6 ways to maintain your mental health

When you intentionally attend to your mental health, you improve it. Your garden is well-kept. Your abilities and creative energy can do a lot of good and grow like trees that start to bear fruit over time. Fruit, in the form of a better mood and greater self-confidence. The better you take care of this garden, the more you enjoy being in it. It's the same with our mental health. When we take care of them, we feel good about ourselves. When we stop caring for them, the effects gradually appear, visible in the form of worse well-being.

It goes without saying how important mental health is to our lives. The form in which it is determines how you cope and function in everyday life. But unfortunately, many of us have never been taught how to take care of our mental health in a healthy way, which is increasingly affecting the quality of our lives.

Our mental health is getting worse

Some people have such low self-esteem that they consider themselves unworthy of any partner, success, love and happiness. People who cannot cope with their own emotions, with anger, sadness, and aggression. People who are so stressed daily that sooner or later, they experience many serious diseases. Despite their sincere intentions, people with such low interpersonal skills cannot create lasting and healthy relationships with other people.

The scale of the problem is more than enormous, and the prognosis is, unfortunately, getting worse. So I believe you should start with the source of the problem, which is education on this topic. Or rather, the lack of it.

Therefore, in today's article, I will focus on ways to improve the quality of your mental health. Of course, this is probably not a complete list, but in my opinion, it covers the necessary basics. If you want, I encourage you to share your ideas in the comment below the article.

I encourage you to keep these points in mind, especially when you have a mental crisis. Then it is extremely important to take care of yourself and your mental health because the next step is only depression. Life is a sinusoid of failures and successes, worse and better moods, happiness and sadness, and even euphoria and totals down. So give yourself a strong foundation to make it easier to get through this difficult period. Let's start!

Take good care of your needs

If I had to choose one most important points from the whole list, it would be this one. Conscious taking care of one's own needs is, in my opinion, the absolute basis of mental hygiene, where the key word here is "conscious."

Many of us fail to meet our basic needs in a healthy way. To relieve stress, we smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Being busy, we often eat something "quick," usually a fast food meal, and relaxation is synonymous with hours spent in front of computer games or with your favorite TV series. The question is, are these the healthiest forms of meeting these needs for you?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with watching a series or drinking alcohol occasionally. The problem arises when we cross that fine line between common sense and exaggeration. Therefore, now pay attention to which of your needs you satisfy in a way that is not healthy for you. In what cases could you be more reasonable? Which of your needs requires more attention? Think about it now.

The extent to which you meet them determines to a large extent how you perceive yourself, and thus how high your self-esteem is and the condition of your mental health. So especially when you feel it is not of the best quality, there will most likely be a field for you to work in here.

You can regularly ask yourself:

What do I need most right now? How can I fulfill this need in the healthiest way for me?

I guarantee you that your mind and body know what you need. Just listen to him and follow what he says. This is the simplest method I am aware of for improving mental health.

Pursue your passions

Fulfilling your passions is the next step, partly related to the first point.

I want to emphasize here that I do not mean focusing on the passion for turning it into your source of income, but rather selflessly enjoying some activity you enjoy in the world.

I remember how many years ago I learned painfully that sometimes it's not worth turning your passion into work. When I was still a teenager, my biggest dream was to play professional basketball. At that time, I dreamed of making a living from playing sports. However, when I finally got to the team where I had a chance to fulfill my dream, my passion began to gradually burn out. I didn't know why it happened at the time, and it took a long time for it to sink in.

When the results of matches and statistics began to matter the most, even at the expense of the joy of the game, I decided that I did not want to be a participant anymore. Why do I need a passion that does not give me satisfaction? So today, I play only as an amateur, giving me great joy.

That is why I encourage you to look for your passion, which will bring you joy and plan a regular time you devote to it. It doesn't matter if it's cooking, drawing, playing the piano or playing board games with friends. Let it be something that allows you to completely reset and enjoy it.

