So many of us are suffering from mental health issues and depression these days. As much as life gets hard and tries to knock us out, our habits also play a major role in either improving our mental health or making it worse.
Today in this post I want to share 12 worst habits for your mental health.
It might feel as though you can’t count on anyone or anything and everything is a mess and everything is derailing, but I want to say that you can always count on your habits.
Things may not always be under our control, but our habits will always be.
How daily habits affect our mental health
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Our daily habits affect our mental health and it can help you come out of sadness and depression or it can suck out all the joy in your life.
I say this so strongly because when I was at my lowest and in the worst phase of my life, I decided to give one last try to myself. I didn’t want my life to end up in the way I was living.
I decided to change my habits and slowly it was those habits that naturally helped me come out of depression.
It did take a while, but I didn’t give up on myself and my happiness.
I have written about it in this post, Tiny Habits that Improved my mental health.
But today, I want to share about the habits that are very bad for mental health.
I see so many of us engaging in these habits and no wonder we are all so depressed, anxious and joyless.
We might think our depression and sadness are because of what someone did or because of some outer circumstance, but the truth is that taking care of our mental health is in our hands.
Our happiness is in our hands and it lies in our habits.
So let’s know what the 12 habits are that are really worse for mental health.
If you only let go of these habits, your mental health will start to naturally improve.
12 worst habits for your mental health
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1. Staying indoors all-day
These days most of us stay in apartments and small flats. With the growing convenience of online deliveries, we hardly like to go out anywhere.
There is Netflix, amazon, Swiggy, Instamart and all such companies that make us not want to go out anywhere.
And if we’re working from home, then many of us don’t even leave the home for days and stay indoors either in bed or slouching on the sofas or in front of our computers.
This is very bad for our mental health.
In India, earlier we didn’t have these conveniences, even just 5 to 6 years back.
We had to step out. We had to meet people. We had to interact.
There used to be more open spaces and people, youngsters and kids would be more or less happy and joyful.
But these days a growing number of people, especially us young people are depressed.
And one of the reasons is that we have become a generation that stays indoors all day inside four walls.
But if you stay in all day, you lose touch with what is happening outside. You lose touch on interactions with people no matter how little.
You might think it doesn’t matter at all and you hate going out, but even if it is a short walk to the grocery store, take that walk.
Go to a park with your book and read there. Go out for evening walks and take a mindful walk.
Take yourself out on solo dates. Here are 50+ solo date ideas you can go to
Make it a point to go out at least once a day.
Force yourself to go out if you must, but don’t stay in all day.
In the beginning, you might hate it.
But slowly you will see how going out affects your mood and you come back home feeling much lighter and happier. Try it for the sake of your mental health.
2. Not getting natural light and fresh air
Not opening windows, curtains and letting in natural light and fresh air is bad for our mental health.
We might live in cities and might be far from the joys of being close to nature, but we can at least open windows and curtains and let in natural light.
Our body and mind love it. I always open my windows first thing in the morning and I spend my mornings in my balcony reading and writing where I get natural light and get some air.
This naturally makes me feel good.
We are natural beings. Sunlight improves our mood.
So Ditch the dark curtains and when you wake up, let in natural light in your room.
Let your room breathe and let the sunlight remove all toxins.
Also, it’s very important to choose the place where you live very carefully.
Don’t live in a place where sunlight cannot enter.
The people living in cities are more depressed than people living in the countryside even though we find all the conveniences in the city because most of us, in cities, live in houses where there’s no way for sunlight to enter.
They have to turn on the lights even in the morning. As humans, as natural beings, we aren’t made to live that way.
I know many of us might not have a choice, but if you can, try to move out of such a place and make sure you stay close to natural light at other times of the day and go outside.
P.S. If you are ready to give a try at working on yourself and changing your life, I have recently created a Special challenge/Guide for you to Change your Life in 7 days.
I think you’ll love it if you give it a try for 7 days and see what’s possible for you.
3. Living in a mess
We might feel that our life is a mess and we don’t know why.
