How to Help Yourself & Your Mental Health

• Keep a diary and write about what makes you happy to learn how you can best fill your cup.
• Set goals that are meaningful to you to give yourself something exciting to look forward to each day.
• Exercise regularly and sleep at least 7 hours each night to improve your mental and physical well-being.

Creating an Upward Spiral of Happiness

Encourage your positive feelings. Notice when you feel good, and feel good about that. The more you dwell in your positivity, the happier and more resilient you will feel. Rather than trying to force happiness to appear, cultivate in yourself a sense of wellbeing, strength, and connectedness. Affirm the positive thoughts that come to you. Say them out loud or write them down to increase their resonance. "The sunshine feels good on my skin." "I'm proud of myself for doing the dishes." At the end of the day, review the things that you enjoyed. List three things that brought you pleasure. Positive emotion helps you repair from trauma and hardship, and builds resilience for hard times to come.

Locate your happiness. We humans are famously bad at guessing the things that make us happy. Pursuit of power, wealth, and fame rarely pay off in personal satisfaction. Stress can induce us to replace our pleasures with coping mechanisms. Time in which you are being entertained or praised will not necessarily be your happiest time. Before you set your goals, spend some time tracking your joy. Try keeping a diary during an ordinary week, and checking in with yourself a few times a day. What activities bring on contentment? What do they have in common? Notice where you are when you are happy, and what your body is doing. Are you outside? In motion? Are you alone, or in company? What time of day is it?

Set goals meaningful to you. Once you have identified some of the things that bring you contentment, ask yourself what they have in common. What kind of activities can you really sink into? When do you feel like you are doing your best work, or being your best self? Set goals that will help you achieve greater engagement during your daily activities. For example, if you felt happiest while walking your dog, waiting for the bus, and watering the lawn, your goal might be to spend more time outside. If you felt happiest helping out a colleague at work and making dinner with your partner, your new goal might be to find another activity in which you are helping others.

Show yourself the world. Focus on gaining experiences rather than possessions. Spend your extra money on traveling and learning new things. Cultivating memories will leave you with a stronger sense of being alive than acquiring objects. Learning new things will keep your mind strong into your old age, and can introduce new joys into your routine. Developing a hobby can be an excellent reminder to take time off without switching yourself off. Volunteer with an organization you believe in to increase your sense of connectedness and usefulness. Save your extra money for social spending and gifts for others. Take your friend out to dinner, or buy a nice bottle of wine for the host of a dinner party. Set learning goals for yourself. Take language lessons, and take a trip to a country that speaks that language at the year's end. Take cooking lessons, and throw a party with food you've made.

Practice gratitude. Wanting what you have will make you happier than casting around for other options. Change can be stimulating, but investing your attention in the people and places you love contributes more to your overall happiness. Examine what you have, and appreciate it. Make a list of things you are grateful for, and share it with those you love. Treasure the people in your life. Helping yourself doesn't mean isolating yourself. Take the time to tell your friends and family that you love them, and tell them what you appreciate about them. If you feel you express yourself best in writing, make up a list of people you are grateful for, and write a letter a day.

Taking Care of Yourself

Sleep well. Skipping sleep can aggravate any issue you might be facing. Adults need 7-8 hours of sleep a night, with as few interruptions as possible. Sleeping too much can cause lethargy and depression, while sleeping too little can damage your immune resistance, your weight, and your mental health. If you are having trouble sleeping at night, try to build a relaxing bedtime routine. Give yourself an hour before bed to brush your teeth, change into soft pajamas, and do one restful activity, such as reading, meditating, watching a show, or listening to music. Cut down on alcohol and caffeine, and try not to nap. When a work-related or stressful thought comes to you at night, say gently to yourself "It's not time to think about that. It's my bedtime."

Get exercise. Regular exercise can make you more energetic, confident, healthy, and relaxed. Most adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week. Break your exercise up into shorter increments across the week. If you don't like the gym, try going on brisk walks, taking bike rides, or attending dance or yoga classes. Reader Poll: We asked 333 wikiHow readers, and 59% said that the most satisfying and effective way to practice self-care is through exercise and physical activity. [Take Poll]

Feed yourself well. Cooking at home is cheaper and healthier than eating out, so teach yourself to cook the things you love, and keep a well-stocked fridge. Rather than bothering with vitamins and supplements, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and vary your diet. Eating a wide range of foods will help you get the nutrients your body needs. Make sure to get the protein and carbohydrates you need for energy. Eat at least three meals a day with healthy snacks in between.

Avoid negative self-talk. Treat yourself the way any human deserves to be treated: with compassion, respect, and love. Instead of being down on yourself, speak to yourself with calm attention. When negative thoughts and feelings come to you, name them. Identify the situations that bring those feelings on. Accept the feelings as they come, but analyze the beliefs behind them. If you have a negative feeling that comes often, name it and treat it like an annoying by-product of your environment. Say "oh, there's body-shame again. Probably because I'm in this waiting room surrounded by magazines depicting one body type."

Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness means paying attention to your thoughts, senses, and feelings in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. It can relieve your anxiety, and help you relax out of a negative spiral. To practice mindfulness, pay attention to your senses. List everything you can see, smell, hear, and feel in the moment. Try saying what you are doing when you begin to feel tense or stressed. Say "I am walking up the street. I am holding my jacket closed. I am breathing." Feel the breath coming in and out of you. Notice which parts of your body rise and fall. When your mind wanders, remind yourself to pay attention to your breath. To relax your whole body, tense and relax each muscle in turn. Pay attention to minute sensations of tightness (like in your jaw and shoulders).

Make a budget. Know what you are earning and spending. Make sure you have enough to pay for your monthly expenses and put aside for the future. If you are spending more than you earn, see if you can reduce your expenses. Having a budget will reduce your anxiety and help you make better decisions. Calculate what you make each month, what you are spending, and what you are spending it on. Then calculate what you can afford to spend each month. If you don't have a savings account, open one. Calculate an amount you can afford to deposit in it every month. Ways to start saving money include cooking at home, buying ingredients from scratch instead of buying processed food, taking public transportation, and not buying drinks from bars or coffee shops.

Take yourself to an expert. One realistic way to help yourself is to recognize the value of an outside opinion. There are some situations we can't get out of on our own. If you are struggling with an addiction, mental illness, money trouble, legal trouble, or abuse, you might have trouble recovering without the knowledge and skillset of a professional.