By Emma 
We’ve gone through a lot these days. I regret to inform you that 2020 is only halfway over, even though it’s been going on like forever.
There is a lot of world-changing, history-making events that turned our lives upside down. Of course, it’s hard not to get stressed and anxious once in a while.
Let’s start with the fact that stress and anxiety are such common experiences for most people, especially adults. In the United States alone, at least 55% of adults say they feel stress or anxiety daily.
So, while the pandemic is still raging and you continuously take extra care for your physical health, do you spend some time managing and improving your mental health too?
Here are some actionable, light-hearted habits you can start developing to help you keep stress at bay to help you out.
Table of Contents
1. Take Some Break
You’re allowed to take some break, you know? If things are going spiral and building up, it’s time for you to stop for a moment.
Forcing yourself to keep working all the time despite exhaustion can only make your mental health suffer, and your concentration goes downhill.
A change of scene or a change of pace is extremely helpful for your mental health.
You can take a 5-minute pause from doing your home chores, an hour launch and coffee break at work, or spend your weekend with a high-quality “me time.”
Taking a break here also implies social media. If you find it hard to keep up with all things that happen on social media, then go offline for quite some time.
2. Eliminate Negative Thinking
The way you interpret things and what meaning you give them can affect the way you tend to feel about them.
It means it’s always better to ignore all your negative thoughts that often increase your worry, anger, or fear.
The first thing you can do is to notice your negative thoughts with “self-talking.” Try to identify whether your thoughts are unhelpful or helpful.
And if you’re sure that your thoughts happen to be negative, don’t focus and concentrate on it. The next step is to replace those thoughts with some helpful ones.
If you determine to do this every day, accurate, more helpful thoughts will soon come naturally to you.
3. Understand Your Emotions
It’s very humane to feel sad, stressed, anxious, happy, or joyful. But, somehow, your thoughts and feelings can be tough to make sense of.
Especially in the tumultuous time like these, the new normal like working from home (WFH), spending more time indoors, etc., might make you experience new feelings you don’t even understand.
In that matter, it’s essential to understand your feelings so you can take some early steps to deal with it. By doing so, you can tell yourself when you should keep going and when you should catch some breath.
So, don’t forget to check in with how we’re feeling daily to avoid negative feelings and thoughts piling up.
4. Sleep Like a Robot
Sleep and mental health are intricately linked with one another. A study found that chronic sleep problems affect 50% to 80% of patients in a typical psychiatric practice.
Therefore, if you can fix your sleep problems and start sleeping like a robot, you can improve your mental well-being.
Sleep like a robot here means that you should go to bed the same time each day so that both your mind and body get used to a predictable, quality bedtime routine. It helps you to wake up fresh and start the next day much more positively.
Try to give your brain time to calm down in the evening. Avoid caffeine or alcohol if you know that this leads to disturbed sleep.
5. Have a Healthy, Balanced Diet
Don’t forget to eat healthy, too. Having a balanced diet can help tame stress by boosting up your immune system and lowering the blood pressure.
In essence, managing your diet and paying more attention to what you put into your body will not only help you stay fit, but it will also make a massive improvement in your mental health.
Stress-reducing foods include omega-3 fatty acids (you can find it in fish such as salmon and tuna), dark chocolate, whole-grain carbohydrates, and more.
Whenever possible, avoid consuming too much sugar because it can worsen the insulin level that can lead to long-term mental health problems.
6. Spend Time On Your Hobbies
As you spend more time at home, for now, you can take more time on your hobby to avoid WFH burnout and unwind from your daily routine.
Moreover, indulging yourself in some activities that can make you feel happier and more relaxed isn’t all about passing the days and or enjoying the quality of “me time,” but it’s also beneficial for your mental health.
According to research, 4 out of 5 people found that doing creative things they like can highly-effective in managing stress.
So, when the mental block starts to hit, try to start developing your hobbies or find creative activities that can inspire you– such as reading books or inspiring blogs, gardening, baking, or anything else you’d like to do to recharge your energy and spirit.
Wrapping Up: You’ve Got This!
Taking good care of your mental health is a lifelong process. We’ve all been there, feeling so stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed at some point in our lives because life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. You won’t always be able to stick to your goals consistently.
So, it’s reasonable to take a few steps back, calm yourself a bit, and make a few mistakes. After all, both physical and mental health are the most crucial things.
With all those simple habits mentioned above, I hope you can handle stress and anxiety with a little more grace to live your days more peacefully.
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