Being Aware of Mental Health Can Mean Taking Steps to Feel Your Best
The National Institute of Mental Health is marking Mental Health Awareness Month with tips on how we can take better care of ourselves.
Mental health, it points out, is more than the absence of a mental illness — it’s essential to your overall health and quality of life. It includes emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, act, make choices, and relate to others. Self-care can play a role in maintaining your mental health and helping support your treatment and recovery if you have a mental illness.
The tips for accomplishing that include some of the expected: regular exercise, eating healthily and getting enough sleep, for instance. But it also includes some ideas that might not be as obvious, such as finding an activity that you enjoy and relaxes you, setting goals and priorities, and practicing gratitude.