Everyone has good and bad days in their lives. Good days bring you joy and happiness, but when bad days come, it looks like everything is going wrong and you will find yourself exhausted and overburdened with your responsibilities and day to day activities. It’s the time when you feel that it is important for you to take some time for your self-care in order to allow your body and mind to heal. As per the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, you will find that one out of every five individuals is facing mental health issues. So to avoid all these things you can practise self care as it is considered as a good way to recover from mental health issues.
Self-care basically means taking time for yourself to do the things that improve your mental and physical health. When an individual practices self-care, it becomes easy for them to manage stress, improve their mood, lower their risk of illness, increase their energy, and enhance their overall wellness. Along with this, it becomes easy for you to deal with difficulties in life as well as maintain your life in a healthy way. So, here are some of the healthcare tips that you can follow to live a mentally healthy life.
1. Exercise Regularly
Regular exercise is considered one of the best ways to improve your physical and mental health. Exercise not only makes your body physically fit and gives it strength, but it also gives you peace of mind and makes you more active. Exercise doesn’t mean always going to the gym; rather, it means practising simple exercises that will give you peace of mind. On a daily basis, you can exercise for 20 to 30 minutes which will give you a strong sense of overall well-being. You will start feeling more energetic and active throughout the day, feel relaxed and positive, and also get better sleep at night.
2. Prioritise your sleep
For many people, sleep is often the first thing that suffers when they are struggling with mental health issues. So you should try to get good sleep since it will improve your mental health and start a fresh and energetic day. On average, an adult should sleep up to 7 to 8 hours. The timing for children is more than this. Along with this, the individual should sleep early and get up early. They should follow a proper sleeping schedule since this will help them have a peaceful sleep. As per a study conducted on 9000 people, it was concluded that every third person in ten people faces the problem of having good quality sleep. So to have good mental health, an individual should start prioritising their sleep.
3. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness basically refers to a point in time when the individual is mentally and physically present and aware of their thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. In today’s world, you will find a lot of people who face the issue of being present mentally and physically at a particular spot. This usually happens when an individual is facing stress, depression, or anxiety, since during this time your mind is not mentally present. So it is very important for an individual to engage in mindfulness to live a healthy and peaceful life. To practise mindfulness, an individual can engage in activities like breathing exercises, walking, indulging in their favourite activities, and more. All these things will help you stay physically and mentally aware of the present moment.
4. Make Time for Yourself
Taking time for yourself and indulging in activities that bring you joy is one of the best things that you can do to have a mentally healthy life. In today’s world, where everyone is busy with work, it gets very difficult for anyone to take out time for themselves and do their hobby. But taking time for yourself should be given priority on a regular basis. You can make a list of activities that bring you happiness. The things in which you can involve yourself are reading, painting, walking, cooking, playing different types of sports games, lighting up your room with fragmented candles, practising your daily self care routine, and many more. By performing these different types of activities, you can make yourself feel loved.
5. Stay connected with others
Having good friends and staying connected with them is very important for your mental health. Making phone calls, texting each other, and having face-to-face interaction with people not only helps you release stress but also enhances your overall well-being. When you maintain a good relationship with your friends and family members, you can share things with them, which will provide you with emotional support and help you reduce loneliness. If face-to-face interactions are not possible with your loved ones, then you can try to connect with them through video calls and social networking sites. As you are connected with others, it makes you mentally healthy and strong to deal with difficult situations.
6. Practice gratitude
Gratitude is a very simple thing that people usually do not follow in their everyday schedules. It basically means that you are thankful for a particular thing or that you appreciate something that you like. If you start practising gratitude, it will enhance your mood, happiness, and overall well-being. An individual basically feels grateful for things that make them happy and satisfied. Other than that, they can be grateful for the things that they have in their daily lives. You can even make a list of these things and remind yourself of them on a daily basis.
