If you’re starting to think more about improving mental health, but you have no idea where to start, you’ve found a starter’s guide to get you moving in the right direction.
Now that technology is everywhere, that also means we have tons of resources available to us instantly. And that become overwhelming really fast. We don’t know which sources to trust, which websites to read through first, and what our first step should be.
That’s why this guide will provide you with all of the basics and nothing that will overwhelm you when you’re starting out on your mental health journey.
Choosing to work on your mental health is one of the most liberating actions you can take while also being the most terrifying. When we work to make ourselves better and happier, we also have to deal with lots of uncomfortable stuff. Congrats on taking the first step.
This post is all about improving mental health.
STARTER’S GUIDE TO
IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH:
Improving mental health now.
Let’s talk through five ways to work on improving mental health that will help you in the moment. Working on mental health is a long process.
But, the good news is there are a few ways we can relieve some mental struggle while still doing the work to make sure our mental health improves over time.
1. Begin a journaling practice.
Journaling is the first step to improving your mental health because it’s tough work. And it’s way too much work to keep bottled up in your head. The act of writing your thoughts down onto paper or a screen will help things appear you didn’t even know existed.
Once you start off with writing down your daily thoughts and get into the habit of it, you can branch off into responding to prompts. For example, you can think about the first time someone’s mental health struggles affected you.
Reflect on your history with mental health, how your new mental health journey gives you a new perspective on your life, and the growth you want to achieve.
2. Use mindfulness to maintain mental health in the moment.
Mindfulness relates to every aspect of your life and essentially means you take the time to be present when making decisions. We really should incorporate mindfulness into all of the decisions that we’ve automated when they shouldn’t be.
Even breathing can be used as a tool to control the way we interact with the world around us. Those triggers we experience—and we likely want to have more control over—can get a more measured reaction when we bring mindfulness into every action down to our breathing.
Clearly, we don’t need to be mindful of every breath, but it’s helpful to understand the role of staying present in our body can have in the way we cope with the world. For instance, we can become mindful of the food we eat (and how it makes us feel once we eat it) and when we eat it.
3. Get comfortable with meditation and yourself.
Similar to mindfulness, meditation is an important step you won’t want to skip for two reasons. First, we get more comfortable with our thoughts and being alone with ourselves. Many of the guided meditations we can choose will also ask us to think critically about ourselves.
Second, it says a lot when we carve time out of our forever busy days to spend time with ourselves. Journaling is an equally beautiful way to show ourselves we care, but meditation has no tangible benefit.
We can walk away from a journaling session with satisfaction from the page we wrote. However, meditation provides no tangible benefit—though it’s still very real.
4. Incorporate productive rest into your routine.
When I say productive, I don’t want you to stop valuing rest in general. Sleep is important and naps can rejuvenate a low-energy day. But, you should be resting when you’re not sleeping, too, otherwise you’ll burnout.
Resting when you’re awake is hard because you likely have learned that rest is a waste of time unless you’re sleeping. If you have work to complete, you should not be resting—sound familiar?
So, not only should you incorporate rest into your routine in addition to sleep, but you should allow yourself to fully rest.
Those moments when you start to worry about the work you’re not doing are the moments you catch yourself, notice what’s happening, and give yourself permission to enjoy your rest thoroughly.
5. Notice which activities you enjoy and do them!
Not all of improving mental health is trying to learn new stuff and feel bad about the habits you have to unlearn. Remember: the reason to improve your mental health is to give you the best life in conjunction with mental health struggles.
So, think about the activities you enjoy and make an effort to schedule them into your life. If you like to write, take an hour out of your day after work. If you like to knit, take an hour out for that.
Try to focus your efforts on an activity that leaves you feeling good. When we dedicate time to a passive activity, we can sometimes guilt ourselves into thinking we’re not being productive and this is the space we want to focus solely on making ourselves feel good.
Doing the work, slowly but surely.
Now that we’ve talked about ways to start improving your mental health in the moment, let’s shift our focus into the future and toward long-term mental health growth.
6. Read or listen to books about mental health.
At this point, you have a few tricks up your sleeve for dealing mental health struggles in the moment. You have some idea how to care for yourself in the middle (or at least after) a mental health episode.
Now that you’ve taken care of present you, let’s shift our focus to future growth. There’s a lot of overwhelming information out there from everyone and their mom, so it’s impossible to know where to start.
At least, it was impossible before you started reading this post. The first thing you want to do is find a way to passively take in information. From audiobooks to podcasts to Ted Talks, find a way that you like to take in information without having to dedicate a ton of time to it.
(You’re more than welcome to dedicate a ton of time, but it’s better to start off small so you have a sustainable habit.) Now, go look for books and podcasts (or whatever mode you’re using) that both are related to mental health and interest you.
I’ve put a few of my personal favorites on my Recommendations page, but feel free to explore and google terms about which you’d like to learn more.
Basically, the more you absorb information about mental health and where the struggles you experience come from, the you’ll learn about yourself without even trying—this is the goal to make your growth sustainable.
7. Get your body moving.
I know, I know. You’ve probably heard this until you’re the one blue in the face. But, I’m not telling you this out of some messed up dieting brainwashing. I’m telling you to move your body because it’s good for you mind.
Go for a walk outside or do yoga in front of your TV (without watching TV—try guided yoga instead.) Or you can go for a run at the gym, in your house, outside. You can even weight-train with a kit from Amazon.
The best way, and I speak from experience, to get out of your head, is to make time for yourself and be the most present with your body and self that you can.
8. Adopt a hobby (or volunteer).
Time and time again, I see people I care about dive into work with no other outlet. They don’t have any other habits or hobbies to bring them joy or purpose. Now, I’m definitely not saying that your work can’t align with your purpose—I’m so happy for you if that’s the case.
What I am saying is that we live in a society that values production for way too many hours of the day. We’re left with a couple hours in the evening and two days on the weekend to feel whole again.
Sure, you can surround yourself with work and be fulfilled that way. But, too often, I see people pouring themselves into the goals of others simply to have something to occupy their time.
Instead, consider a hobby that brings you joy and fills only your cup. Rather than doing the labor for someone else’s ultimate joy, remember that you can only be your best self for others when you’re taking care of your own fulfillment first.
9. Create and say affirmations aloud.
I don’t believe in affirmations generally. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably tried affirmations and found that you can get brain to believe something it doesn’t believe. Just telling it to believe with nothing else behind that statement doesn’t work.
Instead, I’ve tried spelling out the things about my life that I both believe and want to change. This can be how I relate to other people, myself, money, anything. I take statements like “I’m never going to have enough money for financial security” and make it “I have enough money for financial security.”
And, you know, you might find those statements about your life are already true. Simply changing the way you say them might be the first step to believing them and making sustainable change.
So, take the beliefs you want to change about your life and rephrase them. If they’re not true yet, then, by saying them to yourself on a daily basis, you’ll start unknowingly taking actions to make them true. Those are the kind of affirmations I believe in.
10. Start conversations with people in your life.
This might actually be the hardest one: talking about mental health. Talking about mental health is also one of the most important steps (even though it’s last) because it’s so much easier to stay on a path for growth when you have someone to talk to.
The person you talk to doesn’t have to be your parent or sibling—I’m guessing that’s where you’ll have a lot of healing to do. It can be your friend or significant other.
One of the hardest truths some of us will have to understand about improving mental health is that we can’t always have those key, healing conversations with the people who have become essential parts of our origin and healing stories.
In some cases, it’s far better to find ways of healing without that person getting involved because they will almost never say what you need them to, which is far more painful that never having the conversation to begin with.
