You have been feeling Mentally drained and exhausted for the past few days. You realize that work stress is taking over. Now you want to fix this problem as it is hampering your quality of life. But you are thinking where can I start? So that you start feeling better and calm again.

   Fret not, I have some simple practices for all those who want to start caring for your mental health in today’s busy life. May is a month of Mental health Awareness. And taking this opportunity to uplift your mental wellbeing will be a great start. 

   Emotions are like children who need your attention, love, care, and quality time. If you know how to treat your child you will easily learn how to be with your emotions too. No matter how busy you are these simple and actionable practices would hardly take your 10 to 15 minutes. They will help you break the cycle of stress and live your life mindfully and to its fullest. 

    How to improve your Mental Health in today’s busy life? 

       The fact that you are reading this blog is a clear indication you care for your Mental well-being. Pat yourself on the back for being sensible and responsible enough to think of your mental well-being over other things in life. Without any further ado let’s dive into the actionable solutions to improve your Mental health in today’s busy life.

1. Plan and Prioritize in advance 

    Busy days come without saying. We easily get trapped in a stress cycle if we do not plan our days correctly. So the first thing I suggest when you have busy days coming or many plans overlapping is to plan your days or at least a week. It will take you hardly 10 minutes of mindful thinking. I promise this will sail you smoothly through any busy days.

2.Take frequent Mindful breaks 

   I can’t emphasize enough the benefits of taking mini breaks while you are working tirelessly for a long time. When you take breaks you are spending time with yourself. Just being you, observing, seeing, feeling the emotions you are feeling, recognizing them, this minibreak will help you catch up with the slow life pace.

  It will refrain from releasing the stress hormones. Stress usually happens when you do what you don’t like for longer hours, you have a deadline to catch up, or you are worried about your performance. When you take a break it builds resilience to things that you can’t avoid. It helps you stay in the present and stop thinking of how things will go. 

3. Practice self-compassion and self-care 

   We try to please everyone around us to maintain our image. But what do we do to ourselves in the process? You are also made of the same organs and brains. Which produces emotions and feelings. Why be so harsh to our operating system which is tirelessly giving its best to make others’ lives better?

  When there are no results for our hard work we become so harsh to ourselves when it’s not your fault. This is a reminder to every human that please be self-compassionate to yourself. We all are victims of our tendencies. We all tend to make mistakes no matter how old we grow. 

So once and for all just be easy on yourself my dear friend. You are a beautiful soul, putting yourself out no matter how you feel.

4. Practice quick relaxation techniques

   When you start feeling mentally exhausted with time this tiredness is reflected in your physical body too. Like headaches, disturbed sleep, and fatigue. If you practice mindful relaxation techniques you will prevent the problem from getting aggravated.

   I recommend practicing 2 to 5 min 5 sense Meditation or Body scan meditation. Which will help you relax and bring you back in the present. Calm the Chaotic Mind has some beautiful techniques that can work effectively for everyone to sail through busy life

5.Do what you love 

   Yes, you heard it right, simply do what you love in the middle of any busy meeting or busy schedule. Many of us leave these leisure activities for weekends to do. I love experimenting with art, but in the past few years due to my busy schedule, I suppressed my feelings. Over time they just turned into an accumulated ball of frustration adding to existing stress.

  So in the middle of a stressful phase if you feel like talking to a friend, practicing art, or reading an interesting book go ahead. Do it at least for 10 to 15 mins. And restart your work again. You will be amazed with the after effect of it.

6. Practice gratitude 

 Yes, I know you have overheard about these practices since the COVID-19 times. But the fact is this practice has also become non-negotiable. Many people have benefited from their mental well-being with this practice. Gratitude is an ageless technique and will always remain one of the best practices for Mental well-being.

 This is the only practice that will bring you back to the state of contentedness from a world filled with FOMO. Do it in any form but make this practice a non-negotiable practice. And see yourself shifting from a negative to a positive mindset gradually. 

7. Embrace moments of Slow living 

   Slow Living has a nostalgic charm in its vibe. Have you noticed, that whenever you listen to one of your old favorite songs, your state of mind naturally gets attuned to the slow life you lived during those childhood days? The beauty of slow life is it creates lifelong beautiful memories. It helps you live the moment mindfully with your complete 5 senses.

  It enhances your creativity and allows your mind to rest and relax. When you add more beautiful memories to your account they will add on to your long term happiness quotient. Sounds motivating? Do try it for yourself.

8. Create Boundaries 

  There is no doubt that today’s lifestyle is extremely busy. Sometimes social commitments, official commitments and sometimes spending time with your loved ones and yourself apart from your work. It is impossible to please everyone. But we still strive for it by saying yes to everyone when we don’t want to.

  In this process, the only person who suffers is you. Here setting boundaries will help us say ‘no’ gracefully. If you are not good at saying no. Learn the art of saying no. This helps you in the long run to guard your Mental well-being.

9. Maintain a self-reflection journal

   Think of this activity to detangle your day-to-day thoughts. Studies say in a day humans have at least 60000 to 70000 thoughts. And all these thoughts influence you positively or negatively. During the day since you are in automated mode and busy you are not able to reflect on your thoughts mindfully.

  If you don’t untangle the thoughts they will stay in your mind in suppressed form and get bottled up. Hence managing your tangled thoughts regularly by writing a self-reflection journal will keep your complex emotions on track and manageable.

