Whether you are trying to overcome the struggles of everyday life or coping with depression, the answers to mental wellbeing begin with you. Contrary to popular belief, that mental health deteriorates with age, you can still have a youthful mind if not a youthful body as you age.
Your brain is equipped with its intrinsic neuroplasticity quality. With this, it gives you the ability to constantly build, change and adapt the structure of the brain with renewed power. Read on further to discover eight simple ways to strengthen your mental health.
Ways to Strengthen your Mental Health
1. Nutrition with Plant-Based Diet
The right nutrition and diet are the most important pillars for greater mental health and wellbeing. In a quest to find the world’s healthiest people who demonstrated traits of greater physical and mental health, Dan Buettner teamed up with people from National Geographic. At the end of their study, they found out five groups of people with the highest life expectancy and named them as blue zones.
In these blue zones, plant-based diets are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Especially they found Beans including fava, black, soy and lentils as the predominant food type. In addition, meat was eaten only five times per month with a serving size as small as 3-4 oz.
Also, people in these blue zones followed the 80% rule – wherein they stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full and consumed their smallest meal early evening, after which they refrain from eating any more the rest of the day.
2. Exercise
There is a lot of research that ascertains exercise as a must to improve brain performance. As you exercise, you find yourself with greater clarity of thought, improved mood, and memory. Important neurotransmitters and hormones like endorphins, dopamine, and norepinephrine are secreted when you undertake any physical activity.
3. Water
Water is a vital element of not just the body, but also the brain. 80 percent of the brain is made of components of water. Have you ever noticed that when you are dehydrated, you are more frustrated and have less clarity?
Water is essential to get the nutrients to pass through the brain-blood barrier. For instance, Tryptophan a key nutrient that is essential to produce a neurotransmitter called Serotonin reaches the brain in good proportions with the help of water.
4. Sun
Adequate levels of sunshine intake have a greater effect on the brain. Apart from synthesizing Vitamin D in your body sunshine is also essential for two other important things. Firstly, the intake of sunshine during the day helps your brain to be active with greater concentration and focus. This is because of the sun’s natural blue light inducing property.
Secondly, it also helps you to unwind and sleep better in the night. It is amazing what sunshine can do for your brain and body when taken in the right amounts.
5. Air
Fresh air is another element that naturally helps to improve mental health and create a feeling of serenity. Studies show that spending time outdoors actually increases brain power, and children who spend a lot of time outdoors tend to perform better academically.
This is because as you breathe in the fresh air, it improves oxygen flow to the brain and allows it to function optimally. A small stroll outside can open up your creativity and ability to think analytically.
6. Temperance
Temperance or the act of exercising the right control and balance in your lifestyle and day-to-day habits will set you up for a better mental health performance. This implies that you introduce certain habits and behaviors like refraining from smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and too much caffeine.
Moreover, you should bring about a balance is not just what you eat or drink, but also what you do generally in life. Working too much or staying idle for a long time is just as bad as it can impact your mental performance.
7. Rest
Today’s society is too outcome-driven, leaving you pushing for more and more and forgetting to take the amount of rest that you need to. The idea of staying up too late at night to get things done is a fallacy. It is bound to leave you emotionally and mentally drained out.
Simple research compared a group of people who were awake for as long as they can with another group that slept for seven to eight hours. The next day both the groups were subject to a critical thinking test and undoubtedly the group that slept more performed well. Also, the group that stayed up all night had a perception that they did better. On the contrary, it was the other group that was more confident and performed well.
Rest is vital for the brain to help you remember and enhance your ability to think. It is an important thing that you must not forget if you want to achieve optimal mental health.
8. Trust
Achieving a sense of trust and developing a sense of purpose can contribute to a healthier mind. With a healthy mind, you can activate the body’s natural healing capacity. Not only that, it will decrease your anxiety, increase your motivation and provide you with a happier life.
Make a commitment today to a new start and try inculcating these simple principles for a healthier future tomorrow. The more you are mentally fit, the healthier you are.
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