Guidelines for good mental health

Ever thought about how deeply our minds are connected with our bodies? 🙂 We all want to strive to build a life that we are proud of and along the way, challenges inevitably arise. In such situations, it is normal to want more clarity on where we are going and this influences our mental and emotional well being. Our body then reacts accordingly to these situations which can spill over into our personal and professional lives.

Earl Nightingale, who was a leader in self-growth explains that if we strive to follow five guidelines, we will slowly work towards being healthy. I like taking a few a examples in order to make things easier to understand. So let us explore this topic through these examples shall we?

(a) Keeping an open mind for trying out new activities

Let us assume that you are living abroad for the first time. In your home country, you enjoyed regularly playing outdoor football as it was always warm. Now we fast forward to your place abroad where this is difficult to achieve due to the bitter cold! What do we do? While this is certainly a disappointment, unfortunately focusing on what we cannot do makes life more challenging than needed. Therefore, we should slowly encourage ourselves to find other solutions.

One such way is to try out new things, some of which have always been in the back of our minds. Do you like cooking or doing pottery? Perhaps beach volleyball? Whatever it may be, relax and open up your mind to the beauty around you. Our life goes through phases and what may have not excited us a few years back might make us more curious today. Furthermore, if an activity does not make you feel good anymore, take a break. There is always something else out there to fascinate us.

(b) Acceptance of one’s strengths and weaknesses

We all are unique and have so much to offer to this world. This uniqueness naturally brings along a number of strengths and weaknesses! When are not feeling good, it is understandable to think more in negative terms or about what we lack. I deal with this myself and a strategy that I employ is to look around at the photos of family and friends in my room and my personal achievements, no matter small or big. This helps me smile and reminds me of the key attributes (strengths) I possess. I have also found that writing these things down in a diary can really help! We can then use the gained wisdom to drive us forward 🙂

Elaborating more on the weaknesses, it is important that we are aware of them. In a social media driven world, it is very easy to fall into a comparison trap where we think that we sorely lack something to do well in life. Let us dry to detach from this, as nobody’s life is perfect. Of course, it goes without saying that if there is an area such as communication where you can improve, take your time to build that up. However, there are some aspects that are a part of who we are and we should not be ashamed of this. Rather, let us be proud. Also, remember that what seems like a weakness in someone else’s eyes may not even matter to the right people in your life (professional or personal). Finally, if you are living abroad, please take into account cultural differences. Culture essentially plays a role in determining who we are and which values we live by.

(c) Flexibility under stress

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian Psychiatrist who survived concentration camps during the second world war. He mentions in his book on “Man’s search for meaning” ,that sometimes we will face conflicts in life. These are normal and they can help us grow and become more courageous. Once we gain this understanding we will start seeing solutions to our problems and become more self-reliant. It is very important to note that self-reliance does not mean you should do everything alone and not ask for support when needed. Human beings are social creatures and we need supportive people in our lives, whether that be family, friends or our partner. Therefore, self-reliance means that by being grateful for what we have in our lives such as support, achievements, etc. we will find a way to trust ourselves to adapt or be flexible when times are stressful.

(d) Treating people as individuals

This topic is very wide and therefore I will only touch upon the main aspects. Remember when I said that each of us has unique qualities? You can build the understanding by treating each person as a distinct individual. For example, if someone is explaining something to you give them your undivided attention. This will greatly enhance two aspects of our life which are essential for good health, namely “patience” and “listening”.

Let us take another example. You are really upset with someone because they did not act the way you expected. In this case we should forgive ourselves for our negative thoughts and realize that this person is after all an individual. Also, try to not make assumptions on a regular basis. You will then feel more secure within yourself and not devote time to being someone else or unnecessarily chasing someone.

(e) Keeping active and productive

We come to the last point which is important for good mental health. Actually, it is closely related to point (a). The only additional thing to mention here is that we should be charge of our activities, rather than the other way round. Taking a personal example from my life, I recently started learning swimming in Austria at the age of 28. Most Austrians learn swimming as children and therefore, I was naturally intimidated. Furthermore, having panic episodes in water was very painful for me. What helped and motivated me in this case was having a goal to become a strong swimmer in the future. The moral of this short story is that help is always available and we can succeed by pursuing activities that we want to make place for in our lives.

I hope that this article was able to help you out and brighten up your day. Comments are always welcome!

References:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7pH8VVnJ6o&ab_channel=WashingtonPOD
2. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iWR0K8rFPHE?&ab_channel=ADZ
3. https://amzn.eu/d/40AKPhi