But when we live in a mess, our life also feels like a mess.
This means that you should make your surroundings clean and tidy.
Our environment affects our mood much more than we realise.
If our bed is unmade, if our clothes are lying everywhere, if the kitchen is dirty and we feel like it doesn’t matter, you’re wrong.
Try to declutter slowly room by room, or if that’s too overwhelming for you then space by space.
When you wake up in the morning, make your bed.
Clean and tidy up your room.
A tidy house helps a tidy mind.
Stop living like a refugee in your own home. You deserve to live this life wonderfully.
Get the determination to clean up the outer mess and you will see your inner mess also much lighter.
Here is why I enjoy cleaning my home and not dread it
4. Too much screen time
Too much screen time is bad for mental health and you might already know it.
It sucks all the energy out of us and it’s an energy vampire.
It makes us lose our focus, our attention and our energy to do other meaningful things.
And if you have the habit of checking your phone first thing in the morning, then you’re in a rut.
If you’re only waking up, going to the toilet, eating, watching your phone, sleeping
It’s very hard to break this cycle, but with a little determination and tricks, you can.
Uninstall those energy-sucking apps. You don’t have to be on all kinds of social media.
One is good. Two is okay.
I don’t have Instagram on my phone and I never use it in the morning.
I don’t use my phone laying down in bed. In fact, I’ve made it a habit to now only use my bed for sleeping.
Determination and discipline are required for good mental health and self-care.
Here are some ways to reduce screen time.
5. No movement/exercise
Staying indoors all day, becoming a couch potato watching Netflix, scrolling over the phone all day, and just going to work and coming back from work with no other physical activity is bad for our mental health.
Our physical health and mental health are intimately connected.
To make your mind healthy, your body also needs to be healthy.
Often it just takes 5 minutes of working out to start feeling happy and motivated again.
Starting is what is difficult, but once you start moving your body it’s not that bad.
You don’t have to do hardcore workouts and high-intensity workouts.
You can only just focus on moving your body for 10 minutes a day.
5 minutes of stretching feels so good.
10 minutes of dance workout immediately boosts the mood and is good for our mental health.
I love Pamela Reif’s dance workouts and I love beginning my day with a good dance workout.
But if we don’t move and have no physical exercise, that can make our mental health very poor.
6. Toxic sleep cycle
We have unconsciously added so many negative habits and we even feel proud to say it.
We love to see their memes even though it’s destroying us slowly.
Many of us younger generation have a toxic sleep cycle and it has become a growing trend to stay up all night and sleep all day long.
I would say this is the most toxic habit for our mental health because this toxic habit derails everything- our routine, our health, our focus, our food timings and we become like zombies.
We don’t see the sunlight. We don’t go out anywhere. We don’t get fresh air nor have food in proper time and then stay up all night in front of our screens.
We are not meant to live this way.
This is going against nature.
We say we humans are destroying nature and we should do something about it, but what about our own intrinsic nature?
If we go against nature, against our body’s sleep cycle, fail to follow nature’s rules and don’t take care of our own body and life, it is very hard to go beyond and think about our environment, our world and this Earth.
Breaking this toxic sleep cycle might be challenging, but not impossible if you have the determination to change.
Unless there is determination and intention, nothing can change.
I used to have a toxic sleep cycle as well and would find it very hard to fall asleep. But slowly and deliberately I changed this and now I fall asleep in no time.
I have also written about this in this post, How to sleep better with anxiety.
7. Complaining habit
Watch what you’re saying. Watch what you’re feeling. If you’re always complaining about how things are, how some people are getting bothered by what others are doing or not doing, then you can never be happy.
It is our own toxic habit of complaining that’s draining our energy, our life force and making our mental health worse.
We can improve our mental health drastically by simply choosing to not complain and instead accepting things and people just as they are.
‘Live and let live’ – let this be your mantra.
Anytime you find yourself judging and complaining, allow yourself to live and let live.
Learn to see things from other people’s perspective. Try to adjust and compromise.
