In a nutshell mental hygiene is the practice of promoting, maintaining and restoring mental health.
So what's the difference between mental health and mental hygiene?
Mental health is about a persons state of being (their present experience) which is evidenced in the way they think, feel and act. Whereas mental hygiene is about the measures an individual takes to promote, maintain and restore their mental health.
Which means mental hygiene influences our mental health and this is why it's a top priority given the continued increase in mental ill health across the UK and globally. The impact of this upward trend is devastating on individuals suffering with poor mental health, and also for those around them who care and want to help them overcome their mental struggles.
Fundamentally what's needed is systemic change in society in many areas, and whilst there are some signs this is happening, this will take years to implement. In the meantime, it's vital that we as individuals understand how we can best maintain our mental wellbeing, as this puts us in the best position to help those around us.
So, how can we best support ourselves to maintain and restore mental health through mental hygiene?
DAILY HABITS
We become what we repeatedly do - Sean Covey
When were you taught habits to practice mental hygiene for your mental health?
The likely answer to this question for most people is "never" unfortunately.
Mental hygiene is simply about creating daily habits as part of a routine to support your mental health, the same way your personal hygiene routine supports your physical health.
It's only because we were taught how to practice personal hygiene by our parents as a child, that we know what personal hygiene looks like to maintain our physical health, with daily habits such as showering and brushing our teeth. Plus, key messages around practising personal hygiene were reinforced in other social environments such as at school and exposure to marketing ads. We learnt how these habits resulted in benefits such as the prevention of body odour, bad breath and gum disease etc.
The repeated messaging and personal care activities over the years helped us form an ingrained understanding of what we believe is necessary when it comes to our personal hygiene.
But when it comes to habits for our mental hygiene, many people are just not sure what these are, or even how some activities will actually benefit their mental wellbeing. Plus, without an understanding of how the mind works, they may try to create new habits to support their mental health, but find it hard to stick to them thinking they need more will power and motivation, so end up stopping and starting, which then leads to feeling stuck and hopeless.
So, before I share some daily habits that can form part of a mental hygiene routine, there are two things you need to be aware when it comes to how your mind works when creating new habits.
1 - Self Concept
This is who you "think you are" constructed from the beliefs you hold about yourself which were largely formed when you were a child, based on the responses of your care givers and what you witnessed in your social environment.
For example:
If you're someone who witnessed your parents practising good personal hygiene, then showed you how to form these habits regularly, and praised you when you did them. You will have formed a belief that you are good at caring for your physical health and that personal hygiene ensures acceptance in your social environment. These beliefs now reflect your personal hygiene habits as an adult and you just do them automatically with minimal resistance.
If however, you did not witness your parents practising good personal hygiene and whilst they showed you how to do activities such as brushing your teeth, this was inconsistent and with little praise when you did. Combined with your observations of your parents, you likely formed a belief that personal hygiene isn't that important and personal hygiene habits aren't important for acceptance in your social environment. These beliefs now reflect your personal hygiene habits as an adult, whereby you may struggle to look after your physical health, experiencing ill health issues or situations of social exclusion due to inconsistent personal hygiene habits.
So, when it comes to creating new habits that will support your mental health, it's important to first start with some self inquiry to uncover what your beliefs are about mental health, as any new habits you create will be hard to sustain if your fundamental beliefs do not align.
A couple of questions to ask yourself to help with this:
What were the beliefs your parents have/had around mental health?
Clues will be found in phrases they said and how you observed them managing their mental health when growing up.
It's important to look at this with compassion, as parents do their best given who they are, and they may have experienced some trauma as a child which they never resolved, which would have an impact on how they raised you. The point of this self enquiry is to not seek blame, but to help you understand your acquired beliefs.
Look at the current way you manage your mental health as this will reflect your beliefs - what stories do you tell yourself (internal chatter) when you have tried to make time for your mental wellbeing in the past?
For example, say you feel exhausted and need to just sit and rest, but your mind races, thinking "this is just wasting my time when I should/need to do this or that", and you feel fidgety! Just know that this is just a habit to be on the go all the time which is from a belief such as - sitting around is being lazy, which leaves you feeling guilty and don't want to be shamed for this action, or maybe you believe you need to do everything to please others as this is how you feel loved and accepted.
