MENTAL HEALTH

MENTAL HEALTH

MENTAL HEALTH

How To-96: "How to Improve Mental Clarity"

How to Improve Mental Clarity

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Your mind is a powerful tool. However, with aging, lack of sleep, and busy schedules, many minds are not performing at their best. These easy steps will help you maximize your mental clarity in many situations.

Steps

1. Get To Sleep. Mental alertness begins with attaining good quality and quantity of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night for optimal health and performance, but most people fall short of this due to a hectic schedule or an inability to fall asleep. Sleep is very important for your brain because this is the time when memories and information are actually processed and organized in your brain.
   
2. Remember That Exercise Is Important For Your Brain. Regular physical exercise is not just essential for your body, it’s essential for your brain as well. When you exercise, your body increases circulation of blood, and consequently oxygen and glucose (the sugar your brain uses as a fuel) to the brain. To increase mental clarity, try light aerobic exercise during the day, such as brisk walking, swimming, or casual cycling.
   
3. Try Brain-ercise. As physical exercise strengthens your body, exercising your mind strengthens your brain. Activities such as Sudoku, puzzles, drawing, and math quizzes all stimulate your brain, helping you create and maintain important neuronal connections critical to cognitive abilities. One simple exercise you can practice very simply is to write with the opposite of your dominant hand. It may be difficult initially, but with a little practice and some neuronal connections, you will get the hang of it.
   
4. Maintain Healthy Blood Sugar Levels. Just like gasoline fuels a car, blood sugar fuels your brain. The human body has incredible abilities to regulate blood sugar, but even these complex physiological functions have their limitations. You can help your body maintain healthy blood glucose levels by consuming well-balanced, low-sugar, and portion-controlled meals every four to five hours throughout the day. Additionally, consuming small carbohydrate snacks between meals, such as sliced fruits and vegetables, will help fuel your brain.
   
5. Provide Your Brain the Right Nutrients. When it comes to your brain, not all food is created equal. Your brain requires special nutrition to perform optimally. Because your brain is mostly composed of fat, it is important to include healthy fats, such as polyunsaturated and omega-3 fats in your diet. Avoid saturated, trans, and hydrogenated fats that may actually have a negative impact on your mental clarity. There are micronutrients present in small amounts in the diet that can positively affect mental clarity and cognitive abilities. Many vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, the B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc, are essential for humans. These vitamins and minerals play an integral role in brain and nervous system functions, energy production, immune system function, organ health, and cell protection. Certain amino acids function as or are converted to important neurotransmitters, which may be present in less-than-optimal concentrations in the body due to conditions of stress, fatigue, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, or sub-optimal diet, such as taurine and tyrosine. Plant and herbal extracts, such as bacopa monniera, rhodiola rosea, ginkgo biloba and huperzia serrata, can help to stimulate the nervous system, making you feel more alert while helping to optimize neurotransmitter levels and protecting against neurodegenerative processes.

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Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Improve Mental Clarity. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-60: "How to Have Good Mental Health"

How to Have Good Mental Health

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

So your body's fit, but you feel like you're going crazy. You need to get your head right. It all starts from within.

Steps

1. Develop a hobby or passion for your mind to express its emotions and joys for the mind. For example, the body needs exercise and a means to channel its energy. This is one of the five life coping skills.
   
2. Love your body, and feed your mind. Improve your social relations, and allow for more warmth and love between the people closest to you. Exercise is a coping skill.
   
3. Recover old friendships, or make new true friendships to feed that part of your mind. Having good support systems from family and friends is a coping skill.
   
4. Challenge yourself once in a while. Seek a meaningful job to obtain a sense of self-worth and confidence. A career that motivates you emotionally to get excited in the morning is a coping skill. However, if the job you have is not necessarily of your top career preferences, or even is flat out something you don't like, you can still deal with it. In every job there can be respect found in it by doing your best and treating those you work around with warmth. Learn to love yourself. Satisfaction in a career must come from yourself and not others.
   
5. Surround yourself with beauty. Redecorate your house or garden. Do some spring cleaning. Put on some happy music. Do whatever helps you feel relaxed and at peace. Practice whatever form of spiritualism that appeals to you. This is a life coping skill and will help you recognize beauty.
   
6. As long as you fill your mind with your personal 'mental foods,' you will experience less boredom and inner conflict. Boredom and marital conflict are often symptoms of mental starvation (or misunderstanding).
   
7. Be sure to identify any issues you have such as anxiety, panic attacks or other disorders. Identify these and acknowledge that you have them. Only from there can you move on and seek treatment to improve your mental health

Tips

• Practice the five coping skills. They are a career (not necessarily your present job), positive support systems, exercise and health, a hobby, and spiritualism.
  
• Anger is a secondary emotion. If you are angry about something, there is an underlying primary reason for the anger. That is the emotion that needs to be handled with the five coping skills.
  
• Use a journal to process emotions that are not pleasant such as sadness, emptiness, feelings of abandonment. This is good exercise before going to sleep.
  
• Don't let any of the coping skills become addictive or controling. For example, hobbies are good but if you play golf all the time at the expense of important time, it is no longer a coping skill.
  
• Stay away from a states of "vegetation" or defensiveness. Use the coping skills. If you are in any state other than practicing the coping skills, you are not in good mental health.
  
• Try to think before you speak in order to say only positive or harmless words.

Related wikiHows

• How to Cope with Depression
  
• How to Cope With Suicidal Thoughts
  
• How to Have a Healthy Relationship
  
• How to Build Self Confidence

Sources and Citations

• Mental health important role

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Have Good Mental Health. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Wikipedia article on "MENTAL HEALTH":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health

Link to "INTERNATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH" - King's College, University of London website:

http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/virtual/?path=/international/home/

Link to "NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH" website:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/

Grateful thanks to wikiHow, International Mental Health, National Institute of Mental Health and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.