mental health is the part of general health that we sometimes don’t pay attention to. We tend to pay more attention to physical health and as a consequence some problems may appear. But how can we have good mental health? I will start from the idea that general health includes physical, mental or psychological health and the social network that we have. The three go hand in hand, they relate to each other and their healthy level provides us with personal well-being and therefore quality of life. If we maintain healthy life habits because they improve our physical condition, we must know that they also improve our mental condition. Therefore, these habits are positive for our general health, physical, mental and social.
How to have good mental health?
As I explained at the beginning, most of us are attentive to our physical health, to our state of health. However, we are not aware that mental health is as important as physical health and that if we are not psychologically well, this will affect our organism. So it is essential to also be attentive to our mental health and try to maintain a balance of our general health, asking for help if necessary.
Here are 10 tips that answer the question: how to have good mental health, recommendations that you can adapt to your interests, tastes and leisure activities:
1. Moderate physical exercise
If you do physical exercise, moderate activity and several times a week, between 2 and 3 days/week, you get, in addition to staying in shape, reduce the level of physiological activity that is associated with stress, anxiety or anger and therefore increase your personal welfare.
2. Adequate rest
Rest between 7 and 8 hours a day, depending on the person (some need more hours of sleep than others for a restorative rest), allows you to take care of your health because it improves physical and intellectual performance and reduces the likelihood of appearing some physical and psychological problems.
3. Healthy Eating
Eating a healthy diet makes you feel good, allows you to increase your personal well-being. If you choose the foods in your diet well and the food rich in melatonin is also great, limiting fats, sugars, alcohol, increasing the consumption of fresh products, such as vegetables and fruits, pulses, blue fish … that is, a Mediterranean diet, you protect the health of your brain and therefore your mental health.
4. Social relations
Caring and maintaining relationships with others or initiating new relationships are helpful for certain problems such as anxiety or stress, avoid isolation and keep our brains more active. Social support, healthy contact with people who enrich, with people with whom to share, in addition to improving your well-being, slows the deterioration of cognitive abilities such as memory.
5. Leisure and free time activities
Putting into practice and enjoying your free time and your leisure activities increase your well-being. To dedicate time to carry out some pleasant activity alone or in company of others allows you to improve your state of mind and therefore, to improve the management of the daily responsibilities like work or family. Enjoy the activity that relaxes you, encourages you, helps you to disconnect or to take perspective of problematic situations.
6. Thought management
Properly managing excessive and ongoing worries and negative thoughts can help you maintain good mental health. These kinds of thoughts make you act in a certain way, they can make you act hopelessly for no reason or encourage you to give up a task. Being aware of them, what activates them or what is true in that thought that does not let us sleep are some of the guidelines to put into practice. Undoubtedly, a health professional such as a psychologist, can guide you to carry it out.
7. Effective communication with others
Too often you may have trouble communicating with others, giving a message without the other person understanding it as you do. You can verbally transmit an emotion and the other person does not understand it, simply because he has another conception of it. All of this can make you feel bad, misunderstood and reduce your personal well-being. People normally understand from our point of view, our experience. Asking rather than assuming is paramount in this case. And to maintain an effective, comprehensive communication, in a simple and clear way, direct, listening actively improves without a doubt the relationship with the other and therefore the well-being.
8. Relaxation
When you enjoy calm moments and breathe properly your mind relaxes, the tensions you may be experiencing and stress decreases and therefore increases your well-being and takes care of your mental health. Enjoy a foam bath, a walk on the beach or the music you like, always according to your tastes, can get you to reduce your stress level. In addition, you can ask about a relaxation technique that will help you in specific stressful moments and can help you stay relaxed more continuously.
9. Realistic and achievable goals and objectives
In order to maintain good mental health it is important that you set goals in your daily life, attainable goals, priorities and follow your life project. Carrying out a task, making an effort, committing yourself to developing it… all of this will bring you great satisfaction, well-being and therefore good mental health.
10. Search for help
It is sometimes difficult to put these tips into practice. Situations, environment, or personal abilities can make it difficult to desire and intend to take care of mental health. If you find yourself in these circumstances, seek help, discuss it with your friends, with people you trust, with professionals. Do not stop taking care of your mental health, look for the necessary support and take care of it. And if you don’t know where or who to turn to, you can ask us for help here. We will guide you to achieve your goal, to take care of your mental health.