‘Tired millennials’ is becoming a social cliché, but millennials are not the ones to blame here. In this ever-changing era, all the hustle and bustle does not allow people to rest or relax.
The constant tension of achieving something or ‘making a change’ keeps Generation Y up at night. The concept of slowing down, reflecting, and above all, cherishing the moment has evaporated in the race of this era.
From this mechanic lifestyle has arisen all-time exhaustion and several mental health issues.
Therefore, it is not your fault if you feel exhausted and stressed out to the verge of a meltdown. But the remedy is still in your hands. You can be the same upbeat, active person you want to be with a few lifestyle changes.
Mental Health Tips for Your Tired Self
Here are a few tips that can address your mental health problems and keep you stress-free.
1. Manage Stress
In this day and age, it is quite difficult to go on for a few hours without receiving a bulk of texts, emails, and calls. You may not realize it, but these seemingly innocent things are interrupting your peace of mind. They are distracting, tiring, and rendering it difficult to focus on what you are doing at the moment.
These notifications mean that you are getting information continuously without having much time to ingest it properly. Therefore, experts call this situation ‘wired but tired, and it hugely contributes to your stress levels.
This stress is related to your day-to-day routine and, thus, is perpetual. Evidence has it that high-stress levels can result in weight gain, sexual dysfunction, depression, insomnia, hormonal imbalances, and so on. Precisely, stress can kill your quality of life.
In order to manage your stress levels, cut out some time away from the gadgets. It is okay for you to remain unavailable when you are past your work hours. Apart from that, there are certain stress-reducing mental health tips & techniques like meditation, exercise, reading, and spending time with nature.
At least once a day, do what you love to do. It can be anything, be it nail-paint, talking to a friend, or taking a walk in the park nearby. Doing what you love increases the production of dopamine, which is the happy hormone. Dopamine incites feelings of motivation, pleasure, and excitement. To keep this hormone pumping, try some new fun activities. It will help break through the monotony as well. These I-love-it-activities can help you in managing emotional stress.
2. Get Good Sleep
Getting enough sleep is highly crucial for your overall health. If you are not taking enough sleep, it can impact your productivity and your ability to perform daily tasks.
When you take ample sleep every night, the hormones in your brain stay in balance. An adequate amount of sleep for adults means at least seven hours, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
Lack of enough sleep makes it harder for your brain to focus and renders it foggy. That is why it is difficult for you to pay attention or retain information when you stay up the whole night.
Many people want to get a good sleep but encounter trouble dozing off. If you are one of them, you can practice these simple techniques:
- Do not use gadgets before getting into bed. Turn off your electronics, even the TV, as its light can interfere with your melatonin levels and make it harder for you to sleep. Do something relaxing before going to bed, like reading or journaling.
- Take a bath. An Epsom salt bath can do wonders in this regard. It soothes your muscles and eases your mind.
- Use essential oils like lavender or rose geranium oil.
- Abstain from consuming any sugary or high-carbs food before going to bed. It can give you a ‘sugar high,’ keeping you awake for long.
- Limit your daily caffeine intake. You can observe your ritual of drinking coffee in the morning and afternoon, but avoid it during the evenings.
3. Exercise
Exercise helps a lot when it comes to managing overall health. It helps reduce stress and inflammation and increases energy levels. However, keep in mind that exercise needs to be done in an adequate amount. Too much of it can cause more fatigue and hormonal imbalance.
Regular and moderate exercise helps balance hormones and get better sleep. Both play a crucial role when it comes to improving your mental health and fighting fatigue.
Physical activity releases natural endorphins, which boost your stamina and improve your mood. Endorphin is a chemical in the brain that acts like natural painkillers and mood boosters. Furthermore, research has shown that lack of physical activity can amplify the adverse effects of stress on the body.
Among different kinds of exercise, yoga is the most effective in terms of mental health. It can help you get over the blues and keep you active throughout your day.
A review of 35 clinical trials on the effects of yoga on stress levels shows that yoga offers noticeable improvements in several physical and physiological health indicators for most people.
But what about the days when taking a shower is quite some task, let alone spending an hour in some yoga studio. In those days, you could do the yoga practice in your bedroom.
Doing yoga, even in your bedroom, will give you a sense of accomplishment that can shun away from your broody mood and hopelessness. Just remember that it has to be done in peace.
4. Stay Hydrated
Hydration is usually underrated when it comes to its effects on a person’s health. If you are not drinking enough water, it can take a huge toll on your brain’s functioning and your mood.
You need to be very cautious about your water intake when you are engaging in extensive physical activity, drinking sugary beverages, undergoing menstruation, being stressed, and taking prescription medicines.
