New Year’s Mental Health Resolutions
By: Beth McHugh 2008
Whether you suffer from a pre-existing mental health condition or just plain-old garden variety stress, why not try a different type of New Year’s resolution this year? The resolution to improve your mental health.
There isn’t anyone who couldn’t benefit from taking steps to improve their mental health, just as we could all benefit from a fitness regime makeover from time to time. So what types of activities should we include on our Mental Health New Year’s Resolution?
Number One would have to be a commitment to better sleep habits. Poor sleep underlines and exacerbates many health problems, both physical and mental. As the mind/body is a connected entity, improving the mechanics of your sleep will have a corresponding positive effect on your mood.
Similarly an overhaul of your eating regime will also contribute to improved mental health and mood stability. Cutting back on refined sugars, caffeine, and simple carbohydrates will result in feelings of wellbeing with less depression and anxiety swings associated with poor diet.
Another resolution worth considering is removing, or at minimizing, contact with toxic people in your life. Toxic persons can range from people who mentally drain you with their constant negativity to people who actually cause you physical and emotional harm. Make this year the year that you begin to choose who is beneficial to your happiness and who is not worthy of your friendship or assistance.
Of course, no resolutions would be complete without considering the negative effects of your own thought patterns and how you self-sabotage your life. In fact, we are the most potent cause of our own happiness or unhappiness, based on our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and the world in which we live and the people in our lives. When we can change our own roadmaps, we can really say at the end of 2008 that we have achieved our New Year’s Mental Health Resolutions!