One of the most ignored parts of your life, yet one of the most important aspects of your life, is to develop good habits for mental health.
In today’s fast-paced world, where everyone seems to be always in a hurry, it is important to understand the importance of mental health in your life.
The other day when at work, my friend said that her teenage boy was diagnosed with depression, it felt quite odd. Teenage is a time when the child should be full of happiness and positivity, yet the number of children who are affected by mental health issues these days is scary.
It ascertains the importance of mental health in everybody’s life, be it a teenager or someone who is in middle age or the later part of their lives.
Good habits for mental health are insurance against the vagaries of life. They help you to face all the odds that life throws at you from time to time with confidence and with a smile on your face.
Having said so, it is not easy to develop habits for good mental health. Yet, with the right motivation and understanding, it is definitely possible to build habits to improve mental health.
In this blog post, we discuss some of the good habits for mental health that will help you to develop mental toughness and will help you stop sweating small stuff.
If you are able to inculcate these daily habits for mental health as a part of your life, it will be easier to accept the challenges in your day-to-day life with ease.
From creating meaningful bonds and connections with your loved ones to establishing sound sleep routines, these good habits for mental health will help you develop the mental resilience needed to face every situation in your life.
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10 Good Habits For Mental Health
Having good habits for mental health is the key to long-lasting happiness. It is essential to develop healthy mental habits to improve your overall health and mental well-being.
So let us look into some of the most effective habits that you can start practicing to boost your mental health. By consistently making these good mental health habits a part of life, you can experience an improved sense of clarity and stability between your mind, body, and soul.
Mental toughness — or the ability to persevere through mentally challenging situations, emotions, and more — is a valuable skill to acquire.
When you’re mentally tough, you’re able to work through situations that threaten the well-being of your mental health. This year, consider developing these ten power habits to develop a stronger sense of mental toughness.
Practice Your Sense Of Resiliency When Faced With A Difficult Situation
Resilience, or the ability to quickly “bounce back” after facing a setback or difficult situation, is an excellent habit to have if you want to develop more mental toughness.
Practice “bouncing back” after something bad or negative happens instead of moping or wallowing in tough emotions. Many people discover that resilience is like a muscle — the more you work it, the stronger it becomes.
Having said so, bouncing back is easier said than done. So, depending on the situation at hand allow yourself the time required to grieve or cry out if you feel like it. Yet, try to get back to normalcy after recuperating.
Develop A Mantra To Use When You’re Struggling With Your Mental Health
Using mantras is another great habit for developing mental toughness. Mantras or affirmations are those phrases that you can repeat to get your thoughts realigned with your main focus or goals.
They are excellent to use anytime you’re struggling to keep your mind and spirit on the right track.
Some examples of good mantras you can use to work through a challenging situation include…
- I can do hard things.
- I’ve been through tough situations before, and I can do it again.
- I have the power to do good.
- I can make smart choices.
Reach Out To Your Support System When You Need Extra Help
A great way to stop sweating the small stuff is to voice your concerns to someone you know and trust. Get into the habit of asking for help when you need it.
Instead of suffering alone with excess worry and anxiety, call on someone you trust to be a kind ear. Often, your trusted friends or family members make great sounding boards for hearing your concerns and then helping you work through them logically.
There is never any shame in asking for help when you need it. Knowing when to reach out to another person for support is one of the best things you can do to sharpen your sense of mental toughness.
Yet you should be absolutely sure that the person you open to is worthy of your trust and will not manipulate your situation later on.
Asking for help can be challenging — sometimes, it makes people feel like they’re being too weak. In reality, leaning on your support system is a great way to fortify your mental health, especially in times of hardship.
Speak To Yourself With Kindness
The way you speak to yourself has the power to greatly affect your overall mental health. Get into the habit of speaking to yourself with kindness — doing so is one of the best, most positive ways to make yourself mentally tougher.
Even when the world seems to be against you, if you feel like you can trust yourself to show yourself kindness, you can work your way through any situation, no matter how difficult it may be.
Therefore make it a habit to take care of the way you treat yourself per day and see if that makes a difference to your overall mental health conditions.
