We have a lot of stress throughout the day whether it’s us overthinking, being hard on ourselves, or bad influences around us and all of this affects our mental health. Bad habits can cause you to feel sick, stressed out, more anxious, and more depressed
1.Perfectionism
Trying to be your best at everything that you do is important but if you focus too much on being perfect in everything that you do, this can damage your self-esteem and affect you mentally. If you are constantly trying to be perfect this can undermine your efforts. Positive perfectionism is good because it means you always show your best work but negative perfectionism is when you set standards beyond your reach, feel dissatisfied with everything, and see your mistakes as a meaning of unworthiness. Research shows that all these things cause anxiety, uncertainty, distress, and a fear of making mistakes.
- Guilt
Guilt is another habit that affects us mentally, and it usually starts during our childhood. An example of this is being told to finish our dinner because there are starving children in China. You may feel guilty about leaving your family to go to work and this guilt can prevent you from being completely focused on your tasks. Habits of guilt include blaming yourself for situations that have nothing to do with you, refusing to forgive yourself and perceiving yourself as a bad person for small reasons.
3.Eliminate Stress
Stress will come back from many various sources together with relationships, work, personal loss, and finances. Being stressed consumes nutrients and energy and this will cause you to feel weak. Reducing stress improves sleep, reduces anxiety, depression, and improves productivity and relationships. Signs that you simply are stressed embody mood changes, tension, anxiety, relationship issues, changes in appetite, problem remembering or concentrating. once you acknowledge that you simply are experiencing these symptoms it’s necessary to eliminate it right away.
You can scale back stress in some ways together with maintaining a healthy diet, exercising, and relaxing. you’ll be able to conjointly notice somebody to speak to, change your perspective, and set realistic goals for yourself. If you’re extremely stressed, you’ll turn to drugs or alcohol to require some weight off of your shoulders. If you’re combating an addiction, you’ll be able to check out rehab centers that will assist you to modify any type of addiction.
- Poor Sleeping Habits
Poor sleeping habits can cause both physical and emotional stress because if you are not getting enough sleep, you are not allowing your brain and body to recover from the difficulties you experienced throughout the day. Sleep helps you be better prepared for the challenges that may arise the next day. Research proves that people who do not get a good amount of sleep tend to suffer from mental health problems. Reports from
The Sleep Helth Foundation show that 60-90% of patients with depression suffer from insomnia too. Insomnia can be associated with anxiety, depression and psychological stress. Drinking caffeine late in the day, being stressed out before bed, or using electronic devices before bedtime is all things that can cause you to have bad sleeping habits.
- Slouching
A study published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Physiciatry shows that the way we walk is affected by the way we are feeling. When subjects were asked to walk hunched over, they experienced bad moods and remembered negative things more than positive things. If you lift your chin up and put your shoulders back it can help you think positive. It is okay to occasionally have negative thoughts but constantly having these thoughts is what prevents us from succeeding.
- Not Exercising
If you workout at least three times a week, you decrease your chance of being depressed by 19%. Studies show people who are depressed are less likely to be active and those who exercised were less likely to be depressed.
- Poor Use of Smartphones/Social Media
With all the messaging systems and apps that exist today, it can be very difficult to stay off of our smartphones. Professionals worry that excess smartphone use causes an addiction, with users constantly checking for notifications because of the constant fear of missing out. According to research done in the Journal of Affective Disorders, this can lead to an increase in symptoms on anxiety, depression, and lower self-esteem. Overuse of social media is another factor that causes anxiety and lowers self-esteem specifically in teenagers. A survey done by the Telegraph reports that 62% of participants reported feeling jealous and inadequate compared to other social media users.
With practice and determination, it is possible to break these bad habits in order to improve your mental health. There are so many habits that we all have that we do not even realize affects our mental health. It is important to improve these habits or end them completely to better ourselves and our lives. With the right mindset and treatment, it is possible to overcome these challenges.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.