10. Learn to live Spiritually 

  There is a lot of misconception that being spiritual, means being religious. But being spiritual is being master of your own life by turning inwards. Being spiritual is being your coach and GPS to lead a life aligned with your values and purpose. India has ageless Spiritual wisdom in various Puranas and Vedas which has solutions to many modern age problems we are facing. We don’t need to be religious for it, but seek our truth and imbibe the qualities and values through certain practices we resonate with to live a spiritually fulfilling life. 

   I highly recommend Meetu Bisht book to help you start with your spiritual journey. When you build awareness around your existing reality and see life through a spiritual lens your day-to-day issues will be manageable as you achieve a sense of who you are and embrace uncertainty and life as it is.  

4 things that helped me improve my Mental health exponentially

    Do you agree that our mental well-being is not a separate aspect and is multidimensional? If the nature of Mental health is dependable on multiple aspects, Solutions to keep your mental health should also be Holistic. No 1 solution will fit everyone. It’s a process of self-experimentation and understanding yourself more.

    It took me depression to start taking my mental wellbeing seriously. In the process, I also discovered that mental health is not dependent on 1 factor. Mental well-being needs a balanced approach in life, like your physical fitness, connecting with nature, being in touch with your creativity, consuming inspiring content like Personal development and spirituality books, and many other practices to help you heal your mental well-being holistically. 

  These Four things helped me come out of Depression when I didn’t have access to professional help, due to a lack of awareness about myself and the stigma attached to mental illness. 

 1. Nature 

   Have you ever found yourself drifting away from pain realizing it’s out of your control and randomly started observing the nature around you? See things which you might have not paid keen attention to earlier, like a rose in the garden, a visit of a bird and their daily activities. When we come out of our reality we realize there is so much to admire what the creator has given us in abundance which we take for granted. No wonder why people often love to go on vacations. 

2. Reading Self – help books and Spiritual books

   I never took reading that seriously until I hit rock bottom in my life. It was my best buddy in loneliness and silence. It helped me build my emotional awareness and intelligence. Spiritual books helped me build hope, resilience, and faith when I was feeling hopeless.

  I find myself lucky that I always had a natural bend towards Reading Books even if it was occasionally but I loved reading them.

3. Exercise

   Now everyone knows the physical benefits of exercise to your physical health but very rare people including me that time knew the effect it had on Mental health. And yes, it helped me maintain my mood level and carry on with daily life even if I felt low on Motivation. Many studies have proved that exercise produces happy hormones which are good for mental wellbeing.

4. Art as a Therapy

   During my school days, I remember I had an interest in Drawing, arts, and crafts. I occasionally tried my hands on different things. But it never occurred to me during my career and job days to try my hand at something creative. As the work life was busy enough to leave us exhausted.

  The only time I recalled and rekindled these interests was after I left my job after marriage. This was a time I tried my hands on art. It brought me into a flow state that I forgot the pain I was going through. It helped me process my emotions. It build my confidence, as I feel like a creator. It diverted my mind in a more productive way helping me keep myself busy.

   All these realizations got me to the understanding that we are not just the body we are a combination of mind, body, and spirit they all need nurturing not just the body.

   When we take care as a whole we operate from a better state of awareness. When we stop caring about one aspect we lose our balance and might hurt ourselves physically, mentally, or spiritually. 

           Note: The above insights are based on my personal experience and in no way an alternative to professional help. These tips will help you elevate your symptoms. If you are experiencing any severe symptoms please take help at the right time. 

How Spirituality changed the way you at Mental illness?

   When we are in sync with the spiritual aspect of our life, things we earlier felt impossible, restores with hope and faith. It helps us accept our condition as it is.

   Mental illness is an extremely exhausting and lonely journey despite your loved ones being around physically. But once you learn that you are never alone in the journey of life and that Universe is always by your side you will outgrow your illness and make it your strength.

  Spirituality is turning inwards and being an authentic seeker of life. When you experience it yourself that you are never alone that this is the live universe 

  All you have to do is acknowledge its presence and your connection to the universe I started my connection to the universe when I had these deep burning questions about life and Mental health issues 

  This led me to read various books on Spirituality and Self- growth My experiences convinced me of the facts mentioned and there was no looking back As years passed my relationship with the divine only strengthened and turned into pure love. And this is where the magic started happening 

  You start co-creating the journey of your life with the universe. You are no more alone. Gradually my dominating quality of fear which I had been carrying for years turned into surrender And the act of surrendering to the universe is the game changer 

  I was blown away by the powerful transformative changes that were happening in my life. At times I was amazed, at times I was scared, is was impatient but I allowed myself to stay surrendered to the process 

This has helped me tremendously to reclaim my courage and Embrace uncertainty. Thinks I dint get for years were possible due to faith and surrendering to the Universe 

I do not expect you to believe all that I say . Experience it for yourself as you naturally unfold your relationship with the universe 

Conclusion 

   Life’s ups and downs are going to be a part of each human’s life. No matter which level of achievement we reach. Similarly, physical pain and mental pain are going to be a part of our journey occasionally. But what we have in our control is how to take preventive measures to make our lives go smoothly. 

  Today’s busy life powered by technology has deprived us of the natural healers provided by nature to revive our Mental health. By building the right awareness and how the laws of nature work. We can work towards our mental health mindfully. Mental health is the center of the human Universe. 

We can’t treat Mental health the way we treat physical health. In the long run mental health needs a holistic approach to keep it thriving throughout the ups and downs.

What was your experience with finding solutions for your better mental well-being? What helped you the most? Do share your reflections 

Stay tuned for more such blogs on Mental well-being, Spirituality, Personal Development books, Creativity, Nature Healing and Self-Compassion. 

          These topics I talk about are my super powers which made my mental health journey more acceptable, courageous and effortless. 

Let me know what are your super powers ?