Mental wellness and four steps to help you become mentally well.
Mental Wellness
"Aren't mental and emotional wellness the same thing?" In short, no. Mental wellness involves a person's thoughts. These thoughts are processed analytically rather than emotionally, but both mental and emotional wellness as well as mental and emotional thoughts affect each other constantly. A mentally well person is able to recognize unrealistic, negative, false, and harmful thoughts that come into their mind and correct them. Some people think that to be well you must never have those ineffective thoughts to begin with, but that's far from the truth. Everyone has the ability to be faced with thoughts that are unproductive. A mentally well person ensures that they correct those thoughts rather than indulge them.
Four Steps Toward Mental Wellness
Step 1: Mentally engage through hobbies and continuing education. Any hobby can help to further a person's mental wellness. Continuing education can include any type of education. If you read a new article, listen to a pod cast, or attend an online workshop, you are continuing education and therefore encouraging mental wellness.
Step 2: Stimulate your mental wellness through mental "workouts" such as puzzles, strategic games, or challenging problem solving activities. Our minds need to be exercised just like a muscle. If you neglect to exercise your mind, it may become weak and, therefore, unwell.
Step 3: Practice mindfulness often. Many people hear "mindfulness" and they think of making good decisions, doing yoga, eating greens, etc. Although all of these things can be part of mindfulness, mindfulness itself is about being aware of your thoughts, your emotions, your body, your environment, the people around you, and any thing or person that has an affect on you. Being mindful can be done through meditation or simply through a general increase of awareness. As for mental wellness, being mindful means paying close attention to your thoughts, accepting them, fact-checking them, and then changing those that are incorrect.
Step 4: Practice physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness. Without the rest, mental wellness can never fully be achieved!
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