Mental Health: Investing In Self-care For Long-term Happiness

By Author: Surbhi Arora
Total Articles: 2
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Whenever we talk about health, the first thing that comes to our mind is physical fitness, but should never ignore the aspect of mental health. It is as important as your physical health, and are dependent on each other.

Mental health cannot be expressed only on the basis of absence of disease. Mental health can be expressed as a state of well being that empowers an individual to cope with their daily life stressors, ability to identify their strengths and weakness, ability to learn new and accept failure and think that it is a part of life.

One should have to take care of themselves so as to live their life peacefully. Taking care of yourself means one has to take care of his/her mental and physical health.

Having a healthy lifestyle means having a good and healthy diet regularly and regularly engaging in exercise. It means not to overload yourself with occupational work, just manage your time and work, and should engage in leisure activities so as to keep your mind fresh.

Some of the early warning signs or behaviors that indicate poor mental health are:

Binge eating (especially ...
... junk food) or eating too less

Not interested in pleasurable activities
Feeling fatigue all the time
Hopeless and helpless attitude
Smoking or drinking or any other substance abuse
Feeling anxious all the time
Yelling or fighting with everyone
Forgetful, absent minded
Severe mood swings
Delusions
Suicidal thoughts
Inability or difficulty in doing daily tasks
Insomnia or Hypersomnia
Difficulty in concentrating

Physical Health

Physical health can be improved by having a balanced and healthy diet. We should avoid eating junk food, avoid smoking and drinking and should not take sugary drinks. We need to consume dairy products, green leafy vegetables, pulses, and fruits on a daily basis.

Mental Health and How it can be improved?

1.To improve our mental health, we need not to overload ourselves, we should spare some time for leisure activities that help us to keep our mind fresh. Generally, indulging in indoor and outdoor games not only help us to keep mentally fit but also physically fit.
Cardio exercise: One who regularly engages in such exercise always has a great mental and physical well-being. These exercises generally boost up their energy levels and therefore people may have greater concentration as well in other works or areas.
The name itself suggests that this exercise is beneficial for our heart, will keep our blood pressure at an accurate level, therefore, a person has a lesser chance of having cardio-related diseases, like diabetes, or hypertension.

Of course, such exercise helps in decreasing your weight loss in a healthier and speed up manner.

2.We should sleep at least 8 hours a day, so that it keeps us mentally and physically fit and also helps in increasing our concentration level.

3.We should socialize with other people, should form strong emotional bonds with others, should develop good interpersonal relationships, all these help us to have a good mental well-being.

4.We should have a dental check ups and other health check ups on a regular basis (once in a 6 month)

5.We should also do meditation, yoga, aerobic cardio exercise on a daily basis, this also helps to keep our mind fresh and also physically fit.
It helps to keep our stress levels low and also helps in enhancing your mood so that you can easily concentrate on other tasks.

Mental Health and Optimism

We should always prioritize our well-being either physical or mental or positive emotions like happiness, because it definitely has a positive effect on other tasks. If we are healthy mentally, and are optimistic, then of course, we can easily cope with the changes of life. For example, changes occur when you are getting married or job changes or when you are planning to have a child, the person can easily cope with the changes if he/she has a positive outlook towards life.

Stress
Stress is important, but at a certain level, beyond it affects you mentally and physically. It disrupts your work routine and also interferes with other life goals. Therefore It is important to have good mental well-being, always be optimistic, be calm and appropriately handle the situation. One thing that needs to be remembered is that failure in one aspect or field does not mean that life is over, failure is the part of life. If you are not healthy mentally, then how will you keep your physical body healthy?Both Physical and mental health are important and they are interdependent on each other.

We always give importance to our well being because it helps us to make appropriate decisions in life, and helps us in achieving our life goals. Wellbeing is important as it increases one’s self confidence, and self-efficacy. Positive emotions also have a good effect on our mind and also helps in keeping our body healthy.

Recreational Activities and Mental Health

Play is one of the most significant and effective things in everyone’s life. For people who are suffering from mental, emotional and physical issues, therapy in the form of recreation is extremely effective and essential. People who are under depression or have anxiety issues can indulge in recreational therapy.

The term recreation can be expressed as an activity of leisure, which is often done either for enjoyment or for mental peace. For example, swimming, reading, listening to music, art (like painting), sports activity ( like playing cricket or table tennis), traveling, dancing, running, hiking, camping, yoga,
bowling, fishing and many more. It can be said that recreation activities are essential for individual physical and mental health. Each individual is unique and so their interests are indulged in different kinds of recreational activities.

It is not mandatory that recreational activities are for people suffering from mental or physical issues, many people indulge in these activities in order to calm their mind, to get a break from their busy professional life. People should participate in these activities for their happiness, for their mental peace. These activities can be active like playing cricket or passive like watching cricket or it can be solitary, like doing yoga or it can be useful for society.

Some of the benefits of recreational activities:

Improves symptoms of depression
Help us to avoid cognitive overload, people can make SMART goals with a calm mind, and people can easily make decisions.
Improves one's' self-confidence and self-esteem
Keep your physical body absolutely fit and fine.
Helps an individual to strengthen their social connections.
Helps in increasing a person 's cognitive ability, like sharpening memory.
Person’s skills get enhanced.
Helps an individual to relieve their anxiety.
Reduces the risk of heart diseases.

It can be said that these recreational activities revitalize a person’s mind and body. It is necessary in order to dwindle the effects of work and interpersonal stressors.