Ways to Nurture Your Mental Health When you Don’t Know Where to Start
Mental health is “a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being” (Oxford languages). It is regarded as being just as important as your physical health yet often overlooked when comparing the two.
Today, mental health has become an increasingly popular topic in our culture. Many people talk about how it’s important to take care of your mental health, how you need to engage in self-care, give yourself a mental break, etc.
However, if you have rarely been exposed to the concept it can be difficult to fully understand its importance. Furthermore, if you grow up in an environment that doesn’t address mental health the concept will be extremely foreign to you. This yields the push to make it a more well-known topic of conversation.
Even so, it’s not always as easy as it sounds to just become aware of your mental health needs, especially if you are unsure of how to begin.
Therefore, this article will aim to give you the tools you need to begin your mental health journey. Or, if you are experienced with mental health, let this article be a gentle reminder of the basic methods of mental care to continue it.
Rest, Reset, & Disengage.
In my opinion, the most fundamental version of mental care is to allow yourself time to rest and reset. When you rest you give yourself a moment to disengage from whatever life stresses you are experiencing.
When I refer to disengaging I mean being able to detach yourself from the intense emotions we attach to our life experiences. It allows you to take a break from reality and reset your mind, body, and soul so that you are more willing and able to address whatever is needed after you rest.
Anything that gives you time to reset and disengage from the heavily mental-focused aspects of your life I consider to be rest. It doesn’t have to just be by laying in bed all day. If you do something that you enjoy and fills you up with positive emotions, that is mental rest.
And that can look very different from person to person. Some ways to rest are by taking naps, taking a day off of work, spending time alone, watching TV or a movie, reading, spending time in nature, engaging in a hobby, listening to music & dancing, or even hanging out with friends.
Therefore, the definition of rest is up to one’s own interpretation of what gives them the ability to naturally disengage from the intense mentally engaging aspects of their life.
With that being said, the first way to begin nurturing your mental health is to give yourself more time to rest in the ways that you find most fulfilling.
Finding Gratitude
Gratitude is a very powerful and simple way to nurture your mental health. It takes very little time and can be done daily in as little as one minute.
Finding gratitude involves finding things that you feel grateful for in your life. They can be small things such as being grateful for your favorite book or more general things such as being grateful for a person, health, or life.
What some people find challenging with gratitude is finding the positive aspects of their lives when everything seems to be the complete opposite. A common thought could be “how is there anything to be grateful for when everything in my life is going terrible?” However, when this is asked you may be looking too small. Gratitude can come from absolutely anything, there are no rules.
One way that you can begin finding gratitude is by taking 1–5 minutes in the morning, before bed, or anytime that works for you to think of 1–3 things you are grateful for.
For example, I like to do this most when I wake up in the mornings. I find what I am grateful for in the first 3 things that come to my head. Right now, I am grateful for a computer to write these articles on, a platform to be able to share this information with all kinds of people, and Whole Foods pizza (my dinner last night).
It can literally be anything and all it takes is a starting point.
If you want to learn more about this read this article: https://skylarrae.medium.com/finding-gratitude-8af23d2c6195
Listening to yourself
Another simple and important way to nurture your mental health is by listening to your needs and acting on them.
If you need rest, let yourself rest. If you are sad, let yourself cry. If you need to talk about what you are going through, call your best friend. If you feel lonely, ask someone to come over. If you are hungry, eat something.
The hard part about listening to yourself is acting on it because as humans we sometimes enjoy the struggle. If there is nothing to struggle with, then what can we complain about? This may seem a little twisted but it’s a very common and usually unconscious thought.
It doesn’t have to be that way though. We can listen to what we need, find a way to give ourselves that and be better for it.
Listening to yourself not only helps you nurture your mind and soul but will also increase the quality of your relationships (in all forms), help you better understand yourself, and become more aware of your truth & comfortable with expressing it.
For ways to begin listening to yourself consider reading some of these: https://skylarrae.medium.com/the-importance-of-self-honesty-e1a6db0c4029
https://skylarrae.medium.com/listen-to-your-heart-literally-de7e42bbae83
https://skylarrae.medium.com/understand-your-deepest-pains-395ba0f71db0
Self-care
The last way to nurture your mental health I want to talk about is self-care. Self-care is the act of practicing ways to improve and preserve one’s health.
Rest, reset, disengage, finding gratitude, and listening to yourself are all methods of self-care. Self-care can also be taking care of your physical health such as going to the Doctor, taking your medicine, and working out.
Self-care can be doing something that you love or being with people that inspire and lift you up.
Self-care is a great way to begin nurturing your mental health because there are so many different ways that you can do it. Like rest, self-care is up to the interpretation of the person engaging in it. To me, self-care means yoga, having nights to rest by myself, sitting outside and reading, speaking to myself with love, and sharing how I feel with others. This is just a small list but it’s to give you an example. Your list will most likely be different.
If you want to begin doing self-care a great way to start is by making your own list of what you can do; which you can always add to. Then you can refer to your list whenever you want to engage in some self-care.
Here is an article to read when you want to check in with yourself for self-care: https://skylarrae.medium.com/have-you-checked-in-with-yourself-lately-bce80814da9
Hopefully, some of those methods will help you get started on your journey of mental health care! It is so important to start nurturing your mental health and it’s never too late to start!
The best thing about taking care of your mental health is that it doesn’t have to cost anything. All of the methods I shared with you you already have the tools for, all it takes is to start.
❤️🌻 Thank you for reading!
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