Let’s be honest. Sometimes, achieving better mental health requires professional help. For example, people may need a therapist, or medication, to deal with disorders like major depression or anxiety. According to healhline.com, depression can be classified as mild, moderate, or serve/major.
Mild depression involves more than just feeling down temporarily. Your symptoms can go on for days and are noticeable enough to interfere with your usual daily activities. For example, you may feel irritable, angry, hopeless, and have difficulty concentrating. Mild depression can also cause you to lack motivation, have a sudden disinterest in socializing, and have aches and pains that have no direct cause.
Moderate and mild depression share similar symptoms. Additionally, moderate depression may cause you to have problems with self-esteem, loss of productivity, feelings of worthlessness, excessive worry, and increased sensitivity. These symptoms may cause you to have problems at home and work.
Severe or major depression has the same symptoms as mild to moderate depression, but the signs of severe depression include delusions, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts or behaviors, and feeling as if you are in a state of near-unconsciousness or insensibility.
To treat depression effectively, you must reach out to your doctor for a diagnosis. But, those severe diagnoses aside, we could all use some knowledge of how to take care of ourselves and get the most from life.
Fortunately, there are some ways we all can boost our mental health and help us function optimally:
The following list is just a few things we can do to help boost our mental health:
Set goals, but don’t take failure personally.
Most people are at least a little bit of a perfectionist in some area of life. We all know that aiming high can be the first step to success, but studies have found that high levels of perfectionism are linked to poor health and increase the risk of death. Perfectionists tend to set lofty goals for themselves, but they also worry about it if they fail to reach performance levels.
The high goals are not the problem; instead, the “perfectionist concerns,” or feelings of failure and worthlessness that come with falling short of reaching the destination, can wreak havoc on their mental health.
The trick to getting around this perfectionism trap might be to set goals without taking failure personally. Instead, set small, manageable goals rather than one big goal. That way, a loss is less likely, and so are the self-defeating thoughts that can keep a perfectionist down.
Go outside and get some fresh air.
The indoor environment protects us from heat, cold, and all manner of inclement weather. But if you don’t get outside frequently, you might be doing a number on your mental health.
According to Askthescientists.com, going outdoors can help you escape the stress of work or school, strengthen your immune system, sharpen your focus, develop a healthier diet, calm the mind, aid in weight management, better your short-term memory, improve your vision, fight disorders, and increase longevity.
Practice Meditation.
Meditation may look like the person is sitting around, doing nothing, but in fact, it’s great for the brain. The Mayo Clinic suggests that meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind, giving you a sense of calm, peace, and balance to benefit your emotional well-being and overall health.
Eating right and Exercise.
We are taught from a young age that eating well and staying active help us look and feel our best, so this is not new information, but moving your body and feeding it well can benefit your brain. People who exercise regularly have better mental health and emotional well-being and lower rates of mental illness. For example, for mild depression, research suggests physical activity can be as effective as antidepressants or psychological treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy. Taking up exercise may seem like a daunting task for many of us, but it can be done if you look at it as being active for 30 minutes out of your 16 hours day (minus 8 hours for sleep). Additionally, a healthy, well-balanced diet can help us think clearly and feel more alert. It can also improve concentration and attention span. Conversely, an inadequate diet can lead to fatigue, impaired decision-making and can slow down reaction time. In addition, a poor diet can aggravate and may even lead to stress and depression.
Be generous in your relationships.
Year after year, more studies highlight the benefits of generosity on both our physical and mental health. Charity reduces stress, supports physical health, enhances a sense of purpose, and naturally fights depression. It is also shown to increase one’s lifespan. If a longer, less stressful, and more meaningful life is not enough to inspire your practice of generosity, consider that generosity also promotes a social connection, improves relationships, boosts self-esteem.
Always use social media wisely.
In general, having social connections is linked to better mental health. However, maintaining friendships over Facebook and other social media sites can be fraught with problems. Some research suggests that reading other people’s chipper status updates makes people feel worse about themselves, particularly if they have an extensive friend list, which may lead to many showing off. These findings suggest that limiting your friend list to people you feel particularly close to might help you avoid seeing a parade of peacock status updates from people who seem to have perfect lives. In addition, time on social networking sites has been linked to depressive symptoms, though it’s not clear whether the mental health problems or the social media usage comes first. A study presented in April 2015 at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association found that social media is a double-edged sword: People with mental health conditions reported that social media sites offered them feelings of belonging to a community, but also said that Facebook and other websites or apps could exacerbate their anxiety and paranoia. Researchers say the best thing to do is to take advantage of the connectivity conferred by social media but to avoid making these platforms your entire social life.
Look for meaning, not pleasure.
Sadly, chasing happiness is common these days, and most of us don’t realize why being happy isn’t enough for us to be satisfied with life. Happiness is such an overused phrase and under-examined concept that we all know what it is and how it works, but this can lead us astray. Sometimes we lose sight of what truly makes us happy in our pursuit of happiness. For example, a article published in Greater Good Magazine found that the more people participated in personally meaningful activities such as helping other people or pursuing big life goals, the happier and more satisfied they felt. However, seeking pleasure didn’t boost happiness.
Worry (some), but don’t stress and vent.
Everyone’s had the experience of worrying about something they can’t change. If constant worrying becomes a pervasive problem, though, science suggests you should just put it on the calendar.
Scheduling your “worry time” to a single, 30-minute block each day can reduce worries over time, according to a study published in July 2011 in the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. Patients in the study caught themselves worrying throughout the day and then postponed the worries to a prearranged block of time. Even realizing they were worrying helped patients calm down, but stopping the worrying and saving it for later was the most effective technique. Venting about stresses, however, appears to make people feel worse, not better.
Learn not to sweat the small stuff
Daily irritations are part of life, but they can also wear us down. In a 2013 study in the journal Psychological Science, researchers used two national surveys to look at the influence of minor annoyances on people’s mental health. The more negatively people responded to small things like waiting in traffic or having arguments with a spouse, the more anxious and distressed they were likely to be when surveyed again ten years later.
In addition to the tips listed above, you can do these things to help boost your mental health as well:
Set up a getaway. It could be camping with friends, a drive to a state you want to visit, or a trip to the tropics. The act of planning a vacation and having something to look forward to can boost your overall happiness for up to 8 weeks!
Take time to laugh. Hang out with a funny friend, watch a comedy or check out cute videos online. Laughter helps reduce anxiety.
Dance around while you do your housework. Not only will you get chores done, but dancing reduces levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and increases endorphins (the body’s “feel-good” chemicals).
Do something with friends and family – have a cookout, go to a park, or play a game. People are 12 times more likely to feel happy on days that they spend 6-7 hours with friends and family.
Our mental health affects how we think, feel, and act as we cope with life. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Thus, mental health is essential at every stage of life, from childhood through adulthood and beyond. You can do many different things to improve your mental health, but it is also essential to recognize when you need help. Talk therapy and medicines can treat mental disorders. If you don’t know where to get treatment, start by contacting your primary care provider.
You can also find help at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration – SAMHSA’s National Helpline. This is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.