4 Science Backed Ways to Better Mental Health

0:28Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. improve your mindset and improve your life. Speaking of that, today we're going to be talking about your mental health. And the reason why we're going to be talking about your mental health is because studies have been showing that almost 20 % of adults in the United States experience some form of struggle or illness that's related to their mental health. And this is one of my biggest passions is I know that mental health issues are on the rise and this is why I am doubling down on what I'm doing and I'm doubling down on trying to put out more content and help you guys more so that I can try to do what I can at least to improve the world.

1:05There's a lot of reasons why mental health problems are on the rise though. There's a ton of reasons why it could be. You know, it might be results of the pressure that we feel to look or act a certain way from social media. It might be all of the loneliness that we felt during the pandemic and there's a little bit of a, like it still is kind of pulling us in and some people are still trying to get past 2020 and 2021. There's shifting economies that can really be a result that could really start to hurt someone's mental health. There's relationship issues, there's global instability, and there's just life in general.

1:44It could be something completely different. It could be a breakup. It could be not accepting the past. It could be fearing the future. There's many different things. But I'm here to tell you, and I'm going to be the person that gives you permission to tell you that your mental health should be your number one priority. Not your relationships, not your children, not your work, not your bank account. None of those things should be your number one priority. Your number one priority should be your mental health because it affects everything else in your life. When you're not in a good place, it affects all other places of your life.

2:17When you're in a good place mentally, it affects all other places of your life. It affects your work. It affects your relationships, your success, your money, your happiness, your joy. And without a healthy mind, you can only get so far. You can only become the greatest version of your limited self. But when you start to work on yourself and you start to improve yourself, well, that's when really you can become something that is amazing. And chasing after your dreams and showing up for your loved ones is already hard enough, right? It's hard enough to always be there for other people, it's hard enough to chase after your dreams.

2:50But if you're doing so and you're trying to do it and you can't get out of your own head and you can't stop holding yourself back, it makes it even more difficult. It's like trying to get out of mud and no matter how hard you try, you feel like you just keep spinning your wheels. So let's just jump into it and let's talk about it. Let's talk about four science-backed ways to keep your mind healthy and to have better mental health. The first one, which is something that you probably might not actually think about or realize, is to do something that's called seeking out moments of awe on a regular basis.

3:22All too often we say, oh man, that's, you know, we see like how did we have a pizza and they're like, how was it? Oh, it was awesome. Oh, it was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But the word awesome means like, holy crap, I am in awe of everything around me. I am in awe of this spectacle of life. So to be in a moment of awe is not just like, oh, that was an awesome play that I just saw. When we're going through hard stuff, one of the toughest things to do is to take a step back and to really start to be objective about a situation. Because usually we're in the situation. And you've heard me say it before on the podcast, but when you're in the jar, you can't read the label.

4:03and something that can help us be more objective and less subjective is to try to seek out moments of awe or wonder or to make ourselves feel small and a part of this big system of this universe that we're in. A moment of awe really refers to those instances in your life when you're so overwhelmed by the beauty, by vastness, or the complexity of something that you feel a sense of wonder. And moments of awe can be going out into nature. It could be doing a meditation practice or breath work with it. It could be checking out amazing architecture when you go to a new city. It could be watching a masterpiece movie or listening to a masterpiece piece of music or going to a show where you see a band play that just blows your mind or experiencing something for the first time.

5:01It's one of the reasons why I love every once in a while in the morning watching videos about how massive our universe is because I get caught up in all of my problems as well. Oh my God, all of this stuff I have to do today and I'm so busy and what's this person going to think of me and oh my gosh someone just put a negative comment on my Instagram or whatever it is it might be I get caught up in all of my BS exactly like everyone else's does but when you start to look at how big the universe is just knowing that the earth is spinning around the sun at 67 ,000 miles an hour that our galaxy is moving through the universe at 1.3 million miles an hour An hour from right now, our galaxy will be 1.3 million miles further in the universe than it was when we first actually started thinking about it in this moment.

6:02Our galaxy has 100 billion stars. Our galaxy has 100 billion stars. And there's 2 trillion galaxies in our universe. that totals to over one septillion stars in our universe, which is a one with 24 zeros behind it. When you get into thinking about the vastness of something like that, our problems become so much smaller. They're not as big of a deal. And really science supports the importance of seeking out these moments too. There's a growing number of studies that link consistent exposure to moments of awe into nature with lower stress levels, increased focus, and better overall mental health.

