Mental health and well-being are intricately connected. Your emotional state, and the way you think, interact with others and manage stress all directly influence your physical state of mind. Though often overlooked, mental health plays an integral role in forming a holistic sense of wellness – both now and later in life. Read on to find out how.
Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation involves both the ability to recognize your own emotions as well as overriding or changing these emotions if they don’t support your goals or values. Lots of people learn this through mental health therapy which helps them gain a better understanding, and therefore control over this. It can be hard to monitor and modify our emotional reactions but by gaining awareness of them, we can learn to cope more effectively with challenging situations.
Developing skills in using humor, different perspectives, concrete problem-solving skills, and self-calming behaviors can all enhance our emotional resources and thereby improve our overall sense of well-being. Striving to maintain an attitude of curiosity and openness when approaching difficult emotions is a great way to ensure good mental health and promote better overall wellness.
Maintaining Relationships
Having strong social ties will allow you to build relationships based on mutual trust, respect, and understanding. Mental health is connected to your ability to nurture those bonds, and can directly affect how well those relationships are kept alive.
Being aware of the toll that difficult situations can have on you can help recognize when your patience or empathy may be waning, and how you need to take care of yourself to be there for others in your life. Taking proactive steps toward self-care and stress relief encourages healthy conversations and strategies that benefit both sides of the relationship.
Resilience
Resilience helps you to adjust to, and cope with, the problems that come your way enabling you to focus on things that matter. Everyone experiences stress and disappointment, but good resilience gives you the confidence and strength to face any challenge.
It allows people to roll with the punches instead of becoming overwhelmed by them. With resilience as part of your mental health, you can be more aware of how you manage negative emotions, stress, depression, anxiety, trauma, and even recovery from illness.
Cognitive Functioning
This is a major factor to pay attention to when it comes to overall mental health. It allows people to process accurate information and make decisions based on higher-order thinking such as problem-solving and critical thinking.
Cognitive functioning helps you feel grounded and be able to focus effectively on your daily responsibilities despite the ever-changing circumstances of life. This will make you more capable to handle emotions, relationships, and school, or work-related stressors. It is important to take the time out of each day for yourself to monitor this and ensure you have the necessary tools available if the need arises to maintain good mental health.
Mental health plays a critical role in your overall well-being, influencing many aspects of your life, from your emotional regulation to maintaining relationships and resilience. It is essential to pay attention to your mental health and strive for balance to optimize cognitive functioning. Taking steps towards better mental health can be the difference between feeling overwhelmed or better managing the stress in your life so that you can live with greater peace and joy.