If you always want to have the upper hand in things, then you can never be happy.
You have to learn to adjust and accept.
8. Not having any hobbies
Hobbies are important and you should always make sure to give time to your hobbies. If not every day, at least at the weekends.
Giving time to our hobbies is also self-care. It helps us connect with the part of us that loves to do things just for fun.
There is no pressure for it to be perfect. You can do it just because it’s fun.
Many of us are not living, but only surviving.
That’s not why we are here for.
We are here to have fun and enjoy life.
We are here to dare to live differently.
Saying you don’t have time is simply an excuse.
Give at least one hour to yourself in the morning, and if you can’t give yourself moments of rejuvenation at least at the weekends or on your day off by engaging in a hobby.
If you gave up on something because you didn’t get anything in return from it, then you need to reconsider why you were doing it in the first place.
If you really loved doing it, you should just focus on making it fun.
Here are 60+ hobby ideas for adults to have fun.
9. Not following a routine
Not having a routine and living directionless is bad for mental health.
The reason why so many of us feel that we are stuck and that our life is a mess is because our daily routine is a mess.
There is no discipline. There are no rules and there is too much freedom.
Too much freedom and too many choices are also bad for our mental health because our minds cannot choose.
Say simply, our mind is a very bad chooser.
It wants things to be specifically mentioned.
Not having a routine and living like a vagabond is bad for our mental health.
The remedy is to have just a small daily routine that you can stick to.
Follow a morning routine where you brush your teeth, read a book, journal for a while and then pray or meditate for a while.
10. Unhealthy eating habits
Skipping breakfast, not eating on time, skipping entire meals and eating junk food are all bad for mental health.
Often these unhealthy eating habits are a result of our other toxic habits that we indulge in- like sleeping late, watching Netflix all day and not wanting to move and eat because of it.
Once you break one toxic habit, it will also help in cutting other toxic habits.
All of our habits inter-connected.
One negative habit often leads to another.
But in a similar way, even one small good habit will help us in adding another small good habit.
Anyway, here are the unhealthy eating habits to give up.
11. No personal growth
If you have no inclination to change yourself, or your life and no thought towards becoming a better person, then your mental health can never improve.
As long as we keep blaming outer circumstances for our poor mental health, we will keep self-sabotaging ourselves.
You have to determine to be happy. You have to determine to live differently than how you are living if you want to find meaning in your life.
You have to start somewhere. And you can start with your own growth.
You can start with gratitude and change your life.
Here is a 21-day gratitude challenge that you can take for your personal growth.
Also, here is a quick guide on how to change your life in 7 days
12. Trying to control everything
Lastly, another toxic habit to get rid of that is bad for your mental health is the habit of trying to control everything.
Our controlling nature comes from our need to control and have things our way.
But if we always want to have things our way, then we will always feel frustrated, because we always end up seeing something or the other that’s not going our way.
In order to get rid of this habit, we need to allow ourselves to let go and let things unfold on their own.
Say to yourself in the morning, “Today I won’t control anything. Today I will accept everyone and everything just as they are”
This is a practice for good mental health and a positive attitude.
So these were the 12 habits that are bad for mental health
Our habits are all we have. It is what determines our happiness and well-being.
If the way you are currently living is making you feel like you’re missing out on your happiness and joy, then you need to have the courage to first give up these 12 habits that are worst for your mental health.
These might actually be small habits- like simply going out for a walk, getting some fresh air, or exercising for 10 minutes, but actually, that’s how small it takes for us to take care of our mental health.
Then you can become your own therapist and you will find supporters of your happiness.
This doesn’t mean I am against medicines and going for therapy, but we all have the ability and strength in us to become happy.
There is medicine within us and in nature, movement and determination.
I hope we all have the courage to give up on these toxic habits and the courage to live well.
Once you give them up and build even one positive habit, it will slowly naturally help in building another and another.
You might also like:
- 50 Ideas to change your life
- habits for happiness
- 10 daily habits that changed my life
- How to have unshakeable self-confidence
- 21 mental health goals to set
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