Tips to Care for Your Mental Health 2024

Warm welcome 2024. If you are expecting me to give you ‘n’ number of tips to improve your mental health, then I am sorry; I am not going to do that. It is because you are well aware of your needs and to-do list. Yes, you are the only person who knows everything about yourself, your positives and negatives, achievements and failures, your dos and don’ts. Then why this article and what is the missing part? Just one tip to find the missing part.

What Is the Missing Part?

We have already gone through a lot, personally as well as globally, like the COVID crisis, climate change with flood and El Niño effect, global inflation, etc. We are going to face similar challenges in the future too. You already know almost everything to improve your mental health – the whole list of items you need to do:

• You require at least 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep for better mental functioning.
• You need to switch off your mobile 1 hour before bed time.
• Morning walks and meditation keep you active.
• A good, healthy and balanced diet keeps you energetic.
• Have a fixed daily routine.
• How to relax and when to relax.
• Importance of ‘me time’ and ‘family time’.
• Time management strategies.
• How to prioritise your tasks.
• How to stop procrastination.

The list goes on and on.

When you already know so many things to improve your mental health, what is preventing you from following these tips? Have you ever thought about this? Why are we becoming anxious or depressed at times? How do we find the missing part?

One Secret Tip to Find the Missing Part

Yes, my dear readers, it is top secret. If you follow this one simple tip, nobody can stop you from being mentally healthy. What is that secret? The simple answer – “Listen to your inner self.”

Is that so easy? Nope. We need practice in listening. There is a way to listen.

Sit daily in a calm place for 15 to 20 minutes, take deep breaths, deep inhalation and slow exhalation, just focus on your breathing. Your busy schedule will push you to get up and run immediately. Your thoughts will bring all your problems to memory. Kindly ignore all these distractions and keep focusing on your breathing pattern.

After 10 to 15 minutes of breathing, you can feel some calmness setting in and now for the last 5 minutes, just listen to your inner self. Your inner consciousness will give you all the suggestions to be followed. These tips are tailor-made and will suit you perfectly. This deep breathing is technically called “mindfulness breathing practice”.

Once you train this jumping monkey of the conscious mind, it will listen to your master mind of inner consciousness. Now, your emotional brain and intellectual brain will become good friends and work as teammates.

Science Behind:

There are many proven benefits of this mindfulness breathing technique. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system and thereby reduces your BP, heart rate, and palpitations (all these happen in anxiety due to sympathetic overactivity) and reduces your anxiety levels.

It is found to be effective in reducing pain intensity, which helps people with chronic pain like fibromyalgia, migraines and low back aches.

It also helps to reduce the negative automatic thoughts or unhealthy thinking patterns which makes you feel depressed in many situations.

What Next?

Of course, if there is a continuous fight between the teammates (emotional and intellectual brain) which you can’t fix by yourself, break the stigma and reach out for help. We, mental health professionals in Kauvery, are always ready to help you, both psychologically and medically.