6:46And one of the reasons why is because it jumpstarts when you're in these moments of awe, it jumpstarts what's called the shrinking of self. It's this feeling of amazement and complete awe that something is so much bigger than you. It's like when you're in a mountain range, like sometimes I'm in the mountains and I'm like, oh my God, this is incredible. It's what happens when you look into the ocean and you see how big the ocean is, or you stand on the side of a mountain, or you look up at the stars at night, or you look up at the trees during a hike and see how big they are. It happens every time for me when I'm on some sort of long hike.

7:21And by reminding ourselves how immense life is and how much more is out there and how we're connected to all of it, we're better able to kind of look at our problems and put them in a perspective and realize, oh yeah, this isn't that big of a deal. You know, if you don't, if you won't remember it in five years, don't spend more than five minutes thinking about it. It's one of the best parts of traveling to new places. You know, even if you can't afford to like travel to Europe, there's moments of awe everywhere around you. You just have to be curious and try to seek them out and do new things.

7:49And so you could be feeling more connected to all that is. So that's the first tip. Try to find moments of awe. The second thing I want you to do is to find your ritual recipe. I talk a lot about morning routines, success habits, other daily rituals. I even have an entire section in my book, Level Up, where I talk about and discuss the importance of having rituals and routines in your life. And rituals can really help you organize the external world. It takes a lot of uncertainty out of life. A lot of us stress out about uncertainty. So it takes out the uncertainty out of life. And because that uncertainty can cause a lot of stress and anxiety.

8:24And so rituals and routines give us a feeling of peace in order when sometimes uncertainty can make us feel very chaotic. And, you know, it brings the feeling of, I know what I need to do and all I need to do is take action versus sitting there and having paralysis by analysis because you have so many things that have to be done. And my thoughts on developing rituals are pretty simple. Bare minimum, I think we should just try to have a routine in the morning and a routine at night. And the more simple and the more basic, the better. For an example, I know some people are like, I have 17 steps to my morning routine.

9:03I'm like, nope, that's too many. You need like one or two. I'm a big fan of just making my bed before I start the day. It's a really small win, but it sends a signal to my mind that I'm in full control of my life. It tells my brain that I'm going to be in charge of my day. It makes me feel in control. and by having that morning ritual and then immediately going and meditating for 20 minutes I feel like I at least have some certainty in my day versus waking up and having that paralysis by analysis and thinking about everything that I have to do for the day but by having that morning ritual you're basically letting your mind know that you're going to make sure that you have a productive day you're not going to be reactive you're going to have more intention into your day you're going to be proactive and it gets positive momentum on my side the first thing in the morning and I could sit here and I could say, hey, do this one, do that, do this thing.

9:52This is what you should do. But the truth is not everything works for everyone. So you have to just figure out what works for you. There's no real like cure all solution when it comes to finding the perfect routine for you. Try it out. It's trial and error. Find what works best for you and then just see what you enjoy and what makes you feel the best. You know, like for my routine, I wake up, I go to the bathroom, I brush my teeth, I make the bed, and then I immediately go first thing in the morning after drinking a cup of water, going and meditating for 20 minutes every single day. That's just how I start my day.

10:25And then it changes after that. Sometimes I read in the morning. Sometimes I journal in the morning. Sometimes I just hang out outside and drink coffee for 45 minutes in silence. It changes, but I do have those two or three things that I do every single morning that brings certainty to my day. So that's number two is develop some sort of ritual recipe, some routine in your life for you. Third thing for your mental health is get involved in therapy. And you know, I recommend, I highly recommend therapy. And I've said it over and over and over and over and over again in this podcast. But I love that the stigma around mental health is finally disappearing.

11:02And I feel like many people are starting to see therapists, but not only are they starting to see therapists, they're also starting to talk more about it. Before 2020, I feel like I never heard anyone talk about therapy or going to a therapist. Now I feel like it's super often that I hear people saying, well, I was talking to my therapist the other day. And when I was talking to my therapist last week, they said this to me, or like, I have friends that openly talk about going to therapy. And honestly, I think therapy is helping a lot of people. And to really break it down, Sometimes you just need someone to talk to.

11:42And a lot of people just tend to keep things in. And so when you have a scheduled event where you go and talk to somebody, they can really start to help you process what's going on in your mind. And I think it's really valuable just to have someone who's professionally trained, not just going and talking to one of your friends, but someone who's professionally trained to give you feedback and to give you a little bit of guidance to keep your mental health in a good place. And one of the best parts is that a therapist, they don't really have any past with you. They don't have any close tie to their clients.

12:12And so you can count on them giving advice that's more objective and not subjective or not biased because they're not based in history with you. And they can really see things objectively and not subjectively from their viewpoint. And the American Psychological Association reports that psychologists in the United States have reported an increase in demand for anxiety treatment since the start of the pandemic. So there is definitely more mental health problems over the past couple years. But the beautiful thing is that it seems like more people are seeking out help from somebody, which is what I always recommend is sometimes just good to have someone to talk to.

