Foods That Adversely Affect Mood
- Trans fats or anything with partially hydrogenated oil.
- Foods with high levels of chemical preservatives or hormones.
- Refined carbs .
- Fatty fish rich in Omega-3s such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, tuna.
- Nuts such as walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts.
- Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts.
- Fresh fruit such as blueberries.
Make Social Connection A Priorityespecially Face
No matter how much time you devote to improving your mental and emotional health, you will still need the company of others to feel and function at your best. Humans are social creatures with emotional needs for relationships and positive connections to others. Were not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. Our social brains crave companionshipeven when experience has made us shy and distrustful of others.
When To Seek Professional Help
If youve made consistent efforts to improve your mental and emotional health and still arent functioning optimally at home, work, or in your relationships, it may be time to seek professional help. Following these self-help steps will still benefit you, though. In fact, input from a caring professional can often help motivate us to take better care of ourselves.
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Find Purpose And Meaning In Life
Everyone derives meaning and purpose in different ways that involve benefitting others, as well as yourself. You may think of it as a way to feel needed, feel good about yourself, a purpose that drives you on, or simply a reason to get out of bed in the morning. In biological terms, finding meaning and purpose is essential to brain health as it can help generate new cells and create new neural pathways in the brain. It can also strengthen your immune system, alleviate pain, relieve stress, and keep you motivated to pursue the other steps to improve mental and emotional health. However you derive meaning and purpose in life, its important to do it every day.
What Is Mental Health
Our mental health encompasses our view of the world, in terms of our thought patterns and how we act out on them. It is inclusive of our social efficacy, psychological stability, and our emotional well-being. Our ability to understand or empathize with other people is reliant on our mental health, as well as, our stress management.
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What Exactly Does Healthy Mean
What does it mean to be healthy? According to World Health Organisation:
Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
This definition given in 1948 is still upheld by major health authorities. Yet, the interpretation of this definition is open to our discretion.
At last, what does it mean to be healthy? For many, it is just being devoid of diseases. For some, its more than that. Some may take inner peace, wellness of the environment under the gambit of health. Some may even consider proper sleep and a balanced diet under this definition. But we need to understand that a healthy lifestyle gives life a purpose.
The definition of health is wide, given how different people perceive it. We shall now explore how health is classified.
What Does Health Look Like
With so much conflicting information out there, its easy to ask, what does it mean to be healthy? There is no exact formula or simple checklist. Health is much more than eating your greens and going for walks. Health is the combination of physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual well-being. Being at the end of your rope emotionally can be just as fatiguing as doing difficult exercise after a break from physical activity.
Every person is at a different point in lifes journey with a different destination in mind. Dont compare yourself to others. Take stock of where you are at and then implement small measures to move towards your goal.
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What Is Psychological Safety And Health
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines psychological as âof, relating to, affecting, or arising in the mindâ. The concept of âpsychological safetyâ involves preventing injury to the mental well-being of workers. A psychologically safe and healthy workplace is one that promotes workers’ mental well-being and does not harm employee mental health through negligent, reckless or intentional ways. For example, a psychologically safe workplace would be free of excessive fear or chronic anxiety.
An Introduction To The Perma Model
The PERMA model is a widely recognized and influential model in positive psychology. Seligman proposed this model to help explain and define wellbeing in greater depth.
âPERMAâ is an acronym for the five facets of wellbeing according to Seligman:
This model gives us a comprehensive framework for understanding wellbeing as well as a foundation for improving wellbeing. If youâre looking to enhance your own sense of authentic happiness and wellbeing, all you need to do is focus on:
- Experiencing more positive emotions do more of the things that make you happy, and bring enjoyment into your daily routine
- Working on upping your engagement pursue hobbies that interest you, develop your skills, and look for a job more suited to your passions, if necessary
- Improve the quality of your relationships with others work on building more positive and supportive relationships with your friends, family, and significant other
- Seek out meaning if you donât find it through your work, look for it in volunteering opportunities, personal hobbies or leisure activities, or acting as a mentor for others
- Keep your focus on achieving your goalsâbut donât focus too hard try to keep your ambition in balance with all of the other important things in life .
Happiness alone will likely not propel you towards flourishing, but wellbeing will.
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Tips For Starting An Exercise Routine
- Aim for 30 minutes of activity on most days. If its easier, three 10-minute sessions can be just as effective. Start now by taking a walk or dancing to a favorite song.
