The Secret to Mental Heath

(Image created by A.I. DALL-E/Bing)

My sister recently pointed out to me that she found it strange that I didn't require medication for stress or depression at my age considering the work I was doing and how other people seem to require it. While my mental health isn't the greatest all the time I know that there's some things that I can do to help it and thankfully it never got bad enough that I felt the need for medication - at least not yet.

The secret to mental health is to not let it deteriorate - prevention is much better than medication. 

How do you even work on your mental health though? While there's no one answer that will work for everyone there are some rules that we should consider to help keep our mental health where it should be.

Some things to consider:

• Physical Health - The relationship between body and the mind can't be understated. If you're body has problems, your mental state will have problems. Eat/sleep/exercise to help you body cope with the stress of life and give it a better chance at fighting the inner daemons.
• Meditation - Read good books, calm your mind, don't dwell on the negativity of your life.
• Shut off negativity - I know people that watch 8 hours a day of negative news and wonder why they don't feel the greatest? Limit your exposure to negativity; Sometimes this means to remove friends from your life or negative news.
• Financial stability - Financial stress is quite difficult to cope with. Learn to say no to the things that will bring you in unnecessary debt and ultimately clutter your life.
• Relationships - Having good friends does wonders to your mental health.
• Get out of the comfort zone - Comfort zone is comfortable but not really exciting. Doing something new will add "life" to your life.
• Therapy - If you struggle, seek professional help! Don't let those problems grow within your mind as they're easier to deal with when they're small than when they're fully ingrained.

While I'm convinced the above can help, sometimes life just keeps throwing things at you which makes it difficult to see the positive side of things. If you're going through one of those times, the only thing you can do is keep moving forward keeping in mind that nothing last forever whether it be the good or the bad times.