Psychologist shares seven tips to improve sleep and good mental health.
Managing and coping with life’s daily stressors is called mental health. Hence, we must guard our emotional and psychological wellness for good mental health. Some circumstances and situations do affect our mental health. For example, studies have found that inadequate sleep compromises cognitive skills like inability to focus, short attention span, poor concentration, lack of alertness, and difficulty making decisions and solving problems. These elements are very crucial for achieving optimal productivity. People finding it difficult to sleep might wake up anxious and dizzy.
Sleep
Sleep for long weeks, months, and years can trigger severe anxiety and depressed mood. It may also affect our immune system, appetite, and breathing, leading to obesity and heart disease. This would impact our mental health and thus not allow us to perform our best. Recent studies also suggest that while awake, our brain builds toxins, and sleep is the housekeeper and a dynamic process that flushes out and removes those toxins. With good-quality sleep, one can maintain pathways in the brain. This further has an impact on our mood and behaviour.
Senior Psychologist Meghna Karia (Outreach Associate at Mpower) shares seven tips to improve sleep and good mental health:
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- Short travel: Include quick getaways in nature, be it a trip to the mountains or close to a beach or ocean, that help you go inward, connect with yourself, and help you reflect. It is healthy to self-reflect in nature, which helps us gain insights about ourselves. Remember, nature does help in the process of healing. Planning short trips once a month helps you to fuel your mind and body. It educates you and allows you to look at the same challenging situations with a different lens which would navigate you through the process.
- Journal: Journaling your thoughts, feelings, goals, and dreams is very important. Journaling tools help you reflect on yourself and understand your mental health. It also helps us release and reflect on our anxieties, capturing our mood, sleep, and behaviour. Journaling once a day contributes to good mental health. Express gratitude each day and exchange the energies of gratitude with your close ones.
- Schedule your sleep time: Have a fixed time to go off to bed- The primary focus here is not beating yourself up to wake up early but the effort to invest in sleeping early. This will help set your biological clock, which will later prevent you from placing an alarm. Dim the lights and create a warm environment an hour before you sleep.
- Cultivate night rituals: Stay away from screens and technology a couple of hours before you sleep. Foot soak, moisturizing the feet, and warm showers also induce sleep. Also, avoid talking and listening to anything harmful and toxic. Instead, read up on feel-good stories and any inspiring topic.
- Manage your stress: Equip yourself with tools and skills that will allow you to prioritize the tasks, complete them on time, and help you feel good about yourself. Do not take your work back home; set healthy boundaries at home and the workplace.
- Emotion regulation: Expressing and explaining your emotions plays a significant role in a stable mind. Therefore, politely communicate your feelings, thoughts, and opinions when needed.
- Exercise: Any form of physical movement for 45 minutes daily is very effective. Zumba, Yoga, and playing any sports are the most effective activities to help you sweat and feel better.
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