Again, look at any beliefs that come up with compassion, as they were mostly created when you were just a child, but until now you have not been consciously aware of these, so you have been doing the best you can. Take this as an opportunity for you to acknowledge you are no longer a child and this belief is no longer relevant, true or helpful. It's now time for you to decide the beliefs you want that will support your mental health going forward - then look at the habits that reinforce these.
It's important to know you always have a choice to either continue with the same beliefs which create the same results in your life. Or you can decide to make your mental wellbeing a priority and start to understand what results you want for yourself as a result of maintaining or restoring your mental health. Look at the habits that will enable these results, then begin to practice these habits to reinforce new beliefs, and you will find your self concept will change as a result. But remember to be patient, kind and compassionate with yourself as you practice!
The key takeaway here is that your habits reflect your beliefs - so understand the beliefs you have around mental health and decide which to keep and which to change!
Good habits make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action - James Clear
2 - Repetition
For this next key point on habits, I just need to provide a simplified explanation of how habits are formed in our brain.
Our brain cells are called neurons and the way these cells communicate is via a circuitry called a neural network (pic).
When our brain processes a new thought, feeling or activity our neurons create a new synaptic connection (a neural pathway).
For example: a toddler is learning to brush their teeth for the first time (neurons connect in the brain to communicate and move arm and hand muscles etc.)
These neural pathways are not yet strong, but the more the toddler repeats the activity the stronger and more dominant the neural pathway becomes. Until the point where they don’t need to think about how to brush their teeth anymore, it’s a well-formed dominant neural pathway in their brain, so the activity becomes automatic and a habit is formed.
Everyday new neural pathways are being formed in your brain and this process is called neuroplasticity. The beauty of understanding this process is knowing that you can create new habits whenever you want, knowing each time you repeat an action you are reinforcing the neural pathway to the point it becomes dominant and automatic.
So the belief of "that's just the way I am, I can't change" is simply untrue when we know how our brain actually works.
How long does it take to form a new habit?
The author James Clear of a fantastic book called Atomic Habits stated that research shows it takes 66 days, so around 2 months, to form a new habit, but this can vary depending on individuals and circumstances, so should be taken as a guide. You can read about this research on James Clear's website. I would also recommend reading this book to support any new habits you create. Here are 4 tips from the book:
Start small - take the new habit and break it down into small steps - make it easy!
Increase in small ways - once you have managed the first step in a habit, increase it slightly for a while before stepping it up again i.e. 1 min of meditation to 2 mins.
Track the habit - get a tracker and tick off every day you complete the habit.
Never miss twice - always get back on track within 2 days if you do miss doing a habit.
Finally, if you would like to see neuroplasticity in action (it's amazing!) here is a great short video with Dr Joe Dispenza, who is someone I recommend you follow to learn more about how the mind works.
The key takeaway here is that we can create new habits whenever we want with repetition.
The truth is, you don't break a bad habit, you replace it with a good one - Denis Waitley
Daily Mental Hygiene Habits
Now we know that mental hygiene is all about creating habits to support your mental health and how to ensure your success creating new habits, here are four habits I recommend to get started with in creating a routine that is right for you, and creates a lifestyle that supports your mental wellbeing.
Time to rest and restore
Look at your week and notice where would be good times to create moments to rest and restore your mind. This will be time where you take a break from everything going on in your life to just be present in the moment. This is your time, so create a boundary to protect it by letting people know when these times are.
Habits you could regularly include:
- going for a walk ideally in nature
- sitting down somewhere quiet to do some deep breathing or listen to calming music
- meditating in silence or to a guided meditation/music
- doing something creative so you lose yourself in the process
- gentle exercise such as Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi or swimming, as the slow body movements help more tuned into your body
- reading a book
The key here is to allow time to disconnect from everyone and everything to just be with yourself for yourself - so distractions such as social media scrolling, watching the tv and interacting with others is not part of this time.
Time to nurture relationships
One of our core human needs is to have healthy and supportive relationships with other people, to feel we belong and be part of a community.
So look at where you can make time to be with those you care about, people who lift you up and opportunities for new social connections.
