People emphasise the importance of maintaining a good level of mental health in multiple ways in modern life. The state of your mental health can determine how well you manage the stress you encounter. Fortunately, practising mindfulness can help you take care of your mental health and well-being.
Later, we’ll explore the importance of finding purpose in your life to maintain good mental health. First, though, we’ll find out more about both well-being and mindfulness and how being aware of each is the first step you must take to improve your mental health.
What is well-being?
A state of well-being is described as one being in a positive mental, physical, and even social state. More specifically, someone’s mental well-being can refer to several things, including:
- Their ability to cope with the natural highs and lows of life, such as facing up to changes and making the most of opportunities that come your way.
- Their sense of self-confidence and esteem allows them to function on an individual level, as well as in relationships.
- Their connections with other people, and the wider community. Indeed, having good connections with others is one way to maintain your mental health.
- Having control in their lives and a sense of doing something worthwhile.
But if you are struggling with your sense of well-being, practising mindfulness can help you lead a healthier, happier life that will improve it.
What is mindfulness?
At its core, mindfulness is about awareness. It is a way of fully attending to the present, using techniques such as meditation, yoga and breathing exercises. Through practising mindfulness, we can become more aware of our thoughts and feelings so that we are better able to manage them and stop ourselves from becoming overwhelmed.
How to use mindfulness to maintain your mental health
Practising mindfulness can help you maintain your mental health in three primary ways. Being mindful help you:
- Deal with life.
- Reach your full potential.
- Participate fully in your own life, in work, family and within your community.
More research needs to be done into mindfulness to understand it more fully. However, current research indicates mindfulness can improve your health and well-being. Positive effects on the brain, body, a person’s relationships with other people, and on someone’s behaviour have all been recorded.
Mindfulness has also been shown to help with many common physical and mental afflictions, such as:
- Anxiety and depression, through Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
- Addictive behaviours like alcoholism or gambling.
- Hypertension (high- blood pressure) and heart disease.
- Chronic pain.
It’s time to explore the importance of finding purpose in life if you want to look after your mental health.
The importance of finding purpose for mental health
Each of us has our own ways of finding purpose in our lives. Doing so often does wonders for your mental health. To find purpose, you can:
- Find work that you consider valuable and useful. Does doing said work make you feel it is worthwhile?
- Spend time with people who matter to you and put time and energy into building strong and enduring relationships.
- Help others by volunteering. This can be hugely rewarding and make you much happier.
- Think about one good deed you can do every day to make the world a better place and try to do so as often as you can.
- Care for other people. This can be challenging but is also extremely fulfilling. It will make you aware of your value to others and boost your self-esteem.
For many of us, the ultimate way we find purpose in our lives is through the joy of having a child. Check the detailed list of fertility readings here. All the readings are both accurate a verified.
How you can practise mindfulness
You can learn to practice mindfulness in person by finding yourself a local practitioner. Alternatively, you can find mindfulness courses to study online, including ones that focus on MBSR which has been shown to decrease anxiety by as much as 58%.
There are also numerous books available which offer useful guidance.
However you choose to learn, by mastering the art of practising mindfulness, you will be able to maintain your mental health with no trouble at all.
Ellen Diamond, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.
