A Detailed Guide To A Healthier Mind & Body

Your physical and emotional health and wellbeing are both intrinsically connected, and even if you have never been fitter and are sporting a new six-pack and toned legs.

For example, If you are living with depression, , you will not be able to live life to the full.

Therefore, it would be prudent to choose activities within the confines of a professional setting and, indeed, with your free time that serve to boost and nurture both aspects of your health;

Following is a detailed guide on how to do just that.

Deep Breathing Techniques

Firstly, this suggestion is both entirely simple to remember, but can also hugely positively influence how you feel and, more pertinently, how you handle a potentially troubling.

Stress is an invisible yet highly powerful, negative feeling that does not only affect how much energy and positivity you have.

Still, it can also manifest itself in physical symptoms, such as shortness of breath, psoriasis, and eczema.

In reality, it would be nigh on possible to entirely avoid feeling stressed for the rest of your life.

However, establishing positive and wholly healthy methods to handle stressful triggers can change your thoughts on the issue.

Deep breathing, essentially inhaling as much air as possible through your nose while your mouth is tightly shut, then exhaling through your mouth in a controlled and relaxing movement, can even stabilize blood pressure readings and bring your heart rate down.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise, which means an exercise that increases your heart rate and therefore the level of oxygen in your body to produce more energy.

It is a great way of keeping your BMI healthy and toning your muscles and improving how you feel.

There are myriad examples of positive effects of aerobic exercise on mental health, including:

• Higher levels of self-confidence and self-esteem
• Lowering of stress levels and the onset of anxiety
• Boosting your mood in a wholly natural way
• Higher power to concentrate and boosts to cognitive memory

Get Back into Reading

Zen X and millennials, unfortunately, have never experienced being unable to access the whole wealth of information on the world from a tiny computer in their hands and even more tragically, consider reading ‘real’ books as older people do.

However, there is actually a brand of therapy, called Bibliotherapy, which advocates reading non-fictional, informative texts or immersive thrillers, dramas or even chick-lit, to relieve the symptoms of depression and other mental health disorders.

Even if you are currently in a good place with your mental wellbeing, there are still many advantages to be gained from reading, including the following:

• Helps to prevent cognitive decline
• Helps to prepare you for a good night’s sleep
• Helps to lower your feelings of stress
• Reading is a natural and all-encompassing form of escapism
• Reading improves your ability to empathize with others

Connect With Like-Minded People

You may be fortunate enough to have close friends who have known you since you were a child, or people you have met through your career over the years and have become as close as family to you.

It is important to keep these bonds alive, particularly if you are not close with your own family for any reason, or they do not live nearby.

As important as connecting socially with loved family members and close friends from school is, you should also look to reach out to people, ideally and simply, online through social media platforms, who share the same interests, passions, and hobbies as you.

This way, not only will you be expanding your social circle, but you will also benefit from fresh and new perspectives on your topic of choice, as well as learning about different cultures and meeting people from all walks of life.

Never Stop Learning

As a child, you will have been ‘forced’ to learn about a variety of different topics, sometimes in-depth, at high school, and from geography and history, to sports and math, you will naturally have had your preferences.

At the time, you and your friends may well have wrongly assumed that in the ‘real world’, this knowledge will be rendered useless.

But in actual fact if you keep an open mind to always learn something new, even in subject areas you have no real interest in, your mental health will benefit.

People who engage in lifelong learning:

• Tend to struggle less with mental health disorders
• Rarely feel bored and trapped
• Are statistically more likely to be more financially comfortable
• Tend to live longer

Hold People Accountable For Their Actions

Whether you have experienced what you believe to be a cut-and-dry case of medical negligence, have been scammed due to your bank not protecting your interests, or are consistently incorrectly paid at work.

It is time to start seeing your self-worth and hold people accountable for their actions.

Every situation is entirely different, so you must always apply the ‘motivation over action’ rule to every situation.

If you feel you have been wronged and deserve an apology, then make a point to confront them and speak to them directly.

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

Finally, something that can apply to almost everyone, regardless of profession, age, gender, or location, your mental health, and often your physical health too, is bound to benefit from authentic self-acceptance.

If you are someone who enjoys browsing endlessly on social media (or if you do not enjoy it, it does anyway automatically).

You may well be damaging your core levels of self-esteem and self-confidence without even knowing it.

Not only do you end up comparing a regular day in your life with an edited and airbrushed ‘highlight reel’ from friends and celebrities alike, but you may also wrongly assume that you are not ‘good enough’ and are ‘falling behind’.

Instead, celebrate what makes you unique and different from the crowd, and no matter what happens and in every situation, always demand and give yourself the utmost respect.