12:48And obviously, there's a whole lot of work to do around mental health to completely erase this stigma around mental health and trying to improve yourself. But I think the good news is things appear to be trending in a good direction. In the past, one of the biggest hurdles to really getting somebody to getting therapy was the cost. And unless you're in like a really good place or had really good insurance or you were set up financially, consistently investing in therapy and taking care of that bill was just a bill that many people couldn't afford. And today's sponsor, BetterHelp, is actually one of the leading forces to helping make professional therapy more affordable and accessible to everyone as well.

13:28And there's many forms of therapy that you can explore. There's many types of therapy. One of them is called acceptance and commitment therapy. It's known as ACT. And the basic premise is that suffering is an essential component of human life that you really can't avoid. You can't avoid suffering. You know, there's going to be pain at some point in time in your life. So it's healthier to accept that it's going to come and that accept instances of suffering as opposed to escaping and trying to avoid all of the suffering. because you're not going to be able to avoid it. So if you can't avoid it and you can't fight it, why don't you learn to accept it?

14:08And so avoiding those emotions can make them even worse. But instead, going through ACT, it's recommended to learn to observe your negative thoughts and to let them pass you by without internalizing them. It's like seeing them as a passing cloud. You don't look at the cloud and say, that is me. No, of course, you just let it go by and you watch it go by. Same thing can happen for your emotions. Just let your negative thoughts go by and pass you without internalizing them. And this practice can help prevent rumination, which can contribute to really low self-esteem and just thinking about your emotions and thinking about them.

14:42And so, you know, whether it's in-person therapy or online therapy, it can really be a big game changer to add therapy to your life. Online works just as well as in-person. And as you know, I love recommending BetterHelp, as I said, which is online. And there's actually a study that researchers did at the University of California. and also at the San Francisco General Hospital. And they concluded that users of BetterHelp experience significantly reduced depression symptoms, severity of them after engaging with the platform. So if you've been thinking about therapy, give it a shot. I think that it's worth trying out.

15:16And then number four, what I want you to do is to monitor yourself, talk closely. This is a huge one. The way that we speak to ourselves is one of the most important ways that we can keep our minds healthy. And it makes sense why it's the case. There's so many people out there that are just so mean to themselves. I remember Jay Shetty had a video years ago, and he sat down with these women that were in their 20s and 30s, and he said, hey, I want you to write, here's a pen and paper, write down everything bad that you say to yourself, all the negative stuff, write it all down on pen and paper. Gives them a few minutes, and you could see them all writing all of these stuff down, all of these negative, terrible things they say to themselves.

15:52And he says, okay, come into the other room with me. And he brings them into the other room with their notebook and pad. and in the other room are their little sisters and they're like eight, 11, 13 years old. And he says, I want you to say what is on your notepad to your little sister. And these women are like, no, absolutely. Like they are just like shocked that someone would even ask them to do that. They will not say the things that they say to themselves, to their little sisters. So then it really begs the question, why do you say that to yourself? You know, in our everyday lives, we expect things, good things to happen to us.

16:30And we expect to get respect and we expect for other people to love us. You know, if we expect all these things, don't you think that we'll get it? So if you're always putting yourself down, then how do you expect to develop the level of self-love that's necessary for you to reach your full potential? If you're always saying that you aren't good enough or that you aren't smart enough, how would that negative self-talk not start to become part of your identity? And if your identity is rooted in negative place and you don't invest the time to heal yourself, you might begin self-sabotaging whenever life isn't going the way that you want.

17:03So if you're negative, how can you expect that you could be negative to yourself and in your mind, but everything outside of your mind is just going to be amazing and beautiful? And it's even show like studies show that negative thoughts consistently over long periods of time can lead to increased chance of disease, poor focus, and poor relationship. you will get what you think about the most. So in order for us to really level up and achieve our dreams, we need to learn to become our biggest fan, our best supporter, to speak better about ourselves. And really that's what it comes down to. And more than anything else, everybody, it's about making your mental health your number one priority and to try to focus on yourself.

17:44And also, like I said earlier, it's also to keep in mind that therapy is an option if you want to talk to someone. And I do want to thank BetterHelp for being a sponsor of this show over and over and over again and of this episode. And if you want to get 10 % off your first month in therapy, go to betterhelp.com slash dial and be on your way to processing the difficult emotions so that we can make room for better ones. Once again, it's betterhelp.com slash dial. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

18:13I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.