Nourish Your Body: Essentials for Mental and Emotional Wellbeing

How you feel has a direct impact on your daily actions. Managing your emotions is essential to overcoming everyday challenges and cultivating a positive mindset. By focusing on the key essentials for mental and emotional health, you can start each day with renewed energy and purpose. While it may feel challenging to incorporate new practices into your routine, dedicating just a few minutes a day to healthy habits can significantly improve your overall mental and emotional wellbeing.

Why Should Mental Health Be a Priority?

Your mental and emotional health are as vital as your physical health. [Read about tips to manage your physical health here] Mental health encompasses your emotional and social wellbeing. When you develop strong emotional health, you gain better control over your thoughts and feelings, equipping you to navigate life's tough challenges. This understanding fosters healthier relationships—with others and with yourself.

Improving your mental health comes with numerous benefits, including greater resilience to bounce back from challenges and setbacks. It equips you with the tools to cope with stress constructively and manage emotions effectively. By recognizing and addressing the sources of stress, you pave the way to a more balanced and fulfilling life. Managing your mental health is the foundation for emotional regulation, ultimately helping you thrive and achieve greater happiness.

While professional support is always encouraged, here are six simple tips you can adopt today to boost your mental and emotional wellbeing.

Mental Health Tips

• Set realistic goals

Stay focused by understanding which goals are achievable at the current moment, and which goals might take longer to achieve. Break apart large tasks to celebrate small achievements along the way and avoid the frustration from aiming too high. By keeping a balanced approach, you can feel a sense of accomplishment when completing challenging, yet achievable short- and long-term goals.

• Stay connected

Keeping up with peers, friends, and family can be a great way to stay connected with important people in your life. Staying connected with those important to you can increase feelings of value and self-worth, as well as feeling loved. With social connection being engrained into us, having good relationships and a tight knit support network can help fight feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and sadness, leading to a positive influence on our well-being.

• Engage in hobbies

Starting new hobbies can incite new objectives that can stimulate the brain. Creative hobbies can involve self-expression, creativity, and problem-solving. They can increase productivity through creativity as well as enhance cognitive functions. Hobbies can range from creative to physical. Some popular creative hobbies include baking, cooking, gardening, reading, and photography. Other, more physical hobbies include sports, dance, archery, and hiking. In all, engaging in hobbies can be a great way to stay active and engaged, while developing skills in different disciplines. Whether you’re active or not, there’s a hobby for everyone.

• Practice Self-Compassion

Understanding how to respect and treat yourself with kindness can be one of the hardest forms of mental health. Practicing self-compassion can come in all different forms. Start approaching self-compassion by feeding your body the nutrition it needs to thrive and live in comfort. This step can easily be missed when discussing mental and emotional well-being. From nurturing past, present, or future feelings, to practicing mindfulness, to simply encouraging yourself, understanding what your mind and body need to thrive is the key to boosting not only your self-esteem but your mental health as well.

• Express Your Feelings

Self-expression can not only be a positive way to connect with others, but it can also be an outlet for negative feelings that may be harbouring. It can help to establish boundaries between you and those who you may feel uncomfortable around, or help you connect to others that relate to similar feelings and experiences. Expressing your feelings can include using body language, wearing unique clothing, and discussing with others about your feelings. Self-expression plays a vital role in keeping your connection with others comfortable and meaningful.

• Keep a Journal

Not only does writing in a journal improve creativity and memory, but it’s also a way of keeping order in a bustling, restless society. Journal writing can be a great way to stay organized, which can keep procrastination at bay, and reduce stress as you challenge smaller tasks. In addition, it provides a private space to release emotions, which can not only reduce negative feelings, but also preserve positive memories. Journal writing can be a source of self-reflection and improvement, which works to reduce stress, and improve mental health.

Resources

Visit these sites to contact professionals or read more about mental and emotional health. Stay connected with those who care.

Govt. Canada – Access Avenues for Mental Health Support

BC Mental Health – Get More 10 Tips on Mental Health Boosters

Visit the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

CDC – Additional Tips to Improve your Emotional Wellbeing

Learn more about mental health and addictions with us.