7. Eat Healthy
Eating a balanced diet is very important, not only for a healthy body but also for a healthy mind. Having a proper meal that has plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, and nuts is very important since all this will help you increase the energy level in the body and will enhance your mood as well. One of the foods that you can try to have good mental health with is dark chocolate, since it helps in uplifting your mood and giving you energy at the same time. If an individual is having mental health issues, then they should avoid eatables like sugar and excessive caffeine in their everyday meals.
8. Manage Stress
For an individual to be mentally healthy, stress management is very important since it helps them relax and stay calm. If you want to reduce stress, then you can indulge yourself in activities like meditation, or deep-breathing exercises since all these activities will help you perform better in certain situations. However, proper management of stress is very important because if the stress is long-term, it can cause heart related diseases and depression. Although short-term stress can be managed by an individual itself, some of the reasons an individual can face stress are if they are not able to handle their relationship, work life, or have some money-related issues. So, an individual should practise self-care activities to keep them stress-free.
9. Seek Professional Help
There are many people who are facing mental health issues, and they hesitate to share them with others because they think it is a disease. But in such cases, an individual should always check for professional help who can guide them in the right direction so they can easily come out of their mental health issues. There are a lot of therapists and counsellors who can support you and guide you in the right way, through which you can easily improve your mental well-being. These professionals will also provide you with a personalised self-care plan that can be designed as per your requirements and needs. So getting professional help can be one of the best ways to deal with mental health issues.
Conclusion
No matter how hard it is for an individual to cope with mental illness, there are always ways to recover from it. Treating yourself to self-care advice is one of the best ways to get better from this condition. In this blog also, we have mentioned some of the self-care tips, like exercising regularly, giving importance to your sleep, taking time for the things that make you feel happy, eating a healthy diet, and many more. Doing all these things will give you happiness, improve your quality of life, and your overall well-being. So, if you find an individual who is facing mental illness, you can help them by telling them these self-care tips for mental health.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are a lot of signs through which you can tell that you are facing mental illness, such as a change in your eating and sleeping patterns. You will not be able to cope with everyday problems, feel irritated and uncomfortable, and have no interest in your hobbies or activities that you would love to do. If you are facing any of these signs, then you should consult a professional and ask for help.
Some of the quick self-care activities that you can do during your busy schedules are meditation, reading, listening to music, relaxing, and taking a short break. Practising these activities will not take a lot of time, and you can even try them even when you have a busy schedule.
When an individual is not mentally healthy, it will also affect their physical health and behaviour. You will face difficulty in concentration, your ability to think may decrease, you will have mood swings, you might face sleeping issues, you will feel irritated and restless about small things, and you will not feel good enough to interact with others.
Although the starting age of mental illness varies from person to person, as per the conclusion of some studies, an individual starts facing mental issues at the age of 14, some at the age of 18, and others at the age of 25.
The best exercise that can be performed by an individual who is facing mental health issues is a walk for 10 to 15 minutes, since it will help them improve their mental alertness. Along with this, they can practise simple breathing exercises for 15 to 20 minutes, as it will enhance their concentration level and improve their mood.
Here are some of the steps that you can follow to create a self-care routine that suits your lifestyle:
Step 1: Evaluate your daily routine and check the activities that you like to do.
Step 2: Now choose an activity that makes you feel happy and helps you release stress.
Step 3: Next, you can start practising the activity regularly and add it to your routine.
Step 4: After practising this activity for some weeks, you can evaluate your performance and check whether your self-care routine enhances your mental health.
Self-care should be practised on a regular basis, irrespective of whether you are facing mental issues or not. This is because when you practise self-care, you feel self-loved and happy. But if you are facing mental health issues, then you should follow the above-mentioned self-care tips, which are an important part of your everyday routine.
Yes, self care has proven to be a great remedy for those who are facing issues related to anxiety and depression. You can indulge in physical activities and exercise regularly since this will help you improve your mood swings and reduce anxiety.
There are a lot of signs that indicate you need to prioritise your self-care. Some of the major signs are that you start getting negative or suicidal thoughts, you don’t feel like speaking to anyone, you will not be able to focus on things, and you start feeling irritated with things very easily. If you start facing these issues, then it’s high time you start practising self-care.