Today is World Mental Health Day! And while mental health is truly a global issue, improving and managing mental health can be as much about the little things people do, for themselves and others, as it is about things happening on the world stage, or the national or even state level.
With this in mind, today is a good day to think smaller, about what you can do in your little corner of the world to improve your own mental health and that of the people around you. Consider the following small actions you can take today to do just that!
Whether using an app for personal scheduling, keeping a paper calendar and sticking to it, or just writing down a list of tasks every morning, finding a way to organize your time that works for you can open up more time for meaningful relaxation and improve personal productivity.
And those are hardly your only options. At home or in a gym, on a team or solo, any kind of exercise can help your mental health. The key is finding something you can enjoy safely and progress at, and keeping at it for long enough to evaluate the benefits.
Because of how we live and work these days, many people are lacking in human connection. A text message, phone call, or email to a friend you haven’t talked to in a long time can unexpectedly make someone’s day. You might be just the person they were hoping to hear from!
And when you’re together, keep your phones in your pockets to make it a real-life experience.
Depending on what your schedule looks like, you might not be able to take time off immediately. But if you’ve got vacation time accumulating, especially if you always forget to take it, today is the day to get something on the calendar. It will give you something to look forward to, which is a mental health win now and when the day arrives.
World Mental Health Day is the time to start this kind of project. Whether you do it with learning apps free or paid, sign up for a course, or use the kind of free instructional videos that are all over the internet, give it a shot! It could be the beginning of a relaxing, fulfilling new hobby or even a professional endeavor.
If you recognize that too much online time is causing you these or other problems, and if you’re in a position where you can unplug, try getting offline for the rest of World Mental Health Day!
If you can’t log off entirely, you can at least take some time to identify those online behaviors that affect you negatively and think about strategies to avoid them.
8. Get offline for longer than a day
World Mental Health Day is only a single day, but you can use it to plan your online usage habits in the future. You can, for instance:Strategies like this can help you get what you need from the online world, without letting it negatively affect your mental health.
Leading busy lives, we often forget how much of a role a clean and well-organized environment plays in personal mental health.
Doing a deep clean on your apartment or house, dusting and organizing your collections, reorganizing, or throwing out unwanted stuff can help you feel better without much or any additional financial investment.
This can involve the previous small steps, it can mean finally visiting a therapist (even if you’re already a therapist yourself), or it can just mean being more conscious of what impacts your mental health and prioritizing it.
World Mental Health Day is a good day for everyone to start taking these little, personal steps, and if you’re a mental health professional, it is a good day to consider how you can improve your practice and your services. This is where ShrinkThink can help.
ShrinkThink’s suite of onboarding tools can help clinicians and clients learn, remember, and apply the latest, most up-to-date best practices for conducting productive therapy sessions.
So explore what ShrinkThink has to offer, to empower you to provide the most effective therapy possible, helping clients prioritize and improve their mental health, every day of the year.