The most common cause of dehydration is, obviously, not drinking enough water or substituting it with other sugary drinks. It can render your cells deprived of enough water to function properly.
The cells that need a high amount of water to function include the brain, muscles, nervous system, and heart. The normal functioning of all these organs is crucial for your health. If they do not function properly, you can be incapacitated to do even simple tasks.
Some of the major effects that not drinking enough water can have include exhaustion, lethargy, moodiness, weakness in muscles, and inability to focus and perform tasks.
So, if you are feeling annoyed for no reason while experiencing tiredness, just recall how long it has been since you had a glass of water. Staying hydrated can help you deal with the blues too. While there is not much research to prove it, anecdotes are aplenty to point this way.
If you do not like drinking water in large amounts, you can try eating water-rich foods like watermelon, cucumber, citrus fruit, carrots, pineapple, and kiwi. Another good option is coconut water. However, do not overdo it. You still need water, and these foods cannot fully substitute it.
To know how much water you should drink per day, divide your weight in pounds in half. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, you need to drink at least 80 ounces of water every day. This is the daily requirement when you are not exercising or engaged in some other strenuous physical activity. If you are doing exercise, you should take at least eight extra ounces for every half hour of exercise.
5. Learn to Do Nothing Once in a While
You need to cut yourself some slack. Do not get hard on yourself when you cannot achieve your daily tasks. While human beings are productive creatures, they still have limitations. Realize that it is okay to do nothing once in a while. That pile of work you left is going to be there the next day, but the moment you spent doing nothing will pass.
Planning for a little idleness in your week can have a refreshing effect on you. You will feel more productive and high-spirited after this brief spell of doing nothing. Many consider it a powerful antidote to mental fatigue.
Do not feel guilty about spending the time to relax. If you feel relaxed while looking at your Facebook feed, do not hold back. Spending a few minutes surfing through social media is also constructive if it elevates your mood.
However, if you feel mentally exhausted, this is not the right way to relax. In this situation, use some quiet place and explore your inner self. Feel your feet making contact with the ground or the rhythm of your breathing.
As a human being, you are bound to commit mistakes every once in a while. And that is totally okay. Perfectionism – some might call it a good thing – can be bad for your mental health. Having this urge to do everything perfectly may indulge you in self-loathing if things don’t go as expected.
Moreover, perfectionists tend to make the exact best choice in every decision, even when it is not necessary. This can result in decision paralysis and slow down things, along with making the person worry excessively.
6. Keep a Journal
Keep track of your emotions, be negative or positive, along with incidents that trigger them. It will help you identify what causes you stress and makes you happy or sad. This is very important to be able to deal with negative emotions.
Keeping a journal is a simple and effective way to observe your state of mind throughout the entire day. It will enable you to focus on thoughts that trigger negative emotions and predict what can bother you in the future. You can use this knowledge to prevent being in stressful situations.
Apart from reducing stress, writing a journal can help you stay organized. You can record important information on the go while you are renting out your emotions onto the blank paper. This information may be your household responsibilities, job assignments, or other tasks. You can keep a hard copy of a journal or even use a computer version.
Tracking this information will make you less nervous and render it unlikely to miss the deadlines. Apart from the functionality, journaling can help you cope with depression, reduce stress, and manage anxiety. It has a positive effect on your mood, as it allows you to prioritize problems, concerns, and fears.
By jotting down what you feel, you can keep track of the symptoms you might have due to a mental health condition. This comes in handy when you intend to recognize the triggers and learn about ways to control them appropriately.
Another thing that can help you survive the bouts of melancholy is making appreciation lists. All you have to do is make a list of 10 positive things that happened to you during the day. It helps you recall the tiny details of your day. Also, when you are feeling down, this list can make you happy.
7. Take a Break
Mental health tips for taking care of your mental health – Take a break from electronics, light, and noise every once in a while. Spend a few minutes sitting in a silent, dark room; can have a therapeutic effect.
Try to reduce the excess sensory input you come across in your routine. Turn off the TV when you are not watching it, switch to night shift mode on your phone, and wear headphones on the subway.
Good mental health tips – another thing you can do to find your inner peace is getting into an environment with one major sensory input. For instance, you can use a white noise app in a quiet, darkroom. Listen to the sounds of rain on it. It is free, but it is also available on both Android and Apple.
A massage also has the same effect as it helps you to concentrate on a usually ignored type of sensory input – the touch. Do anything that allows you to take a break from the inundating noise and light you encounter in the entire day.
Infographic ☞ 7 New Mental Health Tips for Your Tired Self ☟