“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” — Wayne Dyer
Challenge Your Negative, Anxious, And Worried Thoughts And Measure Them Against Reality
Do your thoughts tend to be negative? When you’re feeling anxious or stressed, is it difficult for you to divert your thinking toward anything that isn’t your current source of worry?
If you struggle with many anxious or stress-induced thoughts, get into the habit of measuring them against reality. Often, you’ll discover that a lot of anxiety-induced thinking rarely aligns with fact, truth, and reality.
Once you start to question these anxious thoughts, you’ll notice yourself sweating the small stuff less and less frequently.
Getting into the habit of challenging your negative thinking would be a great habit to develop as a way of strengthening your mental toughness. Challenging your thoughts can be difficult, so it may take lots of practice and patience to perfect.
The next time you experience a series of negative thoughts, practice comparing those thoughts to your actual reality — more often than not, you’ll likely realize that your worries and stressors are coming from a place that is more imaginative than realistic.
Use Deep Breathing Exercises To Regain Control Of Your Body And Mind During A Stressful Time
There is a major reason why meditation practices have used deep breathing exercises for thousands of years across multiple cultures – they are effective!
If you catch yourself being worried about the little things in life often, pick up the power habit of using deep breathing exercises to regain control of your body and calm yourself.
Taking in some deep, measured breaths, holding them, and then slowly releasing them forces your body to physically slow down – this includes calming your mind, your heart rate, and more.
Once you have your body and mind under control, you can focus more easily on reality instead of your stressful thoughts.
Another great way to sharpen your sense of mental toughness is to reconnect with your breathing patterns when you’re feeling out of control.
For example, when you find yourself in particularly stressful situations, get into the habit of walking away momentarily and practicing some deep breathing exercises.
By focusing on regaining control of your breathing, you also get your thoughts and other bodily processes back in order.
Being able to regain control of your breathing helps you develop mental toughness because it helps you move past racing thoughts and that uncomfortable: “out of control” feeling.
Practice The 3-3-3 Rule To Quell Anxious Thoughts And Worries
A great way to stop anxious thinking and sweating the small stuff is to practice the 3-3-3 method. To use this method, do the following when you feel worries and anxiety taking over your thinking:
- Name three things you can hear
- Name three things you can see
- Move three different parts of your body.
By doing these simple exercises, you interrupt your anxious thinking cycle by bringing yourself back into the present moment. Learn to live in the now. It is the best way to improve your mental well-being.
Remind Yourself That Making Mistakes And Failing Is Normal And Perfectly Okay
After making mistakes, many people tend to linger on them long after they’ve occurred. Rather than allowing themselves to move forward and continue living their lives, they may ruminate on their mistakes, not allowing themselves to learn and grow from what happened.
Instead of allowing mistakes to make you sweat, get into the habit of accepting that mistakes are a natural and normal part of being human. The sooner you can accept this, the easier it will be for you to let go of your mistakes and stop sweating them every time you make them.
Mistakes and failures are going to happen. Experiencing them is a totally normal (albeit uncomfortable) part of human life. Get into the habit of reminding yourself that it is okay to make mistakes and fail.
Even though it doesn’t feel great when it happens, it’s not unusual. Life will eventually move forward — and it will move forward again quickly if you develop mental toughness by accepting failure and mistakes as a normal part of living. Learn to let go of your past.
Practice pulling the main lesson learned out of any mistake or failure you experience. Read the book “Failing Forward: How to Make the Most of Your Mistakes”, by John C. Maxwell where he teaches how to make the most of your mistakes to achieve success.
Get into the habit of finding the main lesson you can learn from every mistake or failure you experience. It’s easy to get caught up in the big emotions that often accompany failing or making mistakes; it can wear on you for days, weeks, and even years after the failure or mistake happens.
Instead, you can bolster your sense of mental toughness by extracting the lesson you learned from the experience and then moving forward with life afterward.
Let Yourself Feel And Experience Your Emotions In Real-Time
One of the best habits to form if you want to develop a stronger sense of mental toughness is learning how to process your emotions in real time.
Big emotions aren’t fun to handle…especially if you’re struggling with emotions like grief, sadness, anger, frustration, or fear.
Rather than giving in to the temptation to hide or ignore these big feelings, get into the habit of actually letting yourself feel and experience them.
