Strategies for Mental Health and Wellness
Do you ever feel mentally drained or overwhelmed? In the busy world that we live in, it’s easy to forget that you need to look after your mind and body. What if there was a simple way to hit the reset button and improve your well-being?
With as many as one in five adults experiencing mental illness each year, we can’t ignore the importance of self-care for mental health.[1] Building a self-care routine is an effective way to improve mental wellness. It helps you reduce stress, know yourself better, and improve your mood, all by making some small, positive changes to your daily habits. Creating a self-care routine can improve your mental well-being, allowing you to thrive rather than just survive.
On this page, we’ll discover what self-care is and the benefits it brings, what to include when creating a self-care plan, and some obstacles you may find along the way and how to overcome these.
Self-care is anything you do that focuses on your well-being. When people mention self-care, your mind might automatically go to bubble baths or a day at a spa, but it’s much more than this. Taking care of your mental wellness involves looking after your physical, mental, emotional, and social needs.
Self-care looks different for everyone because we are all unique and have individual needs. This is why it’s important to create a self-care routine that works for you, not what you might see other people doing on social media.
Improving your mental wellness through self-care can be broken down into four different areas – emotional, social, mental, and physical.
Self-care for emotional health includes ways to improve self-awareness and manage emotions better, such as stress or anxiety. This could include activities like meditation, therapy, or journaling.
Mental self-care involves activities that help your mental well-being, such as stress management or meditation.
Physical self-care focuses on activities that are good for your body, like getting enough sleep, movement, and nutrition.
Neglecting self-care can have damaging effects on our health. Our stress levels can rise, we feel emotionally exhausted, and may even reach the point of burnout.[3] Let’s look at some of the benefits of having a self-care routine:
It’s clear to see that self-care activities for mental wellness come with many benefits, but how do you create a self-care routine? Let’s dive into that next.
You are ready to make a routine for your well-being, but where do you start? How do you know what you should be doing? And do you need to make a timetable to fit it all in? It doesn’t need to be as rigid or complicated as that, so we’ve broken the planning down into four steps for you.
Start by thinking about the four areas mentioned earlier – emotional, physical, mental, and social – and decide how satisfied you are with them in your life right now. Are there any specific issues you are facing?
For example, you want to exercise more but never find the time. Perhaps you have felt isolated recently and want to meet new people. Maybe you feel stressed at the end of each workday and can’t switch off or unwind. Having a self-care routine can help with all of these.
There are so many activities that you can do to look after your well-being that there’s bound to be something you can add to your daily routine. Here are some self-care activities for mental wellness, broken down into those four important areas to give you some starting ideas for your plan:
Setting a clear goal helps to get you in the mindset for change, as you have an aim you are working towards. Remember that your goal needs to be specific and achievable, otherwise, you are setting yourself up for failure from the start which may make you feel worse.
Here are two examples of making clear, achievable goals:
Both of these state what they plan to do, how often to do it, and why they want to do it.
Decide that prioritizing your self-care is important to you. Whether you set a reminder on your phone, or write it down on your calendar, make sure that your goal is there for you to see, along with the activities you need to do it.
Your health and wellbeing matter and you deserve to look after yourself. Even if it’s just finding two minutes for a breathing exercise each day before bed, the little changes add up. Commit to yourself today.
Even with the best intentions, obstacles can get in our way. If you want to pre-empt them, here are some of the most common challenges when it comes to starting a new self-care routine.
We never have enough time, right? Maybe it’s a good moment to look over your plan again. Are your activities too long? If you want to incorporate relaxation, you could start with a one-minute breathing technique.
If you want to start walking for your health, you could begin by going around the block. Schedule when you are going to do your activity and see if you can stick to it with the help of reminders or alarms.
Sometimes, we want to make changes, but it can be difficult to practically do. Take exercise, for example. You want to go for a run, but there aren’t any parks near you or the area where you live isn’t the safest to go running around.
This is a challenge, but you may be able to adjust your plan to help. What if you went for a walk instead? Perhaps you could buy a treadmill for your home, or find a cheap gym nearby where you could run? Perhaps you could run with a friend so that you feel safer.
You might think that it all feels a bit too luxurious – why do you deserve to spend time on yourself? You might have other things that you should be doing instead – caring for people, or really important things.
If this is you, remember that your self-care is important for your well-being and that you can support others better if you are in a good place yourself. You are just as deserving of care and kindness as anybody else. If you had a friend telling you that they felt guilty looking after themselves, what would you say to them? Treat yourself with the same empathy that you would a loved one.
Some conditions can make self-care feel more challenging. Depression can steal your energy and leave you unable to get up in the morning, and anxiety can keep you awake all night worrying. Self-care can help ease these symptoms, but it might feel difficult to keep momentum going when you have these obstacles in the way.
Making a flexible self-care routine can help when it comes to consistency. Include activities that you can choose from on days when you’re stuck in bed or exhausted, such as progressive muscle relaxation exercises, or having a book to read by your bed or on your phone.
A routine doesn’t need to be rigidly scheduled – you can have a list of activities for ‘good’ days and a different list for days when you feel less good. Keep in mind the reason you are doing all of this – to improve your well-being.
If you feel like you need some professional support alongside your self-care, we are here to help you. At Mission Connection, we know that you are facing unique challenges – that is why we provide a completely individualized treatment plan to help you feel like yourself again.
Whether you are looking for intensive help through an outpatient program or regular therapy sessions such as cognitive behavioral therapy or online therapy, we have something to suit your needs and circumstances.
Cost shouldn’t be a barrier to getting the help you need, which is why we have a range of payment options, including insurance plans, flexible private pay and financing plans, as well as sliding scale fees based on financial need.
If you’re ready to start feeling better, contact us today at 866-833-1822 or start online to find out how we can support you through your healing journey.