Habits you could regularly include:
- inviting friends or family over for cuppa or a meal
- arranging activities with family and friends to have fun together
- having mealtimes with family to catch up on their day/week
- watching a film/tv series with others
- learning something new with someone
- joining networking groups or other community groups to make new friends
Whilst it's important to enjoy time alone, we can feel lonely and isolated without socially connecting with others, and this can severely impact our mental health, so reach out and connect with people regularly.
Time for self awareness
When we start to notice how the beliefs we have create the results we experience in our life, it becomes a process of self discovery. As you start to see how the results you have in your life are a reflection of how you think, feel and act.
This is a powerful insight as with self awareness you realise just how much control you can have over your life, as when you become aware of a belief that is creating unhelpful results in your life, you can decide to change it with new habits.
Habits to regularly include could be:
- Journaling - a process of writing down your thoughts in a notebook about situations you are not happy with in your life, all as part of a self inquiry process to see them for what they are, and revealing the hidden beliefs. The point is to see what you are making situations to mean and what other perspectives could be, as your mind is filtering your perception through your current beliefs - which as we have seen are mostly untrue and developed when you were a child! I recommend checking out Byron Katie's The Work and Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry, as they both have fantastic self inquiry methods.
- Coaching - as many of our beliefs are tucked away in our subconscious mind they are automatic, so it can take time to reveal them if we do this work ourselves, then it takes time to change habits and this is where many people struggle to maintain momentum. Which is where a coach comes in, to provide a safe protected space for you to share your thoughts, help you see a different unbiased perspective through inquiry, which then reveals hidden beliefs quicker. The coach can then provide support and encouragement as you make changes to your lifestyle with new habits, as we naturally resist change until new habits become automatic.
- Confiding in a trusted friend - if you have someone who you trust will be honest with you and maintain confidentiality, then they can support you to be aware of beliefs and encourage you as you create new habits.
Lots of self compassion and patience is required for this habit, but it is a habit that will enable you to make a huge difference to your mental health as you create new beliefs and habits that reflect who you are now, not others beliefs you adopted as a child, which creates a much more fulfilling and authentic life experience.
Time for gratitude
Making time in our day to reflect on the things we feel thankful for creates a new perspective on our life. Especially if we are struggling with our mental health, as we tend to have a negative bias, looking for things that are wrong, or could go wrong and focusing on these things.
But it's just a perspective, which is how we view the world at the moment. Everyone will have their own perspective, which means it doesn't mean this is the actual reality, it's just the reality we make it to mean given our current beliefs that affect our state of mind.
When we start to focus our thoughts on appreciating all we have in our lives; our family, friends, pets, our home, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, a job, etc. as well as things that we experience in each day, or look forward to. We begin to open our perspective, which allows us to even see more things to be grateful for!
It's common for people to take many things in life for granted and allow their perspective to be clouded by the focus of others or the media. However, when we pause to appreciate even the smallest of things and see how every experience brings a valuable lesson, no matter how difficult it is. It makes a huge difference to our mental health.
A typical daily gratitude practice to start with could be, to wake up each morning with the intention to find three things that day to be thankful for. The next step could be to share these with family when you get home and encourage them to share what they were grateful for that day. Or if you live alone, keep a Gratitude Journal to write down what happened and how thankful you feel.
I have also seen a beautiful idea whereby you get a jar and each day you write down something you're grateful for and put it in the jar, then at the end of the year you empty it out and read all the notes.
Final thoughts
There are many other ways you can create habits that can form part of your mental hygiene routine such as a healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep and keeping hydrated, as these all support your mental health.
However, I have focused mainly on how you think and feel about yourself in this blog and how to create habits to improve how you feel about yourself, because the most common belief many of us have is "I'm not good enough." Which means any habits we try to create to maintain or restore our mental health will fail due to this self concept, as how we think about ourselves is at the root of mental health. If we instead choose a new belief like, "I am good enough and I deserve to live a healthy and fulfilling life" then with small daily aligned habits (as suggested above), we reinforce this new belief, and this is what will help you maintain and restore your mental health. Only then can we look at other habits such as diet and exercise.
If you have any questions, would like support to implement a mental hygiene routine with coaching, or just want to talk about mental health, just message me and we can arrange a time to chat.
In the meantime, take care x
Clare