Develop emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a collection of skills that enable you to identify and respond to your and others' emotions. In my opinion, this is a set of skills that are currently missing the most in the official education system, and the lack of which greatly affects the mental health of children and adults.

Why is emotional intelligence so important?

Because it allows you to react to and deal with your own emotions, it's not always easy, but emotional intelligence builds a sense in you where you are aware of choosing how you respond to your emotions. In addition, it also allows you to react to the emotions of others. With emotional intelligence, you understand what emotion drives a person when they behave. When, for example, someone raises their voice at you, you know that it is only their reaction to the anger that drives them. It's nothing personal, so you can respond to that person's emotions more consciously.

I believe they will be a great guide for you through the world of emotions.

Contact and communicate with people

As humans, we are herd creatures, so we need contact with other people to keep our mental health at a high level. This is how we were designed by nature. Therefore, find a way to keep in touch and communicate with others. Of course, I encourage you to contact "live" because this is the most natural for us, but I think any contact is better than none.

Exercise (approx. 10 min):

1. Make a list of people you can always contact when you need it.
2. Make an appointment with a person or group of people.
3. Call or text someone.

It can be someone close to you, such as a friend or family member, but you can also try to reconnect with old friends who have been neglected for various reasons. Then you will also gain a sense of creating relationships, which can uplift you in the worst moments of life.

Also, remember that when you are in a weaker mental condition, the presence and help of other people are important. So, try to be seldom alone then and seek to be among others. For example, going to your favorite coffee shop will be better than sitting alone.

This point can also be combined with pursuing passion and finding people who like what you like to connect with them in your hobby. Even if you don't know such people, the Internet is a great place to meet them.

Set your life mission

I love this point because it was a turning point in my life. I remember that when I finished my adventure with basketball, I was completely lost. I lost the "meaning" of my many years of work, and each new attempt to find something to devote myself to ended only in frustration. And so it was for the next few years.

Until the moment came when I made a clear decision that I would devote myself to sharing my psychological knowledge with the world. It was the moment when I felt that "something" again, which remains to this day. A deep, inner motivation that burns bright and strong all the time. This feeling gives me strength when normally I would have given up long ago.

Life's mission is the meaning of your actions. This is why you are motivated to get up every morning and give 100% of yourself because you see a deeper meaning in it. At this point, however, I would like to debunk a popular myth about the mission of life.

Many people misinterpret life's mission as some grand purpose that should be used to influence large numbers of people. This is not entirely true. Sure, you can set yourself a very ambitious life mission, but something much smaller will also be perfectly fine.

For example, a person working in a bank does not have to quit his job immediately to devote himself to others. Its mission may as well be the best service and financial education for its clients, which is also very much needed in our country. For example, choosing a loan is often a decision whose consequences (not only for the wallet but above all for our psyche) accompany us throughout our lives. It is then worth being the person who will build trust in the client, inform him about the risks and advise him as best he can.

You can also participate in various types of charity events or foundations. For example, you can take dogs from shelters for walks and publicize such outings or support the education of children from poor families. Let these be goals that you deeply believe in.

The mission is supposed to motivate you and excite you at the same time. It should be something that drives you and allows you to add your brick to the world around us. This will also be good for your mental health.

Practice gratitude

I deeply believe that happiness and good mental health are largely due to gratitude for what we already have. Therefore, it is worth being grateful for as many things as possible. Even if you have little of it, when you appreciate what you already have, you can more easily appreciate more.

At this point, I also need to address the topic of how often we fall into the trap of the eternal pursuit of happiness. We are told in the media that we are worth what we have. Unfortunately, it sells. Often, we accumulate more and more, buy more and more often, and get promoted higher and higher, and happiness, as it was not visible, is still not visible. And then what do we do? We win and collect even more!

Watch out for this trap, even if you think it doesn't apply to you. I believe that the easiest way to happiness is simply gratitude. Such simple, sincere gratitude for even the smallest things, such as that you can get up in the morning on your own feet, eat a warm meal or have a roof over your head. Remember that millions of people in the world dream about it.