The world we live in is becoming more stressful every day. People are engaging in stressful encounters in almost every major domain of their life: career, family, friends and romantic relationships. But how we respond to these stressful situations depends on our mental health.
People with better mental sturdiness are able to cope with these events more easily. Nevertheless, going through each stressful situation makes a dent in our mental health, making us more prone to breaking during the next one. This is why it is important to continuously work on improving your mental health.
Here is how to ensure mental sturdiness in stressful situations.
Make Sure to Sleep Well
Don’t fall victim to modern marketing campaigns based on the “sleep faster to get more things done” nonsense. We are all human and circadian rhythm is deeply rooted in our nature. Nothing can replace a night of good, restful sleep. Sleep has many benefits for our health, and it can significantly improve our response in stressful situations.
Since the reasons for bad sleep can range from health to environmental issues, you should schedule a doctor’s appointment to scratch possible health issues from the list. Make sure to go to bed at the same time every day, and get rid of that harmful blue light.
Boost Your Mood With Healthy Food
Our overall health status, including mental health, depends on what we eat. Diets with a lot of sugars and unhealthy fats can deprive us of the vitamins and minerals necessary for coping with stress and repairing the damage caused by stress. First of all, you should know that stress makes our bodies produce the stress hormone – cortisol. When cortisol levels remain too high for too long, your mental sturdiness suffers.
Fortunately, there are some foods and drinks that can help you reduce cortisol levels. Make proper hydration your number one priority as lack of water increases cortisol as well.
Relieve Stress
Additionally, add black and green tea, fruits, dark chocolate, and pro and prebiotics to your diet. Eat foods rich with minerals and vitamins and healthy omega-3 fats.
There are many effective mental health first aid methods. One of them is relieving stress. When you are exposed to stress, you can feel its effects even after the situation ends. This is why you should model your activities towards relieving stress. Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to do it.
You can start by incorporating regular physical activities in your schedule. Whether it is jogging, long walks, or light training at a local gym, you will be able to relieve stress and get ready to go through the next stressful situation.
Other options include a hobby, martial arts classes, yoga, learning to play an instrument, and so on. Since we are all different, you want to try several things and stick with the one that helps you empty your head and feel better about yourself.
Make Self-Care a Priority
To ensure mental sturdiness in stressful situations, you will have to start taking better care of yourself. What does this imply? Letting go of some responsibilities would be a great start for instance. Your plate is only big enough for you to efficiently handle a limited number of responsibilities. If you take more upon yourself, you will end up feeling like you’ve failed which creates an endless loop of stress.
Take a day off to assess your feeling of responsibility. Get a piece of paper and write down the responsibilities you have to others and those you have to yourself. Always make sure that the number of responsibilities is equal in both columns, if not greater on your side.
Invest time, effort, and energy in yourself. Make self-care a priority and you will be able to cope with stressful events as if they are normal everyday occurrences.
Become More Easy On Yourself
Many people tend to attribute stressful events to their own incompetence. Very often, even if the incompetence led to a stressful event, there are other factors we tend to oversee. Our inner critics, installed by our parents, often tend to paint a pretty bad picture. Whenever you start beating yourself up, take a breather and a step back.
Assess the situation and look at it as a learning opportunity instead of another fact that proves that you are a failure. Take advantage of stressful situations to become a better person and your mental health will significantly improve.
Retaining mental sturdiness in stressful situations may appear hard to achieve. These 5 tips will help you come out as a winner and change your perspective. You will soon discover that stress is a universal human experience and that, with the right mindset, your mental sturdiness becomes immune to stress.