Practical Ways to Improve Your Mental Wellness

You may hear a lot about mental wellness these days. Things like self-care or self-love are often describing things you can do to take care of yourself, but it’s easy for these ideas to get lost in the busyness of life. This can leave you feeling like you’ve dropped the ball on yet another thing in your life, which only perpetuates the problem.

Instead of focusing on the ideas of self-care, consider how you can make simple changes that promote mental wellness in your life. These changes don’t need to be drastic. It is often better when they are small things that you can build upon over time. This sets you up for success far better than making big changes all at once.

Small changes combined with your faith will help you intentionally work toward improving your mental health and well-being.

What is mental wellness?

There is a lot of good, helpful information about mental health in the world today. With increasing awareness, it is becoming mainstream to consider mental health as an important part of a person’s overall well-being.

Despite the increased information, there are a lot of terms used interchangeably that have different meanings. Mental health, mental illness, and mental wellness are perfect examples.

According to the American Psychiatry Association, mental health focuses on how you function in your daily life, while mental illness is caused by disorders that affect you in areas like thinking, emotions, and behavior.

While it can be connected to mental illness, mental wellness is different. According to the Global Wellness Institute, “Mental wellness is an internal resource that helps us think, feel, connect, and function; it is an active process that helps us to build resilience, grow, and flourish.”

Simply put, mental wellness focuses on the things you can do to promote well-being. This supports better mental health.

Why does it matter?

It may seem like those are a lot of terms that are closely related. That’s because they are. This may leave you wondering why it even matters.

Think of it as the toolkit you can carry with you to promote your happiness, lower stress levels, patience, understanding, and more as you function in your daily life. Additionally, your overall mental wellness can help you navigate both mental health concerns and mental illness.

For example, a strong, active person who sustains a minor injury is often able to recover faster than someone weaker and more sedentary. Similarly, a person who has a good foundation for mental wellness can often handle problems that arise more easily than someone who doesn’t have that same foundation.

Mental wellness is important because it strengthens you to handle daily life as well as the unexpected things that may arise. It doesn’t mean handling a difficult experience like a death or relationship issue will be easy, but it does mean you will have more resources within you to handle inevitable life challenges in a healthy way.

How does faith play a role in my mental wellness?

As a believer, your faith provides additional support. You don’t have to do this on your own. You have support from the Holy Spirit to help you as do things that will help.

In Hebrews you are reminded, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV) As you work to improve your mental wellness and navigate both daily life and struggles that arise, you can be confident in asking God for help and receiving all you need when you need it.

While you can develop your mental wellness without including your faith, you will find increased peace, resilience, and strength if you do it with God. It is with His help that you will find the best mental wellness possible for your body, mind, and soul.

Practical mental health tips

Strong mental wellness is like muscle. The more you practice and build it up, the stronger it will be. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to do everything. If you were just starting out lifting weights, you wouldn’t start by lifting all the weights in the gym. Similarly, as you build your mental wellness, you need to start small with things that challenge you without overwhelming you.

These tips are a good starting place for developing and building your mental wellness. Start with one or two. As you find you are stronger, you can increase how much you do.

If it feels like you’ve heard these ideas before, that’s for good reason: they work. Don’t dismiss them as being too simple or sounding cliché. Start by choosing one or two and committing to it for some time to see how it improves your mental wellness.

Start with a strong foundation.

Sleep. Make it a goal to get at least eight hours of sleep each night. If that sounds like a lot, try increasing your sleep by fifteen minutes each week until you reach eight hours.

Diet. Good nutrition helps your body do everything it needs to in a day, including fighting stress. A balance of whole grains, protein, fruit, vegetables, and dairy is ideal, but be mindful to discover what works for your body. Incorporating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids can help with mental decline. This is an easy choice to start making part of your diet.

Movement. Exercise has many physical and mental wellness benefits. If you are not very physically active, try taking a five-minute walk each day and building upon that.

Limit stimulants. Avoid things like alcohol, nicotine, and drugs. These only provide temporary relief and decrease mental wellness over time.

Build upon the foundation.

Connect. Be intentional about connecting with other people. You don’t always need to be social, but isolation tends to feed negative feelings. Connecting provides support, a sense of belonging, and the ability to share with others. Try having lunch with a colleague or visiting a friend or family member. Volunteering is another great way to connect with people.

Learn. Try to learn a new skill. This can give you a sense of purpose as well as help you connect with others who are interested in the same thing. You can try things like fixing something that is broken, taking up a new hobby, or mentoring someone.

Give. Learning to give to others and serve is a great way to create positive feelings and give you a sense of purpose beyond your everyday responsibilities. It can start in small ways like being extra kind to a cashier or offering to help someone. Even something like picking up trash on your walk or volunteering can foster good mental wellness.

Practice mindfulness. Be aware of the things around you. Think about the blessings in your life and say them out loud. Thank God for all He has given you, even if it feels silly. As you do this you will feel more grateful and aware of all the good things in your life.

Final thoughts

Improving your mental wellness will help you in your daily living to make you feel more equipped to do all you need to do. Beyond that, it will also help when problems arise. As much as you don’t want to face challenges, they are inevitable.

The good news is that you can have the tools to face these challenges with more resilience so you can flourish. Understanding how to create and foster wellness is possible, even in your busy life.

Do you struggle to practice things that are good for your well-being? A counselor in Rockwall, Texas can help you develop habits that promote mental wellness. Connect with the counselors in at Rockwall Christian Counseling in Texas today and discover how we can support you.