How to Improve Your Mental Health: 7 Tips to Try

How to Better Your Mental Health

When it comes to mental health, we’re referring to your overall psychological well-being. Your mental health may include the way you feel about yourself, your relationships, things happening in your life, and your ability to manage your feelings and overcome difficulties.

Ensuring your mental health is strong is an ongoing process that can take time to learn how to manage. Everyone goes through ups and downs in life, which can weaken their mental health and make them more susceptible to issues like depression or anxiety.

Maintaining your mental health is a learning experience, and different skills and coping mechanisms work for different people. If you’re hoping to find new ways to figure out how to improve your mental health, Green Gone Detox has some helpful holistic tips to help you on your journey. With our advice, you can improve your resilience and discover new ways to deal with ongoing concerns. Read on now to learn how to better your mental health today!

1. Utilize Coping Skills

Whether it’s distress tolerance skills like TIPP (Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, and Paired Muscle Relaxation) or an everyday routine like meditation, regular coping skills are an essential part of learning how to improve your mental health. 

Some skills are ideal for dealing with your emotions during a stressful situation, while others are meant for daily practice and long-term maintenance. Here are some useful coping mechanisms to use whenever you need them:

• TIPP - Temperature, Intense Exercise, Paced Breathing, Paired Muscle Relaxation
• PRO AND CON LIST - Use a list to weigh your decisions in a calm, logical way
• RADICAL ACCEPTANCE - Practice finding peace in situations you can’t change
• SELF SOOTHE - Use the five senses to ground yourself when you list what you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch

2. Tolerance Breaks

If you rely on non-prescription substances to help you make it through the day or night, it might be time to take a break. Whether you’re using alcohol, cannabis, or sleeping aids to cope, the buildup of these in your body could cause unintended side effects that actually make your mental health worse.

When it comes to cannabis and most natural supplements, you can quit cold turkey with a detox kit to help everything along. However, for heavy alcohol use, professional detox might be necessary, as quitting alcohol without tapering can cause severe withdrawal symptoms.

Take a tolerance break to determine how it’s improving your mental health. You might find that life is better without the added substances!

3. Socializing & Connecting with Others

If you want to learn how to improve your mental health, associating with others is a must. From phone calls to meeting up in person, few things can boost your mood or bust your stress more than some quality time with people you love. Generally, interacting with others can energize you and give you strength. You might consider meeting up for coffee or joining a group activity for one of your hobbies.

Here are some social ideas for how to better your mental health:

• Calling a friend or parent
• Meeting up for coffee or tea with a friend
• Scheduling a therapy session
• Joining a running group
• Volunteering at your local food bank
• Visiting a game shop to check out their activities

4. Staying Active

How do you improve your mental health? One answer could be exercise! Exercise has a massive impact on your mental health. Working out releases stress-relieving hormones that can lift your mood and improve your well-being. Workouts also enhance your overall health, so you spend less time and energy dealing with aches and pains, minor illnesses, and doctor’s appointments.

Check out some of our best at-home workouts for things you can do without professional gear and equipment, and explore our guide for getting back into the swing of things without overtraining.

5. Make Mindfulness Part of Your Day

You always hear people talk about living in the moment. Well, that’s a mindfulness technique that ensures you’re fully immersed and engaged with what’s happening right now. Instead of worrying about past mistakes or trying to mitigate future problems, make sure your thoughts, feelings, and physical senses are focused on the now.

When intrusive thoughts come calling or anxieties about the future start to list themselves off, tell your brain that you’ll have time to deal with them later. Right now is about what’s going on with you at this very moment.

You don’t have to live mindfully every second of every day, as this can be incredibly difficult. But you may want to set aside a regularly scheduled moment, like dinner, where you only focus on one thing as you learn how to improve your mental health.

6. Prioritize Leisure Time

Society has made us think that being productive is the most important thing a human can do. Work a little more, take care of your kids, volunteer for the poor – do more to be worth more. While these are all worthwhile pursuits, how you improve your mental health resides in taking time for yourself. You don’t have to be productive and useful every moment of every day! And don’t make it a habit of being too busy to take care of yourself.

If you feel guilty about taking time off, this is a major sign that something is wrong. You’re probably overworked, and your responsibilities have become your life. Change up the narrative when you make a point of taking time to do something relaxing – even if it’s just sitting on the couch watching television.

7. Eating Healthy

Your brain needs support to function at peak performance. If you’re feeling moody, tired, or slow, it could be related to your eating habits. Focus on foods that enhance brain health, like fatty fish, walnuts and almonds, avocados, leafy greens, beans and legumes, and fresh fruit.

Eating these foods instead of unhealthy and processed snacks will also enhance your overall health and help you feel better about your body, which in turn affects your mind.

Making Changes

You might already have some of these habits scheduled into your daily life, but if you’re still looking to learn how to improve your mental health, you might not be doing enough. You might also find that some of these tips work most of the time, but not every time. Creating a list of several backup options when your first coping skill doesn’t work can help big time in moments of crisis.

Ready to get started? Incorporate these tips into your life and see how they better your mental health!