Not only will you connect with yourself on a much deeper level, but you’ll also process your big feelings more effectively, bringing relief to your mental health.
Get into the habit of looking for the truth in every scenario you imagine or actually face. Whether your anxieties are real or imagined, if you practice looking for the truth in every scenario and situation, you will most likely realize that your anxieties and worries are rarely ever based on reality.
After practicing this habit a few times, you’ll be able to analyze your anxieties and worries through a critical lens that makes them seem a lot less scary.
Allow Yourself To Accept Criticism Gracefully
Receiving criticism is tough. It can be hard to hear someone criticize something about you or the work you’ve done.
However, criticism holds a lot of value — often, it can be used as a blueprint for making much-needed improvements to yourself, your work, and more.
Get into the habit of accepting criticism gracefully rather than becoming defensive about it. This helps you develop mental tough
Validate Your Thoughts And Feelings
It is much easier to stop sweating the little things in life when you validate your thoughts and feelings. Even if you are sweating the small stuff, it’s essential to substantiate the way you’re thinking and feeling about them.
Get into the habit of validating your feelings, even if you feel like you are overreacting. There is likely a reason why you get worried about little things in life, and admitting that you have a problem with it is the first step toward squashing that excess worry.
Fun Activities To Improve Mental Health
When we talk of mental health we often tend to get serious. Yet mental health needs not be a chore.
As for maintaining our physical health we visit the gym or take up activities like cycling or running to make it interesting there are several fun activities that you can get involved in to harness your mental health.
Use a small notebook or journal as a “brain dump” for worrisome or anxious thoughts.
When you’re busy worrying about the minor stuff, you may feel like there are thousands of little thoughts clouding your thinking – and often, all those little thoughts are stopping you from actually focusing on what you need to get done.
If this sounds familiar, consider using a journal as a place to “brain dump.” Write down those little thoughts as they occur – this way, you can revisit them later when you have time, allowing you to stop sweating the small stuff and focus on what is most important at the moment.
We have a post on journaling ideas for beginners and journaling for self-improvement and you can use the tips mentioned in to start journaling which is one of the very good habits for mental health.
If you want to buy some cool journals for yourself, you can try Creative Fabrica which has excellent journals and planners. If you want to design your journals or planner, you can also try Canva.
Canva is a web-based tool that can help you enhance your creativity and help you hone your design skills even if you know nothing about designing.
Develop New Hobbies
Normal routine life can be stressful and it can also become monotonous at the time. Taking care of the family, and your profession can seem to be a daunting task.
So building new hobbies or nurturing hobbies you had during your younger days can be a great boost to your mental health. It induces positivity into your life making you feel happy and acts as a breath of fresh air in your otherwise mundane life.
Finding creative outlets like painting or writing can be beneficial for helping channel negative energy into something productive.
Maintain a good, consistent sleep schedule
Getting enough good quality sleep is an essential part of controlling your worries and anxieties. When you are feeling well-rested, you are far less likely to sweat the small stuff in life.
Being too tired causes you to feel frustrated and on edge, which is the perfect storm for excessive worry and anxiety to form. So per night create a sleeping habit that can induce better sleeping patterns.
Use Tools Such As Calendars And To-Do Lists To Keep Your Life More Organized
A great way to eliminate excess worry from your life is to keep yourself organized. Get into the habit of using tools like calendars and to-do lists to keep your priorities and schedule in check.
You can use tools like Google Calendar or Notion to help you prioritize your list.
If you procrastinate a lot and that is hampering your progress in life you can look at these apps for procrastination to help you overcome the habit.
If you know exactly what you need to do and when, you’re far less likely to worry about forgetting (or worse, actually forgetting) something important that would otherwise cause you concern.
Final Thoughts
Good habits for mental health are important for a healthy and happy life. Taking time to nurture and build on your healthy mental habits will help you to feel more connected to your true self.
You will feel less stressed out in demanding situations and address the issue with more maturity and confidence, whatever it be.
Taking care of yourself is an important aspect of your life you tend to ignore. But as the saying goes, if you do not take care of yourself, you cannot continue to take care of anyone else for a very long period.
DOWNLOAD the Daily Journal we have designed for you. It will allow you to vent out your feelings which is so important to maintain healthy mental health.