Physical fitness is something we all hear a lot about. Whether it’s moving your body multiple times a week or eating a balanced diet, it’s widely known that physical fitness is important. When we take care of ourselves physically, we become physically healthier. But what about mental fitness?
Mental fitness is essential to keeping ourselves healthy mentally. Which is just as, if not more important than our physical fitness. Mental fitness can provide similar benefits to physical fitness and can help us in several ways.
How Does Mental Fitness Help?
How exactly does mental fitness help you ask? The straightforward answer to this question is that it helps you to enter a state of well-being. When you’re mentally fit you can better respond to life, regardless of if it’s positive or negative situations that are thrown your way. Since you’re able to respond to life in a stable state, you are a lot less likely to take on the emotional and relational injury from certain situations. You’ll feel more in control and will be able to recognize that you have a choice when it comes to how you respond to things.
The Benefits of Mental Fitness
Let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the direct benefits that mental fitness can provide!
Improved response
As we mentioned, being mentally fit allows you to have more control over your automatic thoughts. Rather than having an immediate emotional response, you’re able to practice control and have a more rational response to different situations.
When you can respond rather than react, your relationships only get better along with the way you think about the world and the options available to you.
Ability to remain present
When your mental health is in a bad place, you’re not able to be truly present. In contrast to this, a mindful state means you can listen, take in information, and be more aware of distractions. This leads you to be more present and improves your ability to enjoy life at the very moment.
A more optimistic outlook
Being mentally fit allows you to become more positive overall. Your awareness allows you to better acknowledge your thoughts and reframe them to help shape your outlook. Kinder thoughts only make you more optimistic which makes your life a lot more positive. It’s incredible what shifting your mindset can do for your life as a whole.
Better cognitive function
When your mental fitness is intact, you’re better able to focus on tasks. You can also concentrate, manage your time, and communicate more easily. This can help you in both the personal and professional areas of your life.
You’re sure to perform better in the workplace and your relationships will only become better as you remember specific information about your family and friends and can show up on time for them.
Higher confidence
As you become more optimistic about life, your confidence will only increase. The more you believe in yourself and the kinder you are to yourself, the higher your self-esteem becomes.
It’s important to show yourself compassion, not only to practice being kind to yourself, but so you can be more confident as well.
Increase the ability to create habits
Creating positive habits is an important part of leading a healthier happier life. But it can be hard to develop good habits if you’re not in a good place mentally.
As you become more mentally fit, you’ll get better at things like time management, self-efficacy, and mindfulness, which all work together to improve your ability to build habits.
Better sleep
Just like physical fitness, mental fitness can help to improve your ability to sleep. It can also help when it comes to the quality of your sleep.
How to Exercise Your Brain
There’s no denying that the benefits mental fitness provides are incredible. Here are some fantastic ways to exercise your brain and experience these benefits for yourself.
Practice being mindful
Practicing mindfulness is one of the best ways to exercise your brain and improve mental fitness. You might meditate, read, color, or simply practice body awareness.
Take the time to be mindful regularly and make sure you do so without interruptions.
Figure out your flow
Have you ever found yourself in a state where you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing that there’s simply nothing else that’s on your mind? Being in this flow is incredibly satisfying and can have a positive impact on your productivity.
Set yourself up for success and create opportunities for “flow”, whether that’s in your everyday life or the workplace.
Train your mind
As you get older it’s important to stay sharp. That means keeping up your cognitive function with mental exercises such as games, apps, and puzzles that help to improve your cognitive processing ability. Whatever it may be, find something you enjoy and challenge yourself a little as you go.
Challenge yourself
With great challenges comes great growth. And while your challenges don’t necessarily need to be strenuous, a little mental challenge can help you to maintain your cognitive function and keep your brain happy. That could be taking on something new such as learning a language or picking up dance lessons!
Practice gratitude
We talked a bit about improved optimism as one of the benefits of mental fitness which goes hand in hand with gratitude. Further, improve your optimism by taking the time to express gratitude every day. You could keep a gratitude journal where you write down everything you’re grateful for, or simply take a moment each day to mentally remind yourself about all the great things you have in your life.
Did you know vagus nerve stimulation can help too? You can even use a handheld vagus nerve stimulation device from the comfort of your own home! Learn more at Neuvana today!
We hope you learned a little bit more about mental fitness and are excited about exercising your brain to help reap each of these incredible benefits. Take baby steps towards improving your mental fitness every day and results are sure to come your way. A mentally fit life is a happier life after all.
