10 ways to practice good mental hygiene …

Have you noticed what some consider to be “good hygiene” really isn’t all that good?

Kind of like the story told by Dr. Larry Petton about a pastor and his wife who were asked to dinner by a church member. The pastor knew the lady was a bad housekeeper, but still agreed to go. When he sat down at the table, he noticed the dishes were the dirtiest he had ever seen.

“Were these dishes washed?” he asked his hostess, running his fingers over the grit and grime.

She smiled and replied, “They’re as clean as soap and water could get them!”

The pastor and his wife felt a bit uncomfortable, but blessed the food anyway and started eating. The food was really delicious and the pastor even complimented the lady, despite the dirty dishes. But when dinner was over, the hostess took the dishes outside and yelled, “Here Soap! Here Water!”

Okay, before we go any further, let’s get a definition of hygiene to work from. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word “hygiene” as follows:

1: a science of the establishment and maintenance of health.
2: conditions or practices (as of cleanliness) conducive to health

Hopefully, we’re all familiar with some practices of “good hygiene” for our physical health, but there are some important ways we can practice good “mental hygiene” – practices or habits to foster and maintain a robust mental health. Let me share just 10 ways you can practice good mental hygiene:

1. Get plenty of sleep. Aim for a minimum of at least seven hours each night, eight is better. Consistently getting an adequate amount of sleep has a profound affect on your mental health, likely far more than you’re conscious of.

2. Clean up your diet. Many people are willing to be overweight, or even obese, to eat the junk they like, thinking at the very least it won’t have an immediate affect on their physical health (it will, and increasingly so the longer you maintain a poor diet). Little do many people know that what they eat directly impacts their mental health as significantly as it can their physical health. In fact, some mental illnesses are directly rooted in poor diets.

3. Make exercise/activity a permanent and important lifestyle. There is an abundance of research showing the positive affects of exercise on one’s mental health. In fact, adequate exercise each week can be as good or better treatment for some mental illness than taking medication. Not only does your body need a lifestyle of exercise/activity, so does your brain.

4. Don’t isolate. A pre-existing pandemic of loneliness, followed by the required self-distancing of the COVID-19 pandemic, has highlighted how unhealthy it is for people to isolate themselves, both mentally and spiritually.

5. Nurture your relationships. Related to number 4 above, it’s important to note that most relationships — something we NEED — fail because we fail to nurture them. You need positive, supportive relationships throughout your lifetime, so make it a priority to nurture the relationships you have.

6. Manage stress. Stress is an unavoidable part of life, and some stress is actually good for our health. But too much stress, the wrong kind of stress, and uncontrolled stress can be bad for our mental, physical, and spiritual health.

7. Manage your emotions. People who are good at noticing how they feel and can calm themselves or adjust their behavior are more likely to do well in life, have healthy relationships, experience greater joy, and manage difficulties and set backs.

8. Develop and maintain the habit of consistently thinking rationally. When you consider most of our thoughts are more unconscious than conscious, and a majority of them can be irrational, and couple that to the fact that it is our thoughts that create our emotions, and the combination of our thoughts and emotions that create our behavior, you can then begin to understand how vital it is to develop and maintain the habit of thinking rationally. A competent clinical therapist skilled in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy can help you learn how to do this.

9. Foster a keen sense of self-awareness. It’s difficult to achieve much of any of the above recommendations if you just blindly hurtle through life … which so MANY people do! Fostering a sharp sense of self-awareness enables you to think more rationally, better manage your emotions, and make better decisions. You’ll enjoy life more and have fewer regrets when you operate from a keen sense of self-awareness.

10. Ask for help. All of us get stuck or just need some help at different times in our lives. Too many people choose to stay stuck, or at least stay stuck for years or decades before finally asking for help. That’s a lot of wasted time! Instead of wasting the great gift of time, learn to be quick to get help when you need it.

Scotty