A mentally healthy lifestyle starts with 6 basic and fundamental needs. Focusing on these factors will contribute to living a happy and healthy lifestyle.
Physical health
Physical health is a result of both genetic and behavioral influences. Questions to ask yourself to keep you on top of your physical health include: "Am I drinking enough water? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating nutrient rich foods? Am I exercising?" If you are checking the boxes to these 4 questions, you are setting your body up to thrive and better withstand the environmental stressors that may come your way. Your energy and mood will increase and you'll start to feel both physically and mentally healthy.
Social Support
Now this doesn’t mean we all need 20 best friends but instead it’s important to have a core group of people that you can feel a sense of belonging with. That’s a humanistic need… to feel love and care for others and to have that be reciprocated. So, if you have moved to a new area or maybe lost some friendships, it’s really helpful to identify at least one or two people that you can call and talk to or go do things with that have similar interests.
Coping Skills
So we all know that sometimes life just doesn’t work out the way we plan for and sometimes things happen throughout our day that can really impact our mood and how we think, feel and behave. I like to think of coping skills as a bandaid. We use our coping skills when something happens and we have to keep going in our day. They are the quick fixes we utilize until we have the time to process or find a solution to whatever it is we are dealing with.
Sense of Purpose
This is one that many people don’t think about but it has such an impact on motivation and sense of accomplishment. If we are just going through our days without understanding our purpose and our values, we aren’t going to feel fulfilled. Having a sense of purpose may be fulfilled in a career, having a family, traveling, etc. Think about what excites you or ask yourself, "What would I be doing with my life if I could pick anything?" Even if the answer is unrealistic, you can analyze what features about your ideal life interest you and go from there.
Healthy Thinking
Our human brains are very quick to create shortcuts that help us become efficient in our day to day
but sometimes that means our brains create “thinking traps” to help us use less brain power to arrive at the same outcome. One example is known in the counseling world as "jumping to conclusions." Isn’t it a lot easier to just say to ourselves, “I'll never get this job because I don’t have any similar experience."? Or something like, "I’m not going to be able to find a partener in life."? That way when those experiences or statements become true we don’t have to be suprised or hurt because we already arrived at that conclusion. In reality, jumping to conclusions is not helpful and does not save us from disappointment or pain. These mental shortcuts are just something our brains do because it highlights our fears and makes us feel prepared in the moment. Switching to a healthy mindset would involve a thought such as, “I may not be qualified for this postiiton but I'm going to be myself during the interview and hope that they see my potential to learn." Or, "I haven’t found “the one” YET but I know i will when the time is right.
Self Esteem
Self esteem really can impact the labels we give ourselves and influence what we think we deserve. Examples of unhealthy thought patterns that influence our self esteem are, "I’m not attractive enough to date this guy" or "my personality isn’t good enough to make friends, be loved, etc." I wouldn’t want anyone to have those types of thoughts but sometimes we just do. We analyze ourselves daily and arrive at these conclusions after comparing ourselves to others. If we focus on doing what makes us feel good about ourselves and take a moment to identify our strengths and validate our strengths in our environment, we will have a higher self esteem and really put ourselves out there feeling good each day.
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