June 12-18 is International Men’s Health Week, and we want to share just a few ways that intentional actions can boost not only the way you feel, but also help you live a healthy life!
Try some of these out this week and start to see the difference these changes can make in your life.
Practicing Self-Care
Self-care is a pretty general term that gets tossed around often when talking about mental health. While it may seem the phrase is often marketed towards women, self-care is for everybody. Self-care calls for taking time for yourself, whether that’s treating your body to a nourishing meal, looking after your hygiene, or just giving yourself a moment to breathe on a hectic day. Practicing self-care creates a healthier mind and body better equipped to deal with the struggles life throws at us.
Pursuing a Passion
People can often feel like there’s no time for their hobbies or passions, especially when they’re focused on family, work, and other elements of life. However, in the midst of a busy schedule, these outlets become powerful tools to cope with stress and give your mind a chance to refocus on a different aspect of you. Through pursuing our passions, we can find healthy aspects like creativity, discipline, and accomplishment that will help us grow personally and find mental relaxation in the midst of our lives.
Exercise and Activity
It seems that our parents were right when they said we needed “fresh air and sunshine” as children. It’s amazing to know the multitude of benefits we can glean by simply going for a 5-10 minute walk around the neighborhood. The simplest of activities can cause chemical reactions in our brains that make us feel good and help us process stress or challenges better. There’s also been research that says physical activity can improve memory and thinking functions, so next time you’re playing soccer, heading to the gym, or walking around the block, know that a little goes a long way.
Supportive Groups
Almost everyone is going through something at any given moment. Whether it’s a mental health issue such as anxiety or depression, or something else like your car having issues or work’s been exhausting, it’s important to find people in your life you can connect with and who can relate to what you’re dealing with. Whether that’s people you’ve known all your life or a group of new people that meets once a week that you can talk to and hear from frequently, social groups that can emphasize and sympathize with your challenges, however big or small they seem, helps you feel better and find camaraderie as you work through it.
Building Routines
Our brain is incredibly powerful, but also takes energy to function daily. By developing and creating routines in our lives that work for us, whether flossing our teeth daily or waking up early at the same time to have a moment to read before work, we give our brain some predictable patterns to follow and prepare for. That familiarity helps lessen stress and anxiety that come from constant change every day and allows our brain to rest more.
