Boost Your Wellbeing: Building Mental Fitness Habits
During times of unprecedented uncertainty, adults and children can feel much higher levels of stress, fear, anxiety and our mood can regularly be much lower than usual. I think the word ‘resilience’ is often overused in the 21st Century. Still, we all need tips on how to stay mentally fit to help us all try to navigate the next months and beyond.
If you haven’t already, add these activities to your DAILY routine, commit for 3 weeks!
Structure your Monday to Friday as much as possible
Have set times to do things every day. It can be helpful put a schedule up on the fridge for the whole family to view each day. This can help ensure each member of the family has a formal structure no matter what age. Having a basic daily routine and sticking to it is key to keep order in our weekly lives and helps us adapt. Weekends can be much more flexible but Monday to Friday stick to your routine!
Boost your Mood
Get rid of some of those negative emotions. This can be done more easily than you think. For example, you can build it into your daily schedule. At the same time every day, ask the family to get together. Then, designate one person the responsibility to boost the mood of the rest of the family. This can be done in countless, creative ways: playing music, telling jokes, dancing, exercising, sharing online clips, connecting with other friends and family through Facetime, Skype or Zoom, playing cards, board games, or charades…the list is endless. The important thing is to have a laugh!
Practice Acceptance
Write down what you can and can’t change during this crisis and focus as much as possible on what you can control. For example, you can’t change the news feed and what is happening everywhere else, so don’t watch this too much. Research shows that a child who sees something bad on TV in the morning can carry this mood with them for 5– 8 hours! Another example is you can’t go out for dinner, but you can have a picnic in the garden. Focus on what you CAN do within your own circle of influence. This will give you all more feelings of empowerment.
Gratitude
Every day I feel incredibly grateful that I am not sick with Covid-19, that I have food in the house, a place to live, a family for support and that I live in the lucky country. I say this regularly to my family and friends to ensure we focus on the importance of the simple things in life. Many others around the world aren’t as lucky as us. Ask your family to share what they are grateful for and have conversations regularly.
Give
Help others as much as possible. This is a big predictor of mental fitness. If someone is struggling, take time to sit down or call them to give support. We will all have low times during this crisis so supporting each other and keeping our relationships strong is crucial.
I hope these few simple tips help a little. The key is not just reading them and being aware. The real value is actually practising them every day. It takes 3 weeks to create a habit!
Finally remember, “this too shall pass”.
