You have power over your mind, realise this and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor
A few months ago, TiH challenged the tribe to embark on a mental health challenge. For 30 days, TiH proposed ideas you can adopt to ensure optimal mental health and the response was immense. In our society mental health is still seen as taboo and held to a certain stigma despite recent campaigns to normalise talks around mental health. When everything has been said and done, looking after your mental health should take priority. Here, in no particular order, are TiH tips on how to holistically take care of your mental health.
Physical health
Your physical health is the gateway to your mental health. Physical health includes diet, weight, dental hygiene, intimate hygiene and sleep. Undertaking physical activities not only keeps your body in great shape but activities such as walking, jogging, swimming and aerobics help your brain to release feel-good chemicals that boost your self-esteem and increase your concentration on important matters.
Emotional health
Many of us assume emotional health is the same as mental health. It is not, although the two are often used interchangeably. Emotional health focuses primarily on our ability to stay tuned in to our emotions and vulnerability and having the ability to take some control of our thoughts and feelings, which then influences our actions.
Good emotional health doesn’t mean you are free of negative thoughts, it means you have the skills to manage those thoughts. Skills e.g. resilience, to manage negative thoughts can be developed and sharpened using meditation and journaling.
Everyone goes through periods of disappointment, loss or unwelcome change and these in turn cause sadness, anger, anxiety and stress. This is a normal human process, however, people with strong emotional health have the ability to bounce back from adversity, trauma and stress because of their harnessed resilience.
Spiritual health
Spirituality is not necessarily tied to religious beliefs or traditions.
Spiritual health involves having a sense of meaning in life, hope and peace. Whether we like to admit it or not, humanity is always acting on spiritual levels e.g. having faith, an expression of hope beyond the reasoning mind.
I believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience on earth. As such we seek to have the best relationship with ourselves, other people and something higher than ourselves.
Being spiritual can support your mental health because it helps develop your sense of purpose, peace and hope and meaning to your existence.
Above all, embrace your intuition. Intuition is the sixth sense or that gut feeling you get. I believe prayer is talking to God and intuition is God talking to us.
Intellectual health
This includes activities that challenge and improve your knowledge and wisdom e.g reading, watching documentaries, intellectual conversations, puzzling and intellectual games. Having intellectual health means you are open to new ideas and experiences and have the desire to add to your knowledge, increase your understanding of others’ views, improve skills and continually challenge your mind by maximising your creativeness.
Research has shown that learning new skills improves mental wellbeing by boosting and enhancing self-esteem and your sense of purpose. Self-esteem is about how you value and feel about yourself – low self-esteem has been linked to a host of mental health issues.
Social skills
People are inherently social animals. We depend on others to survive and thrive. Not surprising, many mental health issues have some component of disruption of normal social behaviours, functioning and/or interactions. However, be prudent on how you cultivate your social relationships because any and all toxic relationships are detrimental to mental health. Strife to create and maintain healthy relationships with yourself and others.
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The human body is interconnected – mind, body, soul, spirit and the social component. Taking holistic care of these aspects will improve overall mental wellbeing.
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Image – Fakurian Design – pexels.com
