Establishing models or routines can help you manage your time and plan better choices for your mental health. When you have a healthy routine in place, you are able to make better choices and face challenges more easily. You can’t plan everything, but when the basics are taken care of, you can more easily manage mental health issues. Our minds depend on patterns and routine because our brains have so much to deal with.
However, before establishing good mental health habits, we need to recognize and eliminate bad habits that harm our mental health.
1. You’re getting too little or too much sleep.
Insomnia and getting a lot of sleep are some of the two symptoms of depression. However, giving in to these symptoms can make your depression worse. When you’re down, it can be easy to want to spend your days in bed, but it’s more important to do whatever you need to stay awake and ideally productive.
What if you don’t sleep? Sleep hygiene is necessary. Use your bed only for sleeping, develop a nighttime ritual and go to bed and wake up at the same times each day.
If you still have trouble sleeping, it’s worth talking to your doctor.
2. No Breakfast
Not eating breakfast leads to lower blood sugar. This can lead to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain (and under-performance in terms of thinking, processing, recovery and memory).
3. Obsessed over social media
Scrolling through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or even Snapchat can have a negative effect on anyone’s mood, but it can make things worse if you’re already depressed.
Depressed people are more likely to be dependent on social media and to compare themselves to others. They will always be there when your head is in a better place.
4. High Sugar Consumption
Consuming too much sugar interferes with the absorption of protein and nutrients. These are essential for healthy brain development.
5. Smoking
6. Drinking
It is tempting to heal yourself with alcohol, especially if you just want to forget about the fact that you are depressed in the first place. But not only is it an unhealthy coping mechanism, but drinking alcohol can also worsen depression.
7. Air Pollution
When you inhale polluted air, it decreases the supply of oxygen to your brain. Again, this can reduce and disrupt the proper functioning of the brain.
8. Exercising your Brain in Times of Illness
Working or studying during periods of illness can lead to ineffective thinking, mistreatment, and poor memory and retention.
9. Lack of Stimulation
Thinking is the best way to train our brains.
