In May we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s really important for us to have a regular check-in with ourselves and our feelings – are we feeling tired, stressed, or burned out?
We’ve selected top 10 tips for avoiding such problems.
- Have a regular sleep schedule
With the recent rise of the “hustler culture”, more and more people tend to overwork themselves and stay up late at night. Depriving your body of sleep can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure or stroke – and that’s only the physical part! Mentally, lack of sleep causes relationship stress, anxiety and depression. Pro-tip for falling asleep easier: don’t look at your phone and sleep in a completely dark room! When in the dark, your body produces melatonin – the hormone that makes you fall asleep!
- Ditch your phone
If we think about it, our phones are the embodiment of stress – constant emails, messages, and notifications. For most of the day, it’s really hard to ignore that – after all, we can’t forget our responsibilities. However, the world won’t stop if you take a 30-minute break a day. Try to be active during the break and don’t think about who could be texting you – it probably isn’t that important anyway.
- Rethink your schedule
Talking about stress, think about how your everyday schedule could be stressing you out – have you taken on too many tasks? Do you have constant back-to-back meetings? Do you have enough time for friends, family, and most importantly – yourself? A tip for better time management is to order everything from most to least important – do you really need to do this today or could move it to another, more calm day?
- Dance around the house
As silly as it may sound, it’s proven that dancing is one of the best stress relievers. It doesn’t even have to be “dancing” – just blast your favorite song and jump around the house like nobody’s watching!
- Journal
Getting in touch with yourself and your feelings could be a really important step in understanding the patterns that lead to deteriorating mental health. Here are some journal prompts you can try right now – just pour your soul into it!
- Plan ahead
Small things like meal prepping or preparing an outfit for the day the night before could help you make a better routine and take a bit off from the stress of the day. Also, having a thorough plan of the day can help with a more smooth day.
- Have a nature walk and enjoy the sun
Yes, we’ve all seen this tip, but that doesn’t make it less significant. Having a walk can help you foster important practices such as mindfulness and gratitude. Recent studies have found that exposure to walks can restore attention and memory. It has also been found that older people who kept up with their walking habits have up to a 40% reduced risk of developing dementia.
- Bond with friends and family
During a hectic day, when you feel as if everyone and everything is against you, it’s easy to forget that you have a strong support system. Spending time with loved ones can help you recharge your batteries and feel loved and supported.
- Have a self-care night
It’s most important to have time for yourself- be it to reflect or to just aimlessly binge-watch your guilty pleasure show. Engaging in a self-care routine has been clinically proven to reduce or eliminate anxiety and depression, reduce stress, improve concentration, minimize frustration and anger, increase happiness, improve energy, and more.
- Stay active
Staying active helps with our emotional well-being and lowers rates of mental illness. It doesn’t mean that you have to have a high-intensity workout every day, just have a good, long walk or just stretch in the morning and evening