- Try rhythmic exercise that engages both your arms and legs, such as walking, running, swimming, weight training, martial arts, or dancing.
- Add a mindfulness element to your workouts. Instead of focusing on your thoughts, focus on how your body feels as you movehow your feet hit the ground, for example, the rhythm of your breathing, or the feeling of wind on your skin.
What Makes A Person Mentally Healthy
Mental health conditions like anxiety or bipolar disorder are experienced by 5% of the adult population. Being mentally healthy is not the absence of the said disorders or mental illnesses.
Being a mentally healthy person is someone who is able to function in a number of aspects of their lives from making and keeping friends, understanding the roots of their emotions, and acting out on them accordingly.
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Benefits Of Positive Psychology
Since youâre reading this, you probably already know that Seligman and Csikszentmihalyiâs endeavor was wildly successful.
The plethora of projects and papers on positive topics has provided an enormous repository of knowledge on how to encourage ourselves and those around us to live the best lives possible.
It would be impossible to list all of the benefits of positive psychology, but weâll try to give a comprehensive overview of some of the most impactful and influential outcomes of practicing positive psychology.
In general, the greatest potential benefit of positive psychology is that it teaches us the power of shifting oneâs perspective.
This is the focus of many techniques, exercises, and even entire programs based on positive psychology because a relatively small change in oneâs perspective can lead to astounding shifts in wellbeing and quality of life. Injecting a bit more optimism and gratitude into your life is a simple action that can give you a radically more positive outlook on life.
Of course, no respected positive psychologist would tell you to think about, act out, and focus on ONLY the positive in lifeâbalance is important. Positive psychology was not established to replace traditional psychology, but to complement it with a positive bias thatâs just as strong as psychologyâs negative bias over the last several decades.
Criticism Of The Movement In Perspective
Although positive psychology has been embraced by much of the psychology community , there are some common critiques of the movementâmany of which have some valid points.
At the 2015 World Conference of Positive Psychology, some of the biggest names in positive psychology discussed a few of these criticisms. Below, weâll outline some of the major criticisms and an evaluation of their merit in todayâs field.
Research findings are often invalid, overstated, and misleading.
Like any other scientific field, mistakes are sometimes made. This often seems to be due to excitement over the potential of findings in positive psychology it can be hard to maintain objectivity when you feel a finding has both broad and deep applicability to the real world.
However, this is no excuse for a lack of scientific rigor. While there is a bit more leeway in crossing your âtâs and dotting your âiâs in applied research, positive psychologists must be careful to keep their claims within reason and think critically about the limitations of their methodsâthere is always a limitation!
Today, positive psychology has overcome some of the initial obstacles and growing pains inherent to a new field. More critical attention is being paid to the research, which gives us all more confidence in the findings.
There is too much emphasis on self-report and cross-sectional survey data.
Positive psychology has a cultural and ethnocentric bias.
The field is too individualistic.
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What Constitutes Psychological Health
A colleague and friend of mine who is a retired professor of pathophysiology with a longstanding interest in psychiatry and human behavior made a very important point to me in our conversations about mental health.
When I was learning about what constituted a diseased liver, he said, one of the most important pieces of knowledge I had was what a healthy liver looks like to serve as a comparison. Yet, in mental health and psychiatry, basically what you have are descriptors of dysfunction but no real comparison or reference models of what constitutes psychological health. Instead, there is just a vague claim that the current presentation must not be normal.
This is an excellent point. Although this has changed some in recent years with the emergence of positive psychology, it remains the case that far less attention has been paid to clarifying what constitutes psychological health than psychopathology. And, for far too long, psychological health was essentially defined in terms of the absence of psychopathology.
To begin with, lets start with the most general definitions and conceptions of mental health. The World Health Organization explicitly defines mental health as a state of well-being in which individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”
Striking A Balance Between Physical Mental And Social Health
What does it mean to be healthy? While discussing health, stress must be laid upon a state of complete physical and social health and wellbeing. Our mind is as important as our body is thus, mental health should be taken seriously. If a person is physically perfect, socially adept, and mentally as well as emotionally fit, they have less to worry about.
Research has shown that lack of interaction with the world and mental ailments like depression, stress, and anxiety harm a persons lifestyle. A persons eating and sleeping habits change drastically, they get secluded from peers and the community, they may get physically affected and the list goes on.
