5 Steps to Mental Wellbeing 

There are ways to improve your mental wellbeing that you can partake in everyday. It may take time to develop some habits in helping to improve your mental health and overall wellbeing. However, it is possible! There is evidence that suggests there are five steps that you can personally take each day, every day, that can help improve and develop more positive feelings towards your mental wellbeing. It’s very important to get the most you can out of life! Start using these steps to mental wellbeing right away.

mental wellbeing

1. Connecting with Other People

Having relationships are important, especially good ones! Those are essential to your mental wellbeing. They give and help you create within yourself:

  • Builds a sense of unity, acceptance, and self-worth
  • An outlet you can share positive experiences 
  • Is a way you can receive emotional support
  • Allows you to give and care for others

There are many things you can do to help encourage you to build stronger and more closer relationships. 

Do

  • Try to take time out each day to spend time with family. Planning a meal together to sit down to eat as a family is a simple but an effective idea. 
  • For friends you may have not seen for a while, perhaps give them a call. Make plans with them to go out for the day.
  • Turn off the TV and have a conversation with your children, friends, or family instead. See what interesting or new things they have to say or talk about.
  • Make plans to go out to lunch with a colleague. 
  • If you have a family member or a friend who needs special support or company, go visit them or give them. Try to be that extra support or company that they need right now in their life.
  • Local schools, community groups, and hospitals are always in need of volunteers. Find out places in your community that are accepting volunteers and apply to see if you can help out. Volunteering is a rewarding experience especially if it’s for a cause you care about or are passionate about. 
  • Staying in touch overall with family and friends could seem overwhelming. However, it’s important, however with technology like video-chat apps such as Skype and FaceTime makes it a lot easier. It makes family and friends who do live at greater distances a lot easier to stay in contact with too.

Don’t

  • Even though technology does have its benefits in helping us all stay connected and also makes it easier too. It’s best not to rely on it to build relationships as a whole. Try not to find yourself in the habit of only ever texting, instant messaging, or emailing people.

2. Being Physically Active

It has been shown that physical fitness is not only great for your physical health, but it also can improve your mental health too. It can improve it by:

  • Increasing your self-esteem.
  • Helping you become mindful of setting goals or challenges including achieving them.
  • Chemical changes occurring in your brain naturally positively affect mood.

In getting physically active:

Do

  • Look for free activities to help encourage fitness
  • Ask your doctor about the safe ways to get fit if you have a physical disability or long-term health condition.
  • Look into certain physical activities and see what interests you most. For instance, martial arts, hiking, dancing, cycling, yoga, running, and weight-lifting. 
  • Go to a gym and see if you can get a consultation with a personal trainer.

Don’t

  • Don’t compare your physical fitness routine or activities to anyone else’s.

Do not feel you must spend hours at a gym to get healthy. Everyone finds their own niche they enjoy. Some may like to spend hours at the gym and some people like to take classes on learning a skill/art like dance or martial art. However, some people enjoy nature and prefer to just go on hikes or walks, and even do yoga from time to time. Whatever you enjoy that helps you be physically active and fits your lifestyle is the only thing that is important.

3. Learning New Skills

Learning new skills, research shows can also improve mental wellbeing as well by:

  • Increasing self-esteem and self-confidence.
  • Creating and building a sense of purpose.
  • Increasing the desire to want to connect more with others.

Although you may not feel you have extra time or enough time to learn new things. There are still many ways you can still bring learning into your life. 

Some of the things you could try in order to increase more learning in your life:

Do

  • Find a new recipe online and learn to cook something new.
  • Volunteer to take on a new responsibility at work. It could be mentoring a new staff member that has just started with the company.
  • Start a DIT project, such as fixing something around your home. It can be something as small as a broken hinge. Though, if you feel more confident you can tackle something bigger like a broken window. There are tons of free tutorial videos online. 
  • Perhaps going to college could be up for consideration at your local college. You could take a course in something new altogether like learning a new language or a practical skill such as welding. Maybe there are some courses you can take to finish a degree you haven’t finished that maybe you could possibly work towards completing.
  • Finding, researching, and trying new hobbies that challenge you and inspire you. It can be anything from writing a blog, creating art, learning and playing a new sport.

Don’t

  • If sitting through exams and learning monotonous qualifications does not interest you do not feel you have to go that route. Instead find things that better suit you and that you enjoy. Make those activities you enjoy a part of your life!

4. Giving to Others

It also has been suggested through research that the simple acts of kindness and giving can help improve your mental wellbeing as well, which is through:

  • Manifesting positive feelings and a sense of reward.
  • Creating yourself a feeling of purpose and self-worth.
  • Encouraging you to connect with other people.

Small acts of kindness are just as important as large acts of kindness towards others. Including volunteering in your local communities.

Some examples of kindness and giving back you can try to do are:

  • When someone does something for you, take the time to say, “Thank You.”
  • Really listening to what others have to say when asking them how they have been.
  • Taking time to spend with family and friends who need extra support or company.
  • Helping someone who needs additional help with a work project or a DIY project.
  • Volunteering at a school, hospital, humane society, recycling center, homeless shelter, food bank, or anywhere in your community.

5. Being Mindful, by Paying Attention to The Present Moment

Being mindful is such a valuable mental wellbeing skill and tool to have. It can greatly improve your mental wellbeing. It incorporates all your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations, of yourself and the world around you. People often refer to this as “mindfulness,” and it can influence the way you can enjoy life. It also can help in making you understand yourself in a more deeper and meaningful way. It can often change the way you feel about life overall and how you take on, approach, and solve challenges that come your way. 

At Harmony Recovery Center we have many treatment options and therapies that help improve your mental health and overall mental wellbeing. We offer a safe and therapeutic environment for our clients which we feel is important in leading them to recovery and management of their ailments. 

We have grown to understand the true value and importance of highly-individualized care and treatment. Including treatment that is evidence-based in showing success for longevity to avoid relapse. 

Proudly serving the area of Charlotte, North Carolina where we know these services are very much desperately needed for many people. 
Harmony Recovery Center does accept insurance and we would be glad to answer any questions you may have about your treatment center along with our program and treatment options. Call us today, and speak with one of our highly trained intake coordinators at (704) 368-1131.