May is Mental Health Awareness month. Because mental health is important for all aspects of life, an entire month is dedicated to raising awareness of the issue.
Although you know that mental health needs to one of your top priorities, you might not know how to maintain it. The following tips can help.
Implementation of these four actions can help improve your mental health.
1. Meditate Daily
Schedule meditation into your daily routine. This helps clear your mind and improve your focus.
You may want to begin with 5 minutes of mediation while your coffee is brewing. Or, if you use public transportation for your commute, you might put on your headphones and listen to a meditation app like Headspace.
As you establish a habit of meditating, you can work up to 10, 20, or 30 minutes per day. This can be broken up in shorter increments, such as 10 minutes three times per day, if you cannot fit in all of your meditation at once.
2. Limit Your Social Media Accounts
Close your social accounts on platforms that do not help you feel inspired, confident, and happy. Also, unfollow the people and pages that do not make you feel good about yourself. Plus, limit the time you spend on your remaining accounts. These actions encourage you to focus on your own life rather than other people’s lives.
Find people whose careers you admire, then start following them on social media. These are the people you want to learn from and potentially network with. Also, follow pages that support mental health. This may include meditation pages that provide steps to promote calm and relaxation. Or, the pages may share inspirational stories that remind you to focus on the good things in life.
3. Say “No”
Turn down the requests you cannot fulfill. Saying “no” helps you maintain control of your time. It also lets you set and maintain boundaries. Having your needs met helps lower your stress level as well.
You may want to say, “I’d love to help, but my schedule is too full to devote as much time and effort to this task as it deserves.” Or, “I need a night by myself tonight. Let’s get together this weekend instead.”
4. Change Your Focus
Train your mind to shift away from negative thoughts and focus on positive ones. Begin by noticing the negative thought. For instance, “My to-do list is so long that I won’t get everything done today.” Then, replace the thought with a positive one. For instance, “I will finish the most important tasks today and schedule the rest for tomorrow.”
Controlling your thoughts helps manage your emotions. This impacts your beliefs and behaviors. The more control you feel over your life, the more stable your mental health is.
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