What does it mean to be healthy? How do I get to be healthy?
To ensure that, we can implement these simple steps into our lives:
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Psychological And Social Support
Psychological and social support are present in an environment where co-workers and supervisors are supportive of employees psychological and mental health concerns and would respond appropriately as needed.
To introduce and implement the National Standard with your team, review the following handout and video for further information.
- Improved overall psychological health of employees
- Sustainable/successful return to work
- Reasonable workplace support during times of emotional distress, crisis or upset
- Understanding and awareness of mental health
- Employees who feel safe to talk about mental health and are not confronted with stigma
- Employees who are supported to stay productive and maintain healthy relationships
- Greater job attachment, job commitment, job satisfaction, and positive work mood
- Employees distressed at work will be more likely to seek and receive help
Lack of psychological support results in:
- Greater turnover rates
- Loss of productivity in the workplace
To maintain psychological and social support:
- Take steps to eliminate stigma
- Shift workplace culture
- Update employees about health and wellness supports EFAP, Community Mental Health Agencies
- Maintain regular communication with off-work employees
Your Emotional Health Is Key To A Happy Life
Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.
The phrase psychological well-being is used to describe an individuals emotional health and overall functioning. The author of a study published in Applied Psychology: Health and WellBeing describes psychological well-being as the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively.
Researchers also have found that the absence of distress doesnt necessarily indicate a person has high psychological well-being. High psychological well-being is about feeling happy and doing well. People with high psychological well-being report feeling capable, happy, well-supported, and satisfied with life.
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How Do We Assess Psychological Hazards
Assessing the state of psychosocial factors in an organization can take many forms. Common psychological health and safety assessment methods include:
- Reviewing internal data such as complaint reports, absenteeism and turnover rates, and resource usage rates.
- Auditing existing structures related to mental health including policies and procedures, management practices, workplace supports, training programs, and job descriptions.
- Gathering feedback through conversations, observations, group discussions, anonymous forms, and surveys.
Using a variety of assessment methods can also help prevent the potential for survey fatigue. Plan the assessment activities at a pace that is reasonable to the workforce to maintain strong engagement with psychological health and safety initiatives.
The assessment can include all the psychosocial factors or target one or a few of them at a time, as long as all factors are assessed on a regular basis.
What Gives You Meaning And Purpose
Engaging work that provides meaning to yourself and others. Partake in activities that challenge your creativity and make you feel productive, whether or not you get paid for them. Some ideas are gardening, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, or building something in your workshop.
Relationships. Spending quality time where you give of yourself to people who matter to you, whether theyre friends, grandkids, or elderly relatives, can support both your health and theirs, while also providing a sense of purpose.
Caring for a pet. Yes, pets are a responsibility, but caring for one makes you feel needed and loved. Theres no love quite as unconditional as the love a pet can give. Animals can also get you out of the house for exercise and expose you to new people and places.
Volunteering. Just as were hard-wired to be social, were also hard-wired to give to others. The meaning and purpose derived from helping others or the community can enrich and expand your lifeand make you happier. Theres no limit to the individual and group volunteer opportunities you can explore. Schools, churches, nonprofits, and charitable organizations of all sorts depend on volunteers for their survival.
Caregiving. Taking care of an aging parent, a handicapped spouse, or a child with a physical or mental illness is an act of kindness, love, and loyaltyand can be as rewarding and meaningful as it is challenging.
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What Is Positive Psychology And How Did It Come Into Being
The question âwhat is wrong with peopleâ has guided the thinking of many researchers and dominated countless scientific studies during the 20th century. It is hard to deny that this entails an important question.
In our attempts to answer the question, we have gained more understanding of many illnesses and have developed effective treatments for a wide range of problems.
However, as an inevitable consequence of our focus on the negative aspects of wellbeing and health, such as distress and disease, we developed an almost exclusive attention to pathology.
We believe that science has focused disproportionately on pathology and repair, and devoted relatively little attention to factors that âmake life worth living.â
As the 21st century unfolds, however, we are beginning to ask a different question: What is right about people?
This question is at the heart of positive psychology, which is the scientific and applied approach to uncovering peoples strengths and promoting their positive functioning.
During the past 14 years, the number of scientific studies on positive psychology has increased tremendously. In addition, countless interventions have been developed to increase peopleâs wellbeing.