Nationally, our mental health has been on a decline for decades.
We are unhappier than ever before. Our stress is at an all time high. Most of you are working yourselves to exhaustion, only just scraping by.
Consequently, depression and anxiety are at an all time high.
In fact, it is currently estimated that over 16 million American adults are suffering from depression, with another 40 million suffering from anxiety. Most people don’t even know about the various depression triggers, which impact on your mental health, taking a turn for the better or worse.
Which is honestly absurd — and why things need to change.
On a more positive note, it is not all doom and gloom. This decline in mental health is not a death sentence, and there are certain things you can do that can make a huge difference.
Importantly, these are not complex.
In fact, the five steps listed in this article can have a big impact on your mental health, literally changing your life for the better — so let’s make a change.
Table of Contents
Eating a healthy diet
Practically everyone on the planet knows that what they put in their mouth is important — but I don’t think they know just how important.
I mean, did you know that what you eat impacts your mental health?
Well, it does — and in a very big way at that.
If you eat a lot of whole grains, beans, eggs, cheese, yogurt, green leafy vegetables, fish, poultry, and red meat, then your mental health will improve. It is for this exact reason that people who follow the Mediterranean diet have much lower levels of depression and anxiety.
On the other hand, if you constantly stuff your face with refined carbohydrates and sugars, then your risk of depression and anxiety increases.
So eat like an adult — your brain will thank you.
Taking some key supplements
Considering the food you eat is so important for mental health, it should be no surprise that supplements can also have a massive impact.
Certain natural supplements contain key nutrients that improve the health of your brain. This can have an immediate impact on your emotional wellbeing and mental state, essentially making you feel happier.
Some of the most effective natural supplements for mental health include:
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids
- Turmeric
- Vitamin B
- St John’s Wort
- Vitamin D
- Saffron
While each of these is quite simple (I mean, they all come from natural sources thanks mother nature), they have all been shown to have a positive impact on depression and anxiety.
Using light therapy
I want you to take a second to think about how good you feel after you have spent some time in the sun.
Is it crazy, right? Like an immediate mood booster.
But the really crazy thing is that there is a very good reason for this!
Research has shown that when sunlight touches your skin, it increases the amount of “feel good” hormones floating around your body. As a result, it improves your mood and emotional well being, and even protects against mental illness.
But the hard part here?
Between work commitments, other life stuff, and the weather, it is damn near impossible to get in the sun anywhere near often enough.
Which is why light therapy is so important.
Light therapy gets you sitting next to this thing known as a “light therapy box” for between 30 and 60 minutes per day (I have mine set up on my desk at work). As its name suggests, this box creates light that is exactly the same as sunlight.
And as a result, it can seriously improve your mental health.
Trying TMS
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (or TMS for short) is a cool treatment that has been around for a few decades — although it has only recently become a common mental health treatment.
I use the word ‘interesting’ because TMS involves using small magnetic fields to stimulate your brain.
See? Interesting.
During a TMS session, a pad is placed on your forehead. This pad then sends a magnetic wave directly into your brain.
Amazingly, this wave actually stimulates the cells of your brain that manage mood and emotional wellbeing. As a result, they increase the activity of those brain cells, improving your mental state.
Hell, TMS is such a powerful mental health treatment that it is even being used to treat treatment-resistant depression.
Enjoying electromagnetic therapy
If you thought TMS was cool, then you are going to love electromagnetic therapy (also known as “Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy”).
This unique treatment uses different kinds of magnets placed all over your body to help boost your health.
Believe it or not, this treatment first came about in the 1950s, where it was actually used to speed up the healing of bones. However, as technology improved, and electromagnetic therapy has become more available, it was applied elsewhere.
And wouldn’t you know it? It turns out that it can help boost mental health.
One of the cool things about electromagnetic therapy is how simple it is to implement. Because technology has improved so much, you can now buy mats (that look like a thick yoga mat) that contain several flat magnetic spiral coils.
These coils produce an electromagnetic field that interacts with your cells to boost brain and hormone function — hence the improvement in mood and mental state!
Take-Home Message
With depression and anxiety fast becoming the most common diseases on the planet, it is apparent that our mental health is in disarray. People are more stressed and less happy than ever before — and something needs to change.
This is why the five great options listed in this article are so important.
By implementing them into your daily life, you can cause huge changes in your mental health — living a happier (and healthier) life in the process.
