But how to have good mental health? I go from the idea that general health covers physical, mental or psychological health and the social network we have. All three go hand in hand, relate to each other and their healthy level provides personal well-being and therefore the quality of life. If we maintain healthy habits of life because they improve our physical condition, we should know that they also improve the mental. Therefore, these habits are positive for our general health, physical, mental and social.
Then I offer you 8 that answer the question “How to have good mental health?” Some healthy living tips that you can adapt to your interests, tastes, and pleasant leisure activities:
1. Moderate physical exercise
If you do physical exercise, some activity moderately and several times a week, between 2 and 3 days/week, you get, in addition to keeping fit, reduce the level of physiological activity that is associated with stress, anxiety or anger and therefore increases your personal well-being.
2. Adequate rest
Rest between 7 and 8 hours a day, depending on the person (some of us need more sleep than others for a restful rest), allows you to take care of your health because it improves physical and intellectual performance and reduces the likelihood of some physical problems and psychological.
3. Healthy eating
Maintaining a healthy diet makes you feel good; it allows you to increase your personal well-being. If you choose well the foods in your diet, limiting fats, sugars, alcohol, increasing the consumption of fresh products, such as vegetables and fruits, legumes, blue fish … that is, a Mediterranean diet, you protect the health of your brain and therefore your mental health.
4. Social relations
Caring for and maintaining relationships with others or initiating new relationships are helpful for certain problems such as anxiety or stress avoid isolation and keep our brain more active. Social support, healthy contact with people who enrich, with people with whom to share, in addition to improving your well-being, delays the deterioration of cognitive abilities such as memory.
5. Leisure and free time activities
Putting into practice and enjoying your free time and leisure activities increase your well-being. Dedicate time to perform some pleasant activity alone or in the company of others allows you to improve your mood and therefore improve the management of daily responsibilities like work or family. Enjoy this activity that relaxes you, encourages you, and helps you to disconnect or take the perspective of problematic situations.
6. Management of thoughts
Properly managing excessive and ongoing worries and negative thoughts can help you maintain good mental health. These kinds of thoughts make you act in a certain way, they can make you act in a desperate way for no reason or encourage you to abandon some task. Being aware of them, of what activates them or what is true in that thought that does not let us sleep are some of the guidelines to be put into practice. Without a doubt, a health professional like a psychologist will be able to guide you to carry it out.
7. Relaxation
When you enjoy quiet moments and breathe properly your mind relaxes, the stresses that you may be experiencing and the stress decreases and therefore increases your well-being and takes care of your mental health. Enjoy a bath of foam, a walk on the beach or music that you like, always according to your tastes, can reduce your stress level. In addition, you can ask about a relaxation technique that will help you in specific stressful moments and can help you to stay relaxed in a more continuous way.
8. Realistic and achievable goals and objectives
To maintain good mental health it is important that you set goals in your day to day, achievable goals, priorities and follow your health tips. Carry out a task, strive, and commit to developing it … all this will bring you great satisfaction, well-being and therefore good mental health.
Conclusion
The question of how to have good mental health should be as concerned as physical health. If you take care of your physical state doing sports, you go to the doctor when you are sick or try to eat healthily, why not take care of your mental health. As I explained, they go hand in hand, relate and coexist. Therefore, I encourage you to take care of both physically and psychologically.